The Unfair Fight

The greatest roadblock to peak performance presents itself in ways such as: micromanagement problems, workplace intimidation problems, problem executives or difficult leaders. These all these stem from hidden comfort priorities that interfere with our success priorities. Think of it as the automatic mode vs. the thinking mode.

“Self-help” stems from the thinking mode. In self-help you set your mind to do something, yet your automatic mode quickly kicks in and overrides your thinking mode. We call this the unfair fight as your automatic mode usually wins.

Based our many years of working with individuals, we can quickly identify unique hidden automatic-mode priorities that are blocking leaders’ peak performance.

We know how to rewire that automatic mode so it is no longer a fight. When this internal battle stops – the desired results comes easy.

The War Inside

The war between our Automatic Mode and our Thinking Mode is really our Comfort Priorities warring against our Success Priorities

Success Priorities

Our thinking mode establishes our success priorities because knowledge underpins this pathway to action. To succeed, we must learn a great deal about our field. Professional people normally spend many years learning the information and processes associated with their field. We describe the knowledge they acquire by their level and type of education, such as a master’s degree in accounting. People use their knowledge to plan how to accomplish such activities as designing, manufacturing, marketing, and measuring financial results. They translate broad knowledge into results through strategies, goals, plans, and task lists. It seems straightforward. Smart people acquire knowledge, create actionable plans, and then execute their success agenda. This scenario often works. Unfortunately, as we know, this playbook doesn’t always progress so smoothly.

Comfort Priorities

Our robot-like comfort priorities (automatic mode)  have a mind of their own and they create an independent driving force that competes (with our thinking mode) for control of our actions, which quickly and relentlessly sabotages, overrules, and prevents us from accomplishing uncomfortable tasks — no matter how important they are to our success.
Although we find ourselves with micromanagement problems and label a problem leader or problem executive, our comfort priorities also seductively beckon us to devote time and energy to pleasurable activities that may have nothing to do with achieving success or may actually undermine our success.

When our comfort priorities compete with our success priorities, it becomes the unfair fight.

The Unfair Fight

Because transforming an auto-behavior usually creates discomfort, an “unfair fight” occurs when the thinking mode tries to overpower the automatic mode, such as overcoming a compulsion or other bad habit by force of will. This “willpower” approach can work for short periods, but eventually the tenacious comfort priority grinds down the thinking-modes’ success agenda.

Because we unwittingly engage in and lose unfair fights so frequently, we consider it one of the fundamental principles of the bipartite-mind (thinking and automatic modes) theory. New Year’s resolutions normally don’t work because they attempt to use intentions to overpower an automatic mode characteristic.

The Solution … Aligning Priorities

When our comfort priorities align with our success priorities, successes normally result because we take pleasure and comfort from the conditions, choices, and actions that result in success. We know how to rewire that automatic mode so the priorities are aligned and working together – not at war. When the inside battle stops – the desired results comes easy.

Example One: Disruptive Behavior at Work

Mick, the third-generation CEO of a family owned 400-person automotive supply company, exhibited the distinction between excelling at the “objects” of a business and performing well on the “people side.” His intelligence, technical degree, experience, and business acumen enabled him to excel at the measurable aspects of his company. However, he faltered when it came to leading his employees. Mick lamented, “I could perform most of my activities well, but I couldn’t control my temper.” Mick went on to describe his attempts to change his aggressive behavior in the workplace. “When anyone screwed up, I exploded and attacked them – often humiliating them in public. My HR Director persuaded me that my behavior was sapping my employees’ energy and undermining their creativity, so I decided to change. What an unpleasant surprise! Sometimes I did not even notice my aggressive behavior in the workplace. When I did notice, I still could not control my rages. My bullying behavior controlled me, I could not control it.”

Stories similar to Mick’s play out repeatedly in businesses. A leader or executive may perform most aspects of their job brilliantly, but display some executive dysfunction that undermines their overall effectiveness. If you lead an organization or otherwise have responsibilities for the performance of others, you probably have encountered “Micks” that you would like to improve their aggressive behavior in the workplace. You likely have told them that they need to change. Unfortunately, people cannot usually transform their automatic disruptive behaviors on their own.

It’s difficult to help other people change without understanding the nature of the underlying mental processes that drive uncontrollable behaviors and thought patterns. To get the most out of people whose performance you rely on, learn to distinguish between when you can help them improve by providing information and when, because they cannot control their automatic activities, you must use different processes to help them improve their performance.

We coached Mick, and happily he no longer rages and his company has vastly improved because of it. At the time of this writing at the end 2010, Mick’s company is the last remaining Michigan supplier to his niche in the automotive market. He out-executed all of his competition!

Example Two: Leadership Blockages

Bruce was the CFO of $100 million West Coast industrial manufacturing company. One of the major findings of Bruce’s leadership performance survey was that he relied too much on his own technical excellence and did not develop his team sufficiently.

Although his company mandated annual performance reviews, Bruce avoided them, or when pressured, provided superficial reviews. I inquired about the feedback he had given to members of his team and his satisfaction with their overall performance.

Bruce responded, “I prefer the indirect way to improve their performance rather than devastating them by ramming their deficiencies down their throats. I sent them to technical and leadership training seminars, but although I have seen improvements, some of them still are not performing at the level I need.” Bruce misunderstood why he wasn’t giving adequate performance reviews. Fortunately, Bruce decided to engage a coach for other issues, and during his coaching activities he soon recognized how he had been fooling himself about why he did not provide candid performance reviews.

Here’s how Bruce embarrassingly described his new insight, “I thought I was protecting my employees. Actually, I was depriving them of the frank, constructive feedback they needed to overcome their deficiencies and create new proficiencies. I finally understood that my own discomfort at providing corrective feedback blocked my needed actions. I thought I was giving real reasons when I claimed I was protecting them. I now understand I was just rationalizing by giving feeble excuses because I couldn’t overcome my own discomfort.”

Bruce leveraged this experience to gain insights into other automatic activities that were hampering his own performance and lowering the level of execution of his team. He described his new abilities: “It scares me to discover at this stage of my career how much of my success has been accidental. Some of my involuntary activities, including my assertiveness and energy, served me well, but others, such as my inability to make unpopular decisions or to resolve conflicts quickly, were increasingly lowering my effectiveness.

Now that I understand this automatic mode of activities, I take actions to improve my own robot-like characteristics and the automatic characteristics of members of my team. I now have much higher confidence that I have control of the levers of success for myself and my organization.”

Sometimes, satisfying a comfort priority is the explicit goal, such as when we relax or partake of entertainment. Besides selecting a field for which they exhibit talent, most people try to enter a profession where they enjoy the main activities, such as extroverts going into sales and people who prefer solitary detailed work going into such fields as engineering or accounting.

Even when we select a profession that we enjoy, demands for action inevitably arise that create discomfort, which sometimes blocks us from executing these needed actions. In addition to performance reviews, other activities where comfort priorities routinely undermine success priorities no matter how much we enjoy the field and the job type we select include public speaking, conflict resolution, self-discovery, changing an automatic behavior.

To attain reliable results in issues such as micromanagement problems, aggressive behavior in workplace, problem executives or difficult leaders, consider retaining an expert behavior-change coach.
Call (919) 229-4568 today for a free consultation on how changing individual or group habits can create huge improvements to your organization’s success, or Email us at Success@CompleteLeadership.com. We look forward to helping you achieve the change you want in your career, your company, or in someone you know.