Show me your data on respect.
A few years ago, I was on a cycling trip in Tuscany. A friend and I were heading up the coast to a beach resort, on a hot summers day.
Once we were on the main road heading north, parallel to the coast, we knew that we only had to stay on it to arrive at the beach. Signs at regular intervals confirmed we were headed in the right direction.
A few miles further north, my friend’s bike computer began to flash an alarm. We were off-route apparently, and needed to turn around. I protested but my friend insisted the computer would take us on the right route.
We turned around, looking for a left turning that the computer said we needed to take. No left turn appeared - we were flanked by a forested hill.
After two miles heading south, I shouted at my friend to stop. Perhaps influenced by the boiling midday heat, I snapped at him: “At what point Steve, do we stop heading in the opposite direction from where we know we need to go?”
After a frank exchange of views, we eventually headed north on the road again, and arrived at our destination as expected. For the whole journey, the bike computer told us we were off-route.
The computer was wrong - about as wrong it gets. Yet we’d gone against basic common sense and all of our instincts to blindly trust the data.
We do this all the time in organisations. We attempt to reduce complex human systems and relationships to data and processes.
We gather endless data on employees and on teams. We test and categorise people. We engage people in developmental activities, but only when we can measure outcomes of this work.
We create ways to gather this data, which are always flawed and incomplete, and then make sense of this data with processes that are also always flawed and incomplete.
In doing so, we go against all of our natural instincts and intuitions about human beings. We hide behind data and effectively de-skill our own capabilities in leadership, teamwork and human interaction.
How do you accurately collect data on trust? Or anxiety? Or understanding? Or respect?
No right-minded person would track and measure their relationship with their partners or closest friends using data. Yet this is precisely what is done with people once they enter organisations.
If we remember that we are humans - complex, paradoxical, flawed and unique beings - the answer presents itself: stop measuring and start learning by being in relationship with each other.
All the ‘data’ we need will be processed without us knowing. We’ll make connections, assessments, and judgements, most of them unconsciously.
We’ll develop insights, share stories, exchange ideas and information.
We might find common ground. We might find differences yet respect them - or challenge them.
We might develop empathy. We might realise this person isn’t someone we want to spend time with.
This data is infinitely complex but rather than measure and tracked it is felt and lived. Rather than treating people and their interactions as things to be quantified and categorised, we instead engage in those relationships.
We respond as we feel we need to. We trust ourselves and our intuitions - and we might trust others too.
“An intuition is simply the powerful sense that something is true without our having an awareness or an understanding of the reasons behind this feeling—it may or may not represent something true about the world.”
- Annaka Harris
Tipping Point: sharing information on the climate crisis
Bill McGuire is UK-based climate scientist (he wrote ‘Hothouse Earth’).
This is his latest newsletter. It’s not an easy read - unless you read to the end.
About me.
I’m a leadership coach, consultant and facilitator living in Berlin.
Contact me to:
Make sense of what’s going on in your organisation through our Human At Work group programme.
Make sense of what’s going on with you, your work and your life through my coaching practice.
Have a real conversation.
At the heart of my work is helping individuals and organisations to figure out what is really going on.
You can also find out more about my work with men & masculinity here.