I recently listened to a TED talk that included a story of a man who pretended to be mentally ill / crazy to get out of a criminal conviction. The problem was that once he was in a mental institution, he could not convince anyone that he was sane. Once he had a label of a mental illness, any attempts he made to defend himself were considered as further prove that he was manipulative and dangerous. It was a vicious cycle.
We’ve probably all had the experience of someone jumping to an incorrect or incomplete conclusion about us –creating a label which becomes very hard to shake.
When I am being honest with myself (something I frequently avoid), I recognize that I can be quick to label others. Jumping to conclusions based on the imperfect sorting mechanism in my head is easier than really getting to know someone or having to consider an alternative point of view.
Once we attribute a negative label to someone, it can be really difficult to change that perception. Our biases become self-sustaining as we find further evidence to support our initial conclusions. Our brains love to accommodate our desire to prove ourselves right! So — as the ‘crazy’ person desperately tries to prove they are sane — we see their desperation as more evidence of their craziness.
Labels play out in family groups all the time: a child may be labelled as a particular ‘type’: The brain, the screw-up, the clumsy one, the lazy one, etc. Labels at a young age influence a child’s emerging sense of self–for better or for worse.
From a business lens, these implicit biases result in the continued promotion and hiring of people who look, think and act similarly to existing leadership. Yet, we know that inclusiveness and diversity make organizations stronger and that companies get stale through in-breeding. Leaders caught in the rip tide of the prevalent corporate culture, fail to recognize their implicit biases and the associated opportunity costs.
So, the next time that my loud-mouth, trouble-making co-worker gets on my nerves… I will ask him (or her) to go to lunch and talk about what is on their mind. Maybe, just maybe, we will both be pleasantly surprised.