Data and analysis, or making sense of it, are necessary, but often organisations see endless data digging-questioning-exploring. Every meeting ends with the task of analysing new data. Decisions get stuck at the level of common sense and this hampers effectiveness.
The need to understand seems innocent.
Often, however, there is a deeper story behind it – the need to create a sense of security for oneself by keeping things under the control of reason.
The need to understand is very strongly linked to control, which is supposed to provide a sense of security. But we know that control is the opposite of trust. And it is trust that gives a sense of security.
Perhaps by constantly over-analysing and over-understanding, we are actually eroding trust. As Lencioni has described, TRUST is the most important and broadest basis for diversity of opinion, for taking responsibility, for commitment, for performance.
Trust also means that I don’t insist on talking things through and understanding everything. Talking and understanding is a limited form of self-expression. Here are some examples of how excessive demands for understanding break down trust:
1. When making changes
If the leader waits for everyone to “get it” before getting on track, the team will get stuck. Change is more likely to happen when there is the confidence to step into the unknown together without full understanding. When we go together as two people on the same level to discover and create something new from the discovery. Together. The need for understanding at that point creates a role dynamic between the leader and the team member, where one is the greater/ more important/knowledgeable and the other is the consumer of that knowledge. The manager is not your parent and you are not the child. However, confusing these dynamics at work is unfortunately a very common problem.
2. A manager who wants to know the reasoning behind every decision.
In this case, people start to embellish and construct answers to calm the manager down. Real information starts to get lost and trust is lost. Employees start to fear the manager. And when fear sets in, there is little need to think further about the consequences – fear is very much the foundation on which the world around us is built, the results of which we can witness every day. When every step needs explaining, people feel under constant scrutiny. This doesn’t create partnership, it creates a control mechanism and again fear.
And after all, you could ask: “But if we don’t understand, we don’t know what the right path is?”
Just. We don’t know. Because we don’t know the future anyway. Understanding only creates false illusions and disappointment. There are some things that are significantly beyond the level of human understanding.
There is an important difference – the right path does not always come from perfect understanding. Often it comes from moving forward, experimenting and adapting. And if we are to be pioneers, it is only on the journey that paths must be built and created.
The path becomes clearer step by step, not before you take the first step. Trust is about being prepared to take that step when the whole map is not yet in front of you.
But maybe our problem is that we don’t really want to build roads and want to walk on the beaten track?
