Working People: Attitudes can be hard to change

Posted: Thursday, March 01, 2001


Naturally this raises the question, what gives an attitude such power? Part of the answer lies in the source.

To a pilot an attitude is an orientation to the ground; to the rest of us an attitude is an orientation to life.

Then believe something else.

The story is told of a man who was convinced he was dead, and he was so bothered by this conviction he sought the help of a psychiatrist.

After many sessions the psychiatrist got nowhere. Finally the doctor told the man, "I want you to go home and for the next thirty days, twice a day, look in a mirror and say, 'Dead men don't bleed.' Come back in a month." A month later the man returned to the doctor, who pricked the man's finger and drew a drop of blood.

The most potent source of an attitude is personal experience.

In his extraordinary trilogy "Lord of the Rings," J.R.R. Tolkien quotes Gandalf the wizard as saying, "The burned hand teaches best. After that lessons about fire go to the heart." And yet it is quite possible for two people to learn two opposite lessons from the exact same experience.

One person jilted by a lover might learn to live alone while another might learn there are many other fish in the sea interested in his bait. Either way, it is difficult to argue with personal experience.

So what does this mean in business?

In their book "Corporate Cultures" Terrence Deal and Allan Kennedy offer a simple definition of "culture" - it's "the way we do things around here." And the way we do things at ABC company may be just like, a little like, or even a lot different from XYZ company.

The differences between the two reduce, ultimately, to the attitudes displayed in the behaviors of the people who work there. One employee in a position of influence who displays a "So what, who cares, go away you're bothering me" attitude can infect a whole shift and drive away customers in herds.

In a sense, a belief is an agreement we make with ourselves that something is true.

Herein lies an important clue about why attitudes are hard to change. If we must change a belief to change an attitude, we must violate an agreement we have with ourselves.

In a world that operates on agreements, violating one puts all our other agreements at risk.

And the people who are the most trustworthy are usually the last ones to surrender a belief, even if it is clearly wrong.

If you feel courageous, here's a test for you. Write down every belief you hold regarding your supervisors, your subordinates, your customers and your suppliers. After each belief, make a note of the behaviors those beliefs create. Then label the ones that interfere with the results you want.

If anyone knew the real source of all attitudes, changing them would be a cinch.

We don't, of course, since any attitude is the product of many factors, and each factor is the product of many influences.

Feelings create attitudes. Psychic pain, or pain that is not the result of direct neural stimulation, can cause a host of behaviors, including jealousy, revenge, conflict, withdrawal and suicide.

Expectations create attitudes. "My Fair Lady" is a wonderful update of the Greek myth of Pygmalion, the sculptor who fell in love with his own statue and whose love ultimately brought the statue to life.

In business, the Pygmalion Effect is the transformation of an employee from low-level to high-level performer through nothing more than the expectation she will do it.

But there are other sources of attitudes. Humans are social animals, and in our need for acceptance by some group we may adopt, or pretend to adopt, certain beliefs and behaviors the group displays. This is how people wind up in gangs; this is how hypocrites can command large attendance at their funerals.

Many of us are quite willing to surrender our own tastes and behaviors if maintaining them means being left out.

At the root of every attitude is a belief. If you belong to the Socratic school of thought you will draw a distinction between "knowledge" and "belief."

Knowledge is the product of experience, while belief is anything we hold to be true but about which we have no personal or direct knowledge. We all hold beliefs about what happens after death, but that's all we can ever hold since the experience that establishes certain knowledge also prevents us from sharing it.

"What do you think of THAT?" said the doctor.

"My God!" said the man. "Dead men DO bleed!"


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