​I am in a leadership role with someone who responded with a nonverbal cue I often see in Millennial employees. We’d each agreed to follow through on some action items, and when we met to talk about results, he offered this response: “There was a problem,” followed by sucking air through his teeth as he winced.

I never like that response. It uses passive voice instead of taking responsibility and owning his role in the situation. And it sets a posture that assumes I’m dangerous, that I’m going to attack. The nonverbal behavior says, “I better brace myself for when you bite my head off.”

So now I’m backed into a corner. I can either be frustrated and come off as a heavy-handed jerk or I can say something weak and dishonest like, “That’s okay.”
 
My Wincing, Air-Sucking Business Associate brought 2 problems to the conversation, and I brought a 3rd one.

• Problem 1: He did not complete the action we’d agreed on, so now it isn’t taken care of.
• Problem 2: He let his own fear/threat/insecurities prevent him from taking responsibility and that affects my ability to trust him now and in the future.
• Problem 3: I let my own fear/threat/insecurities prevent me from effectively addressing the first two problems.

 
It’s natural to think the first problem, the uncompleted task is the most important one, and it would be more efficient in this moment to say, “Fine, I’ll take care of it.” The task gets done and I could think the problem’s solved. But it’s only a matter of time before those other two problems creep into future tasks and corrode our ability to work together.

To be truly effective and efficient over the long haul, we’ve got to start from the last problem and move up from there.
 
To Address Problem 3: Settle myself down
The thing I have the most control over is: me. Notice how quickly I felt threatened.  By feeling backed into a corner and defensive, I turned the conversation into being about me. This isn’t about me. He wasn’t talking about me. He wasn’t even thinking about me. He didn’t wake up that morning and think, “That stupid, Celia. I’m really going to stick it to her on this one.”

I should have recognized the power dynamics at play: I’m older, more credentialed, in an assigned leadership role, and I have all of the decision-making power. Of course he comes to our conversation feeling intimidated. He made a mistake and has no idea what I’m going to do about it.
 
To Address Problem 2: Deescalate the threat
We can’t make progress on that action item until we both access the logical, problem-solving parts of our brains rather than the self-protective survival parts. He needs to hear that someone in a leadership role believes he is capable. 

The truth is I’ve been in his spot before and what saved me was wiser, more experienced professionals believing I could right my wrong.

For example, I had trouble hitting deadlines during the final project for my Master’s Degree. My failure to complete action items affected my academic adviser and my boss, who’d promoted me with the assumption I would get that academic credential. I remember how intimidating it was to go into a meeting with either of them, and I remember how empowering it was to hear each of them say, “You can do this. I need you to do this.”

They didn’t stop there with some self-image pep talk. They knew I had to face the problem I created, and the kindest thing was not to rescue me from the task. They set me back to it, which is what we’ll look at next.
 
To Address Problem 1: Address the task
Put the action item back on him and turn the threatening conversation into a rewarding one. Nobody wants to let people down. When we make mistakes, we want to put them right. Find out what kept him from following through. Did he need different information but didn’t know how to find it? Was he stuck in a thought process and needed a new idea? Was he overwhelmed with other demands that should be addressed?
 
Here’s how that opening story could have looked if I took the effort to address all 3 problems.

I am in a leadership role with someone who responded with a nonverbal cue I often see in Millennial employees. We’d each agreed to follow through on some action items, and when we met to talk about results, he offered this response: “There was a problem,” followed by sucking air through his teeth as he winced.

So I took a deep breath, nodded my head and looked off to the side to soften my eyes and my tone of voice. (Settled myself down) Then I said to him, “Thanks for telling me. I really appreciate your honesty." (Deescalate the threat) “Let’s figure out what to do. Tell me what happened." (Address the task) Then we worked through the task until we identified the problems and came up with solutions.
 
Talk about It

• Tell about a time you missed a mark and how it was handled by those affected by your mistake.
• When have you done what Celia did and personalized someone else’s remarks to make them about you when they weren’t?
• Of the three steps mentioned in this article (settle yourself down, deescalate the threat, address the task), which is the most difficult for you? What’s that about? What makes it hard?
• How would using these three steps affect the next conversation you have with someone admitting his/her mistake? How could it affect your relationship with that person? How would it affect your ability to work together 6 months from now?  

It really was a dark and stormy night when my friend Sarah and I drove through the curves and hills on a backroad in Eastern Ohio. The kind of driving conditions that require extra concentration and make your body a little more tense than normal.

Another car came towards us with their bright lights on. I squinted and flashed my lights so they would adjust theirs. They did.

I was irritated by the other car making it harder for me to drive safely and said to Sarah, “When somebody’s driving along with their brights like that, don’t you think - what a jackass.”

She looked at me, confused, shook her head, and said “No.”

Sarah’s one of those nice people so I rolled my eyes in my mind and thought, “Oh please… everybody knows that guy’s a jerk.”

Another 5 minutes down the road, a second car came over a hill with its brights blinding our windshield. Sarah leaned forward in her seat and yelled, “Jackass!”

I laughed. I got the joke - and it was funny - even if Sarah looked a little foolish. Then I painfully realized her joking behavior is the actual behavior of the foolish voice in my own head sometimes.

A few minutes later, a car came around the curve and flashed its lights at me. I had my brights on. Busted. “Hmm,” I thought, “At least I’m not a jackass. I just missed my lights because I was being a good friend and focusing on the conversation.”
 
This story is an example of Attribution Theory. That’s when we attribute (or assign or give) a motive to someone’s behavior. The theory says we tend to assign internal motives to others’ bad behavior and external motives to our own.

For example, when I saw the bright lights, I assigned an internal motive to the driver. I went straight to that person's character by calling them a jackass. When I got caught with my bright lights on, I gave myself an out by assigning an external motive - it wasn’t my fault. The conversation, never mind my character as a good friend, caused me to have the brights on.
 
Attribution Theory shows up all the time at work. Think about typical internal responses you have to someone being late to a meeting (they are rude or bad time-managers or just plain selfish) compared to when you’re running late (I had to take that important phone call, there was something pressing that needed my attention).

Or maybe when someone hasn’t replied to an email (they’re a jerk for ignoring me, how unprofessional) compared to when you haven’t replied (I like to take time to write a thoughtful response, I have so many emails to get to).
 
Recognizing Attribution Theory at work gives us power to respond more competently and compassionately to ourselves and others. Sometimes behaviors (like bright lights, lateness or email response times) need to be addressed in ourselves and in others. If you start the conversation like you’re the good one in the story correcting the inept one (think about my knee jerk reaction to call other drivers “jackass”), you’ve set the conversation on a dishonest and unhelpful trajectory. If you can come to the conversation on even ground, recognizing that most of have to work on these things, you stand a better chance at positively affecting behavior and building the relationship.
 
Talk about It 

• Tell about a time you experienced Attribution Theory when you blamed someone else’s behavior on a defect in their character and/or gave yourself unfair credit that prevented you from taking responsibility?
• What makes Attribution Theory so easy to fall into?
• How can your team help identify times when you each act out of Attribution Theory?
• How would it affect your work and your relationships if you recognized Attribution Theory and worked to respond with a more balanced perspective?