Conditioned Responses Cause Us to “Suffer in Advance”
Image Source: Anonymous
An organization’s culture (or a person’s belief system) is often full of things they treat as facts, but in reality, they’re just decisions they made in the past that continue to influence decisions in the future. Call these “Conditioned Responses.” Think of Dr. Pavlov and his dogs for a classic example; a ringing bell would cause the dogs to salivate in anticipation of being fed. However, not all conditioned responses create the anticipation of reward. Instead, in my work I see how conditioned responses related to change cause people to suffer in advance.
The past plays such a strong role in people’s perceptions of the future that sometimes they predict the future as if they were clairvoyant. But they aren’t. People stop before they start because they’re suffering negative consequences in advance. Isn’t that dynamic weird when you look at it that way? I think of this Mark Twain quote at times like this: “I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.” Suffering in advance looked at rationally makes no sense, but we do it all the time.
Therefore, I’m always looking for key phrases or words in conversations, written communication, and body language that tell me that barriers are still present. If I hear (or see) any of the following things, I tell the folks I’m working with that they are still in Stage One and not ready for Stage Two.
- If it’s not broken, don’t fix it.
- We’ve always done it this way.
- Let’s form a committee (council, task force, tiger team) to look at it and then report back later.
- We’ll need to get approvals before we can move forward.
- Who’s got time for that?
- What would they (insert the group) think if we did that?
- You can’t teach new tricks to an old dog.
Even the ancient Greeks knew the danger of being stuck—after all, about 2,500 years ago Heraclitus said, “The only thing permanent is change.”
