When you make a mistake, do you think you are a jerk? That you had bad intentions? Or just that you made an honest mistake based on the circumstances? What about when you experience someone else’s mistake? What do you think of them? Do you think it was just an honest mistake and they were doing there best? Or do you take it personally? Or think they are a bad person? Or have bad character? Do you think they were setting out to mess you over? Most of the time, we see our own mistakes as aspects of the environment and others as aspects of character. When I am late, it is because of traffic, but when you are late it is because you don’t care about the meeting. This is called the Fundamental Attribution Error. We erroneously attribute others mistakes to their character or personality.
This costs us in life and at work. When we see others mistakes as character flaws, we often take them personally and feel like people are out to get us. We complain a lot about people based on this story we tell ourselves about them. This keeps makes us feel bad and significantly damages relationships, especially intimate ones. At work, we start to resent those that we erroneously think have serious character flaws. That blocks communication, keeps us from learning what is really going on, makes us feel helpless to improve it and blocks our business judgement about people. I have been running and riding many hours per week with friends and have seen this come up in our conversations and it was a great reminder for me to make sure I am giving people the same benefit of the doubt I would give myself and to be curious about what is happening, not assuming the worst about their character. This makes for much better life without bitterness or resentment and makes me a much better leader.
Pay attention this week and see how often you attribute your own mistakes to circumstances and others to their character. And if you are attributing it to character, change and see how much better your world gets.
Thanks for reading and have a great Labor Day weekend,
Art
