People Feel About Us How They Feel: Regardless of What We Think
People aren’t always accurate about us in their assumptions. Their past experiences with other people and their triggers and subsequent emotions overwhelm their thinking competency and they make objectively false conclusions. Yet at times, it’s also true that we can be talking through our blind spots and not see that complaints are an accurate representation of the facts, evidence and proof.
Me included. A story I read this week reminded me of this truism.
An organizational leader, Woody Johnson, the chairman of the New York Jets professional football team, got defensive and called a poor report card about his franchise “totally bogus” for the “F” grade it received on certain satisfaction metrics.
What was bogus, inquiring minds might want to know. Johnson had a curt answer.
"The whole thing,” he responded.
That is an emotional conclusion, not one where poise and humility is being exhibited. It’s difficult to learn and successfully respond and solve problems when we struggle through this type of thinking and communication.
What did Johnson say was most eating at him?
He didn’t like "how they collected the information (and) who they collected it from. (It) was supposed to be according to the agreement we have with the league. It's supposed to be a process [where] we have representatives, and they have representatives, so we know that it's an honest survey.
"And that was violated, in my opinion. I'm going to leave it at that, but I think there are a lot of owners that looked at that survey and said this is not fair, it's not balanced, it's not every player, it's not even representative of the players."
But, What About…
It is reasonable to at least ask if Johnson is more upset at the process than the findings. No, he doesn’t think what was reported was “fair” and that is to be respected and maybe even legitimate, yet what about those critical revelations and the amount of people in unison expressing the complaints?
Were they dishonest or factual and truthful? The likelihood is high.
To his credit, Johnson indicated that he will take measures to improve communications and stated that he will remedy problematic deficiencies with the stakeholders who were polled inside his organization.
Again defensive, he said that if there are problems, “let me know” because, “I can't do anything if they don't tell me." The reality is however that blame doesn’t land on the shoulders of those who responded to the survey. It’s a management shortcoming.
Communicating “let me know” and “I can’t do anything if they don’t tell me” shows that Johnson (the owner) and the organization don’t have helpful processes set up and working to keep that free flow of communication throughout the hierarchy.
There also could be, who knows, psychological safety concerns when the highest-level boss is the owner and a billionaire.
However, again to his credit, if it’s more than lip speak, Johnson said "the essence of the game is the players. That's what it's all about. Anything we can do to make their lives and their families better, we're going to do."
You can see clearly in that interview with the press that Johnson starts with hurt and unprofessionalism. My first thought about his reaction was, “he’s full of baloney.”
Yet, if you pay attention, you then you see him mentally processing, going back and forth between defensiveness and acknowledgement that all might not be well and some areas need addressing and improved.
Johnson also seems to be, even if it’s his responsibility or that of his fellow leaders, upset because he feels blindsided. Surprise, especially when it leads to judgment that doesn’t feel “fair” can lead us to respond in a way that isn’t well received by those around us and doesn’t best serve us.
Many of us have reacted in this manner. This is when we have to remain poised and focus on the emotions other feel, their unmet needs and the collaborative remedy.
The Reputation Intelligence newsletter (on Substack and LinkedIn) is produced by Michael Toebe, the specialist at Reputation Intelligence, a decision-analysis and communications practice that serves individuals and organizations with proactive and responsive actions to build, protect, improve or rebuild credibility and trust.
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