364. Your Dog Smells Things You Can't. So Does Your Team.
The problem we have, as humans, is that we assume all beings experience the world the same way we do.
Let me put your dog’s sense of smell in perspective.
You can smell a drop of perfume when it’s trapped in a small room.
Your dog can smell it across an entire football stadium.1
Insane, right?
But that’s just the beginning.
Your dog doesn’t just have a better sense of smell than you. They have a completely different one.
You smell the current odor.
Your dog smells the past, present and future.
When you’re standing on the grass with your dog, you smell… grass. At best.
But your dog doesn’t just smell the grass, it smells the animal that walked through that grass two hours ago, which direction it traveled, whether it was sick, scared or angry, male or female, and what it ate for its last meal.
You can be in the same exact place as your dog, and each of you will experience a completely different reality.
The problem we have, as humans, is that we assume all beings experience the world the same way we do.
And that’s why it pains me to tell you this: you do the same exact thing with other people.
The Standard You’re Using Is Wrong
Most leaders assume their team experiences work the same way they do.
If something is easy for you, you automatically assume it’s easy for others. If something is difficult for you, you’ll assume it’s difficult for them too.
You’re evaluating other people using the only sensory system you have:
Your own.
One of my leadership coaching clients, Tessa, is a great example of this.
Tessa is charismatic in a way that’s almost annoying to the rest of us who have to work hard at it.
People like her immediately.
She can network with anyone at any time, has the ability to easily influence people and can build relationships in just one conversation.
(See? I told you it’s annoying.)
Tessa is very good at her job. And that’s exactly why she almost fired one of her best employees.
Here’s the story…
She took over a new department, and inherited an account manager who is a naturally shy and quiet person. He’s more analytical than emotional, has a noticeable stutter and, because of this, he prefers email over phone or zoom.
He doesn’t do small talk.
He’s not charismatic and I’m guessing that networking with strangers is one of his biggest nightmares.
“He’s not a culture fit at all,” Tessa told me during one of our conversations. “I think I need to replace him.”
But when I asked more questions, here’s what I learned.
Clients trusted him. A lot.
He had a renewal rate higher than anyone else on the team.
He built relationships with people, but in a different way than Tessa understood. He did it slowly and purposefully. Not with charisma and direct influence, but with reliability and consistency.
Tessa assumed he just got lucky getting renewals with easy clients. She convinced herself that the company could do even better if someone who was more of a culture fit were in that role.
In other words, Tessa was judging the account manager against the only standard of measurement she truly understood: her own.
She and the account manager were existing in the same department with the same goals, but they were each experiencing the world in a completely different way.
Your Brain Is Protecting You
You’re probably thinking that you don’t do what Tessa does. You think you’re different - that you can see everybody for who they are.
That’s cute.
And wrong.
You are like everyone else - you evaluate others by comparing them to yourself. You don’t do it consciously. It’s part of your Unconscious Operating System.
You’re most drawn to people who think like you. Ones who solve problems like you and communicate the way you do.
Those types of people feel more familiar to you, so you tend to trust them faster. As a leader, you usually give them more responsibility and promote them faster.
If you have favorites (which I hope you don’t, but you probably do2), they’re most likely going to be people who match more closely to your reality.
On the other hand, the people who don’t operate like you just feel a little… well… off.
They’re harder for you to understand and more challenging for you to trust. So you most likely keep them at a distance.
Of course you don’t mean to - and I’m sure you’ll give me all the reasons why that’s not who you are. But you do it anyway.
Trust me. It’s the way your Unconscious Operating System works.
Over time, something unfortunate will inevitably happen: Your team will start to seem the same.
Same strengths. Same thinking patterns. Same blind spots.
A lot of leaders call that “a strong culture.”
I call bullshit on that.
You haven’t built a strong culture - you’ve built a system that rewards familiarity and filters out difference.
You’ve built a team that can only operate within the type of world you experience.
The Superstars You’re Missing
There are probably people on your team right now with exceptional abilities you don’t even recognize. You are not attuned to the way they experience the world.
It’s a problem.
The most valuable abilities on a team are usually the ones that operate outside your own perspective.
The strategist who thinks in chess moves years ahead would benefit from a detail-oriented thinker who spots ticking time-bombs before they explode.
An outgoing influencer who thrives on social interaction would benefit from a quiet relationship builder to balance each other out.
These different types of people aren’t rare, they’re just harder to understand if you’re only measuring the world with your own senses.
The One Who Makes You Uncomfortable
Think about your team.
Is there anyone who makes you slightly uncomfortable because you don’t fully understand what makes them good? Maybe they have behaviors that trigger your frustration?
The truth is that they may have the world perspective that is vitally important to you and your team’s success.
Your team could be full of superstar talent you don’t even recognize. Because you’re judging them against the only measurement you have: yourself.
That’s not a limitation in them.
That’s a limitation in you.
PS — The person on your team you find hardest to understand? That discomfort is feedback about yourself that’s worth paying attention to.
I put on free Leadership Diagnostic Workshops that help you identify all the patterns holding you back, and how to overcome them.
Secure your spot in a Diagnostic Workshop now
Or futbol stadium. Either way, I’ve taken creative license and translated detection sensitivity into a volume-based analogy in order to give it the relevant scale. Thank you for your understanding.
You probably think you don’t have favorites but there is a pattern you can’t see (that everyone else can).
Have you noticed this in your current or previous companies? Did the boss always hire and reward people who are most like them in thinking and mannerism?
Great read. I appreciate anything that draws my attention to my unconscious biases. A little attacked, but better for it.