“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;”
- Juliet, from Romeo & Juliet
In this excerpt from Romeo and Juliet, Juliet makes a simple, but important point: the name for a person, or anything at all for that matter, does not determine the fundamental properties of the thing itself. Names, as with all words, are mental constructions that we create, and imbue with meaning. And real objects, or in this case, people, are real entities that have an existence separate from our experience of them. Thus, Romeo should not be defined by his name. Seems obvious enough, right?
What Juliet is somewhat exasperatedly decrying is the fact that our naming of a thing does significantly affect our experience of the thing. So, while it may be that Romeo’s qualities would remain unchanged if he were to have been named something other than Montague (“Smith,” perhaps?), his being named Montague carries certain meaning, shared by others, with which she must now contend.
A rose by any name…
Taking Juliet’s observation one step further, I suggest that “a rose by any name” ceases to be a rose at all. Not that the rose somehow disappears, but the introduction of language transforms our interaction with the rose from a sensory experiencing of the rose to a categorizing, classifying, or describing of our experience of the rose. The assignment of a name or description to the thing, in this case, a rose, takes us out of the external realm of physical realities and into the inner world of the mind–an artificially constructed world of symbolic representations, networks of associations, and, importantly, meaning.
So what does any of this have to do with the regular topics of my blog–learning from experience or being a more effective leader?
The point here is that because we live in this inner world of the mind, it is critical to understand how we have been hardwired to represent the complexity of our experience. Developing this understanding has concrete, practical implications for our effectiveness. The way in which we process information and the quality of our mental representations of that information can have a significant impact on our actions.
Put simply, bad mental models lead to bad judgments.
To make this philosophical musing practical, it helps to recognize that there are certain common and regularly-used shortcuts in how we all perceive and think about the world; Being aware of these shortcuts, or perceptual biases, can help you to avoid potentially costly mistakes.
A simple illustration
One of my favorite perceptual shortcuts is so deeply engrained in our thinking that it is referred to by psychologists as the “fundamental attribution error.” When we observe the actions of others, we naturally make attributions about why they are doing what they are doing. The driver who cuts you off on the freeway is doing so because, “he is an idiot!” The co-worker who shows up to the office late is viewed as probably “not committed,” or, perhaps “lazy.”
These examples highlight our deeply-seated tendency to attribute the behavior of others to internal, stable qualities of the other person rather than to external factors. We don’t pause to speculate about various explanations for the driver’s behavior: “perhaps he didn’t see us,” “perhaps he was avoiding a road hazard,” or “perhaps he was pre-occupied because he just learned of the death of a family member.”
While you may quickly dismiss these explanations as far-reaching (and you would be right), the driver’s behavior provides just as much evidence for any one of these external causes as it does to suggest that he or she possesses a character flaw. Yet, we consistently make internal attributions such as this without a second thought.
So, what to do?
Perhaps the most important take-away from this post is to be more thoughtful. Especially where the stakes are high. Are you operating on good data, or are you operating on your own assumptions, biases, and unexamined interpretations of the situation? Leaders, who hold influence over the careers and lives of others, have an extra obligation to act with appropriate information. I am not encouraging analysis paralysis, where the leader is always looking for more infromation before making a decision. Rather, I am merely reminding you to get the other side of the story. Especially when the stakes are high.
I drew the cartoon illustration for this post in 1990, while taking a course on organization theory as part of my master’s degree. Originally, I labeled the rose drawing as “CHAOS” and the word “rose” as “ORDER. I had intended that to be a cynical commentary on a reductionist view of the world. I later reversed these labels to make the point more directly: if we operate without constantly trying to improve our mental models of the world, we are living in a world that is increasingly disconnected from the real complexity around us. And, increasingly dysfunctional. I am not sure which label fits better for which figure….maybe that’s the point?
Filed under: Experience-based development Tagged: | experience-based development
