Mistakes Were Made - Carol Tavris [110]
Organizational consultants Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus suggest that institutions can be designed to reward admissions of mistakes as part of the organizational culture, rather than, as now, making it uncomfortable for people to own up. This is a change, naturally, that must come from the top. Bennis and Nanus offer a story about the legendary Tom Watson Sr., IBM’s founder and its guiding inspiration for over forty years. “A promising junior executive of IBM was involved in a risky venture for the company and managed to lose over $10 million in the gamble,” they wrote. “It was a disaster. When Watson called the nervous executive into his office, the young man blurted out, ‘I guess you want my resignation?’ Watson said, ‘You can’t be serious. We’ve just spent $10 million educating you!’”9
But what are we supposed to do in our everyday lives? Call an external review board of cousins and in-laws to adjudicate every family quarrel? Videotape all parental interrogations of their teenagers? In our private relationships, we are on our own, and that calls for some self-awareness. Once we understand how and when we need to reduce dissonance, we can become more vigilant about the process and often nip it in the bud; like Oprah, we can catch ourselves before we slide too far down the pyramid. By looking at our actions critically and dispassionately, as if we were observing someone else, we stand a chance of breaking out of the cycle of action followed by self-justification, followed by more committed action. We can learn to put a little space between what we feel and how we respond, insert a moment of reflection, and think about whether we really want to buy that canoe in January, really want to send good money after bad, really want to hold on to a belief that is unfettered by facts. We might even change our minds before our brains freeze our thoughts into consistent patterns.
Becoming aware that we are in a state of dissonance can help us make sharper, smarter, conscious choices instead of letting automatic, self-protective mechanisms resolve our discomfort in our favor. Suppose your unpleasant, aggressive coworker has just made an innovative suggestion at a group meeting. You could say to yourself, “An ignorant jerk like her could not possibly have a good idea about anything,” and shoot her suggestion down in flames because you dislike the woman so much (and, you admit it, you feel competitive with her for your manager’s approval). Or you could give yourself some breathing room and ask: “Could the idea be a smart one? How would I feel about it if it came from my ally on this project?” If it is a good idea, you might support your coworker’s proposal even if you continue to dislike her as a person. You keep the message separate from the messenger.
The goal is to become aware of the two dissonant cognitions that are causing distress and find a way to resolve them constructively, or, when we can’t, learn to live with them. In 1985, Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres was thrown into dissonance by an action taken by his ally and friend Ronald Reagan. Peres was angry because Reagan had accepted an invitation to pay a state visit to the Kolmeshohe Cemetery at Bitburg, Germany, to symbolize the two nations’ postwar reconciliation. The announcement of the proposed