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In 1959, there was a study that invited Harvard Sophomores to discuss world views.
What they didn’t know is that their discussion partner was a law student that was in partnership with the research team. The task: to create a stressful & aggressive assault on the participant’s world views. The law student was directed to make the participants angry and anxious.
The participants shared their experiences 25 years later.
As I had expected… one remembers feeling “unabating rage”. Another bewilderment, anger, discomfort.
However… other participants had a completely different reaction. They seemed to enjoy the experience, saying it was “highly agreeable.” Another even called it “fun”!
What was the difference between these reactions to the same experience?
"I may be wrong and you may be right, and by an effort, we may get nearer to the truth."
Re-thinking our thinking leads to discovery and new understanding.
It’s critical to drive innovation and creating new things of value.
Challenging our own thoughts and beliefs make us better leaders – of thoughts and people. There is always more to learn and space to grow.
But the actual experience of being challenged can be difficult.
It can feel like you are personally being attacked (and maybe your thoughts are being attacked). This leads to wanting to defend, protect or fight back.
The problem with this is… you then form a wall around your thoughts. Your mind is no longer open to new ideas or a new perspective. And you hold fast to what you have, preventing you from improving or advancing.
This happened to me and my team at Pfizer, when we gave a recommendation of a new product to our management. We were very proud of what we created and excited about the possibilities of a new beverage line.
Management was not so impressed. The logistics of beverage distribution, they said, was an entire system and capability we did not have in the company. They were not willing to invest in it.
Our initial reaction was to fight back. We defended our idea with gusto. But then we realized… We were wrong. We hadn’t fully understood the beverage industry (being in pharmaceutical and consumer goods).
The thing was, once we accepted this… we realized we could create something even better.
We didn’t completely throw out our idea. But we asked a different question: How we could provide a beverage with our distribution capabilities?
That’s when we came up with a new solution. One that was unique not just to our company, but to the market. An idea that everyone, the team and management, was excited about.
How did we shift our thinking from feeling defensive to being excited?
Here’s the trick I use…
I start to look at being wrong as an invitation.
It’s a chance to be even better.
It’s an opportunity to make something even more valuable.
That’s when I start to get excited about being wrong.
You have a choice, how you react to a challenge. Just like the different research participants reacted differently.
So, how can you choose to find more joy in being wrong?
- Stop seeing that being wrong is a failure
- Stop seeing someone’s opposing thoughts or opinions as attacks
- START seeing people challenging you and new perspectives as treasure maps… something that can help lead you to new discoveries
Go on…
Find your treasure.
– Laura @ Mindtap