Complaining about the decisions made by a colleague in another part of the business…is like criticizing the umpire for not calling a strike while sitting 325 feet away from home plate in the left field bleachers.
Distance and angles distort reality. Biases and beliefs re-define reality so we can see what we want to see.
None of us are negligent for thinking “that person” in a distant part of the business is making bad decisions. We become negligent when we act out of destructive beliefs or distorted realities.
Enterprise Thinking: 3 Traits
Employees in seamless organizations (where colleagues are aligned cross-functionally) know their beliefs about “those people” in other functions are at best incomplete—or are likely inaccurate.
Colleagues with this wisdom:
- See their own division, unit or function as one part of a whole, rather than the center of the universe.
- Grant trust to others, stay curious, seek to understand, assume innocence and advocate rather than discriminate.
- Understand that strategy execution is a social process requiring humanly connected colleagues doing meaningful work together.
A good reminder: Who is the hero in the stories your team tells? If your team is always right or always the victim…it’s likely your version of reality is distorted.