A theme in my practice is the leader with an employee who thinks of themself as a "truth-teller." This person often has some keen insights to share, but their communication style is preventing others from heeding their message. In this context I'm reminded of the figure of Cassandra from Greek mythology, a high priestess and the younger sister of Hector, the great warrior of Troy.
The god Apollo gave Cassandra the ability to see the future, but after she rejected his advances he put a curse on her so that her true prophecies would always be disbelieved. When the Greeks left a massive wooden horse at the gates of Troy as a supposed peace offering, Cassandra warned her compatriots to destroy it, but they ignored her as they conducted a victory feast: "We stationed the monster fraught with doom on the hallowed heights of Troy. Even now Cassandra revealed the future, opening lips the gods had ruled no Trojan would believe." [1]
After the fall of Troy, Cassandra was captured by the Greek king Agamemnon, and both of them were subsequently murdered by Agamemnon's wife and her lover, as shown above. It's not a happy tale. My clients' truth-tellers don't face anything nearly so dire, but it's highly likely that their insights will be ignored, and it's quite possible that they'll run into career-limiting difficulties. If you're a leader with an employee who fits this description (or if this describes you), what can you do? Here are some issues to consider:
Cognitive biases matter.
Truth-tellers can be aware that their communication style is flawed, but they're often surprised that it has such a significant impact on others' receptivity to their insights. They believe their ideas should be assessed on their intrinsic merits, without having to worry about crafting a persuasive message. But this reflects a poor grasp of human psychology and a lack of awareness of some fundamental principles of communication.
There's too much data in our environment to be able to carefully parse each and every incoming signal. [2] The process of logical reasoning is too slow and laborious, and our capacity for deliberate thought is a finite resource, so we've evolved a host of "mental shortcuts" to enable us to make quick judgments that are sufficiently accurate for most purposes. These shortcuts are also known as "cognitive biases," a term that gives the impression that our brains are somehow faulty or even prejudiced. [3]
It's more precise to say that our thought patterns are often highly predictable, and efforts to persuade others must take these patterns into account in order to be successful. The truth-teller who insists on ignoring these principles isn't being rigorous or disdaining superficial niceties, although they often like to characterize themselves this way. They're just refusing to acknowledge reality, and that's not rigor--it's magical thinking. Here are three predictable patterns in human psychology that truth-tellers must take into account if they want their message to be heard.
Likeability matters.
Psychologist Robert Cialdini has identified a set of powerful cognitive biases related to influence, which he describes as the "fundamental principles of persuasion." [4] The very first one is the "Principle of Liking": We find likeable people more influential. It's important to distinguish between "likeable" and "pleasing" or "deferential," not least because adopting a pleasant or deferential demeanor may undermine one's authority, another important source of influence. Likeability can be established through a number of specific tactics, and Cialdini highlights two: similarity and praise.
A sense of similarity is evoked by identifying shared experiences, beliefs, values, and interests, which often occurs when we're engaged in small talk. And praise doesn't have to take the form of obsequious or insincere compliments. We find it flattering when someone simply asks us questions or expresses interest in us, which is really just another form of small talk. In general, most informal conversations offer opportunities to establish likeability simply by signaling, "I'm paying attention to you, and our relationship matters to me." [5]
Note that cultivating likeability need not entail being indirect or less candid with the primary message. Truth-tellers often undermine their own influence simply by failing to devote any time or attention to the informal conversations that usually occur at the beginning of meetings and after the agenda has been concluded. They pride themselves on being "all business"--but that actually means that they're less effective at accomplishing their goals.
Packaging matters.
Louis Cheskin was one of the first researchers to apply psychological principles to commercial marketing, and as a contributor to such icons as McDonald's Golden Arches, the Marlboro Man and the Gerber baby, his work left an indelible mark on the 20th century. [6] Author Malcolm Gladwell discussed Cheskin's concept of "sensation transference":
Cheskin was convinced that when people give an assessment of something they might buy in a supermarket or a department store, without realizing it, they transfer sensations or impressions they have about the packaging of the product to the product itself. To put it another way, Cheskin believed that most of us don't make a distinction--on an unconscious level--between the package and the product. The product is the package and the product combined. [7]
Gladwell goes on to cite research demonstrating the effects on this concept in a variety of consumer products: Ice cream tastes better when it comes in a cylindrical container instead of a rectangular one. Brandy tastes better when it comes in a decanter instead of a wine bottle. Margarine tastes better when it's colored yellow instead of white. These signifiers affect our senses, altering our perceptions of the product itself.
Linguist and liberal political advisor George Lakoff has described a parallel process that occurs in the realm of communication and messaging, referred to as "framing," and "Lakoff's First Law" is that "Framing trumps facts":
All of our concepts are organized into conceptual structures called "frames" (which may include images and metaphors) and all words are defined relative to those frames. Conventional frames are pretty much fixed in the neural structures of our brains. In order for a fact to be comprehended, it must fit the relevant frames. If the facts contradict the frames, the frames, being fixed in the brain, will be kept and the facts ignored... This has an important consequence. Political liberals have inherited an assumption from the Enlightenment, that The facts will set us free, that if the public is just given the facts, they will, being rational beings, reach the right conclusion. It is simply false. It violates Lakoff's Law. [8]
We need not share Lakoff's political orientation to grasp the significance of his theory. Just as Cheskin demonstrated that the perceived properties of a product are not fixed but highly malleable and contingent on the packaging, Lakoff notes that the impact of a message is not an inherent property of the facts it contains, but a function of its frame--a form of packaging.
Truth-tellers are like Lakoff's naive liberals--they think that if they just present "the facts" then the rightness of their ideas will inevitably be sufficient to win the day. There's no universal solution here, but the key is recognizing that influential ideas are packaged in a host of ways that contribute to their impact, and effective packaging must take into account the audience's "frames" and preconceived notions.
Narrative matters.
The sum total of a message's facts, packaging and framing is ultimately a narrative--some form of story. And stories play an essential role in human life because they enable us to make sense of and navigate uncertain environments. As I wrote recently,
Organizational psychologist Karl Weick called this "sensemaking": we rely upon narratives to "make sense" of ambiguous situations and pursue a plan of action in coordination with others. But our reliance on narratives means that in the absence of a coherent story we will feel lost and ungrounded. [9]
So a fundamental challenge in any communication effort is that when people are faced with a situation that they don't fully understand, they will rapidly construct an explanatory narrative using whatever data is readily available. [10] One of the difficulties for the truth-teller is that this process will include a host of assumptions about them and their communication style, and if they haven't made an effort to cultivate liking and to package their message effectively, then their audience's explanatory narrative will likely work against the truth-teller's goals.
Further, many truth-tellers have a degree of technical training or quantitative skill that informs their insights. As a result they see a "story" in the data that most people fail to perceive. This is particularly true with regard to probabilities--a number of cognitive biases evolved to help us avoid the complex computations necessary to calculate statistical outcomes with precision. [11] The challenge--and the opportunity--for the truth-teller is to translate their quantitative insights into a narrative that other, less numerate people can readily grasp.
A note on authenticity.
While the issues raised here aren't difficult to understand, many truth-tellers struggle to put them into practice because doing so feels "inauthentic." But this represents a misguided conflation of authenticity and familiarity or comfort. Yet another cognitive bias is what psychologist Daniel Kahneman calls "the law of least effort," which reflects our tendency to expend as little mental energy as possible. [12] As a consequence we have a preference for the familiar and the comfortable, and this includes our own behavior and communication style.
The truth-tellers in my clients' organizations have been very successful up to this point in their careers--that's why they now find themselves working for my clients. And their (familiar, comfortable) communication styles have either contributed to their success in their previous roles or been outweighed by their other strengths. But these truth-tellers now find themselves in a new position or an evolving setting in which they have to modify their communication style if they wish to enjoy continued success.
This can feel daunting, particular to the truth-teller who takes pride in their authenticity, as so many do. Here it can be useful to explore just what we mean by "authentic" and how our understanding of that term can pose a barrier to productive change. As I've written before,
A popular view of the authentic self is that it's an identity at the core of our personalities, something we're born with and must discover through a process of excavation. We may find this view appealing for a number of reasons. If our authentic self is already fully formed within us, then conscious efforts to modify it are fruitless, and we need not feel obligated to undertake the hard work of change... An alternative is to view our authentic self as something that we actively create, forging it out of a combination of ongoing life experiences in the context of any inherited preferences and aversions. [13]
If the truth-teller can adopt this latter view of the authentic self, they make it possible to experiment with alternative communication styles that may feel unfamiliar or uncomfortable but are not inherently false or phony. And if you're working with someone who fits this description (or if this describes you), the key is recognizing that this process will likely evoke a degree of vulnerability (which they'll be unlikely to admit) and establishing an environment in which it's safe to change. [14]
Footnotes
[1] The Aeneid, page 83 (Homer, translated by Robert Fagles, 2008)
[2] Why It's So Hard to Pay Attention, Explained by Science (Daniel Levitin, Fast Company, 2015)
[3] When Heuristics Go Bad (On Cognitive Biases)
[4] Harnessing the Science of Persuasion (Robert Cialdini, Harvard Business Review, 2001)
[5] Bosses and Birthdays (The Importance of Small Talk)
[6] Featured Thinking: Cheskin Research (Harvard Business School Working Knowledge, 2000)
[7] Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, page 160 (Malcolm Gladwell, 2005)
[8] Lakoff's Law (George Lakoff, Edge, 2004)
[9] The Importance of Shared Narrative
[10] Seeing What's Not There (The Importance of Missing Data)
[11] Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases (Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, Science, 1974)
[12] Thinking, Fast and Slow, pages 35-40 (Daniel Kahneman, 2013)
[13] Leadership and Authenticity
[14] Why Change Is Hard
Photo of Campanian water jar (hydria), circa 340-320 BC, by failing_angel.
