Do Peers Perpetuate Poor Performance?

This is part three in a five part examination of the forces that keep individuals and institutions caught a cycle of stress trapped by unexamined assumptions and ill designed solutions.  Part one examined the role of self in our illusory imprisonment, two the often subconscious part played by supervisors in the continuing incarceration and section three delves into the irresistible influence exerted on us by our peers.  Chapter four introduces the power of using the Positive Peer Pull of “Value Adding” employees to re-engage the energy, optimism and innovation that lies dormant in traditional hierarchical systems. Finally chapter five outlines the system for evolving to a Peer Powered Process.

What is the most influential source of our conformist conditioning? It is our peers that provide the most relevant cues into acceptable behaviors. When new employees observe the more experienced members of the team they subconsciously absorb the standards set by their peers. Are their desks clear or cluttered, is their countenance calm or calamitous, are they overjoyed or overwhelmed? We look to our peers to better understand the “reality” of the situation, but continuity has more to do with cultural bias than it does with factual reality. Taken collectively these “standards” can become part of an institutionalized delusion. We believe them not because they are true but because they are consistent.

Not all delusions are bad. Steve Jobs was described as having the ability to create a “reality distortion field” capable of altering his team’s sense of proportion and scales of difficulties to believe that the task at hand was possible. We see this in great teams who develop winning traditions like our own blue turf Boise State Broncos who, despite losses in talent and experience, continue to defy the odds.

The point is not that delusions are good or bad but that we all have them all the time. 91% of serious basketball fans believe in feeding players with the “hot hand” but as Jonah Lehrer points out in How We Decide our belief in these shooting streaks is simply a figment of our imaginations. A continuity of understanding does not necessarily reflect the accuracy of our perception. Casinos love our propensity for self-deception to the tune of $48 Billion earned each year from slot machines. We believe in patterns that don’t actually exist and see things that never were.

Not only are we physically incapable of seeing the big picture accurately but we discount the perceptions of those who offer an alternate perspective to our own. Anyone who knows the story of Temple Grandin is aware of the social ostracism she endured as a result of her autistic insights. We are quick to judge “unique” others as “less than” when in reality Temple has four times the typical number of connections in a brain area that controls the visual system.

She literally sees four times better and yet because she is not “the same” she was treated as less.

Our ability to distort perception is so profound that Wikipedia lists nearly 100 biases.   These biases create blind spots or scotomas that help provide a safe hiding place not just for our intellectual oversights but for the psychological components of addictions to drugs, alcohol, smoking and dependencies like food and the NEED for control.  Each is held in place by a web of unexamined assumptions reinforced by enabling connections.  Addressing individuals in isolation of their communities is like drenching a single tree in the midst of a wildfire.

Workplace stress what you see is what you get