Bomb’s And Their Triggers
A while back I was in a Leadership Program. Normally, I don’t give specific details like that in this blog. I feel like it’s prudent to keep the details a bit obscured when I write about the things I encounter in life. I don’t make anything up. Every story I tell is true. Every friend of mine that I reference in my blog and podcast is a real person experiencing real things. I may change “He’s” to “She’s” or extended family members may be described as “Friend’s”, but I always stay true to the key points of what I’m sharing. In this case, I’m going to be less obscure. I was in the latest leadership program adopted by our organization and I really pissed someone off by charging in and sharing my opinion of a crap project we were tasked with. Unfortunately it was a project that they helped create and champion. They got defensive as you would expect, because they, naturally, felt that it was a great idea. We got into a somewhat heated, but polite argument that ultimately led to me getting a formal hand slap and being reminded of something important about myself.
First let’s start where I was wrong. I got an email that outlined what the project for the course was going to be. It was unusually derivative. The various groups were all tasked to create the same thing. This kind of thing is normal for a group of students, in a regular curriculum course. Typically instructors design exercises to reinforce some concept they are teaching. The situation we were in was very different from a traditional school course. The exercise was supposed to have real world application, i.e. we were seasoned professionals designing something that was going to be developed and put into real world use. To that end it seemed insane to me to have three groups doing the same exact thing. It was a complete duplication of efforts. I knew that there were hundreds of unrelated projects in the organization that could benefit from ad-hoc teams. I also understood that getting these types of people together is hard to do. All have to get permission from their managers to commit the time to be in the course and by extension work on the projects. If you have three groups of talented professionals and the rare opportunity to have them work together to develop something that will benefit the organization, it’s reasonable to have them work on different things.
We were in a leadership program where the group project was to put together a leadership program for a different group of stakeholders in the same organization. The corporate parent already had an off the shelf and recommended leadership training program for the target group. Even if the off the shelf solution we were supposed to use was of poor quality, which it wasn’t, then if you didn’t want to use it, there are about a million highly effective management training programs from third parties. They are highly effective because they were developed by qualified instructional designers. The bottom line is that we were tasked with reinventing the wheel three times which already had a solution we were supposed to use and which had already been reinvented uncounted times.
If our group was trying to learn how to develop these programs I would understand it. We weren’t. We were learning how to be leaders i.e future decision makers. The net result was that it was wasted effort beyond anything I’ve ever seen. Worse than wasted efforts, it was a massive wasted opportunity to use valuable resources of the group members’ time and expertise. In most organizations, any manager who put this plan together would have been shut down immediately. If they proceeded and spent time and money on it, they would be reprimanded or fired. Due to various reasons related to our unique organizational culture, the plan proceeded.
Now if you know anything about human behavior you know that when tasked with a meaningless or even a low priority job that amounts to busywork, the natural reaction is to put it off until the last minute, then do as little as possible to get it over with before the deadline. I.e. the person or group who have been tasked with the project will grab the low flying fruit and turn it in. Any teacher who’s worked for more than a single semester will be able to describe this fundamental aspect of human nature. The teachers will also be able to tell you what kind of work they get if there is buy-in on the part of the student. If people care about something, if it’s important to them, they will go the extra mile to craft something of the highest quality that they are capable of.
Going back to our assignment, it was so bad that I thought it was a meta assignment. I.e. We were tasked with something that was such an unbelievably bad idea that the expectation, especially considering the point of it all was to develop leaders, was to strike out and do something else without being told. So I cobbled together a bunch of other things we could do to really make an impact. I went to my group in our next big meeting and told them in my very bullheaded way “hey, here are all the better things we can do with our time because this assignment sucks.” That was the moment that the head of the program, who was sitting behind us, made a comment and I could see by the look on his face that I was wrong. The assignment wasn’t so bad; we were supposed to do something different. He really thought this was a good assignment.
I won’t go into the details of what transpired afterwards between myself and the person running the leadership program including the slap on the hand. I will say that I completely overestimated my organization’s ability to avoid groupthink. I will also say that he was right, and I was wrong in how I handled my, well, I guess protest is a good word. I should have been much more measured in my approach especially when you consider the organization I work for which values that sort of interaction amongst its employees. I let the emotions of it all get the better of me. It was the loss of opportunity and what I perceived as waste which set me off. Looking back on it, it was my trigger. I’m sure much of it comes from my early career uncertainty. I’ve got so much private sector PTSD, I have a visceral reaction to what I perceive as wasted resources and opportunity. Another example that comes to mind was about a decade ago. I almost destroyed a relationship when a family member bought me some very expensive and unneeded furniture without telling me. It was the same thing: lost opportunity and wasted resources that could have been put to better use.
I didn’t realize it was a trigger until, when I was sharing my lament about the whole process with a few friends of mine, one of them used that word. It’s almost like I can’t help myself when it comes to something that triggers me. I charge in. I share what is exactly the problem and, somewhat honorably, I try to right the wrong. I am bullheaded.
Behavioral triggers are a well known concept, and it’s not necessarily good or bad, it simply is part of the human condition that exists in most people and everyone has different triggers. In my case the behavioral trigger is a bad thing as it has a tendency to put me in a compromised position with others. It’s similar to the triggers that cause bad behavior in children. In both cases it’s related to a perception of the situation as well as intense emotions that facilitate the behaviors. Awareness of the triggers and the emotions surrounding it are one of the keys to managing the behavior of children. Many corporations train their sales people to incite behavioral triggers, i.e. they are trying to figure out what will cause a customer to buy the product when they have reservations. There’s a reason why finally committing to a purchase is referred to as “pulling the trigger.”
I was feeling pretty low about the entire experience, when talking to another, more senior friend about it, he was much more forgiving and made me feel better about myself. He told me that I was a bomb thrower. It’s a phrase I’ve heard used about me in the past. I speak what’s on my mind and without a filter. This can make many, if not the majority, of people uncomfortable and cause many problems to delicately constructed solutions. It has in the past when other things have triggered me along the same lines as this. I usually don’t like this aspect of my personality because I’ve learned long and hard over the years that the disruptive force in any group has a tendency to be ostracized. I see it on a personal level at home. My wife never shares her opinion about things and the vast majority of people we interact with prefer her to me.
Going back to my senior friend, The thing that he went on to say after he called me a bomb thrower is that some organizations can get complacent or worse, they can fall into groupthink. He pointed out that occasionally you need someone to throw a bomb to wake people up and get them to think differently. In effect, a little bomb throwing is a good thing. When I consider how much I try to limit this tendency in my personality, I would say that my bomb throwing days are few and far between. Well the type of bomb throwing I do with such vehemence are mostly, but not completely, in the past. I tend to be more strategic with my bombs these days.
That’s the key. Going back to triggers, there are always going to be things that trigger you. For me managing them is similar to controlling the bad behavior in kids. What I have to work on is understanding the behavior, the feelings involved, and acknowledging that it’s a trigger. A continuing theme of all of my writing is awareness. If you can’t see that there is an issue, then you can’t address it.
The bomb throwing is another conversation entirely. My seasoned friend is right. Throwing bombs in an organization is absolutely necessary. Sometimes it’s so important that boards of directors will spend hundreds of millions of dollars on new senior management to blow up old cultures of underperforming companies. For me, if I can internally de-escalate my immediate reaction to something that is triggering me, I’ll most likely still want to address it. At that point I have to get very creative about my bomb throwing. In the past I’ve learned that there are some techniques to doing this like acting stupid and asking lots of questions. Unfortunately when a decision has been made and the organization’s mind is set on something, it’s hard to change it. The best technique is to throw the bomb during the vetting process, well before any final decision is made. To do that you have to be engaged in the organization’s decision making process to the best extent you can be if you are not already a senior leader.
So what is the net net of all this? I guess it’s that it’s a good reminder that everyone has triggers, and those triggers usually incite behaviors. Sometimes those behaviors can lead to the abstract bombs being thrown, and when that happens it can lead to very good or very bad things. That’s why we call them bombs, they can have a huge impact. You should always know your triggers and understand how to best throw a bomb. If you can do that you will be very effective in your organization. You would probably make a great leader. Just do me a favor. If you choose to engage in a leadership program, and there are some poorly thought out ideas for the group project don’t let it trigger you. I can tell you from my experience that’s one situation where it’s just not worth throwing that bomb.
Like what you read?
I spend hundreds of hours working on these articles every year with no compensation other than support I get through donations. You can support with a tip and by subscribing to the podcast (and writing a review on iTunes would be really appreciated as well!)
One time tips:
https://venmo.com/pelusopresents
On Going
https://www.patreon.com/PelusoPresents
In addition to subscribing here on Medium.com, you can also find more writings by Mike Peluso at:
The Blog:
With hundreds of archived articles, Peluso Presents is your source for commentary, ideas and insight in navigating the collision points between work and life.
The Podcast:
http://pelusopresents.libsyn.com/
For those who are on the go, every episode of the Peluso Presents podcast includes a reading of a highlighted post as well as other great entertaining information. Available wherever you get your podcast fix from! Subscribe on iTunes!
ITUNES: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-peluso-presents-podcast/id1143822193?mt=2&ls=1
GOOGLE PLAY: https://play.google.com/music/podcasts/portal/
RSS FEED: http://pelusopresents.libsyn.com/rss
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PelusoPresents
Get reminders of articles, Tweet AT me, and occasionally see some other great tweets by Mike!
Email: Peluso AT Outlook.com
Your feedback and suggestions / requests are super valuable! Email is for those who still like to communicate old school!
