He waves at me and stands from a table outside the busy cafe.
“You’re taller than I thought you’d be”, he says, which I am used to.
We shake hands and sit. I am meeting the Director about a sensitive investigation they’d like me to advise on given the seniority and fragility of the people involved. He has asked we meet where no one in his office can see us, and so we do.
“Tell me about yourself, he starts” and I give a professional summary relevant to the situation. “And you? I ask. “Recently divorced - working too much. Trying to have more fun”. I’m surprised at the candour, but he seems nervous so I am glad to take the time. I conclude there will be something in the brief I am about to get that has vulnerability in it for him. He asks if I am married then withdraws the question in response to my surprise. “It doesn’t matter”. He looks away. My phone is buzzing on and off, and so is his, but neither of us touch them.
I ask how I can help. He says he’s flexible - he hasn’t done this before. I answer that most people haven’t. I ask him to tell me about his team and org structure. He answers for a while but at the first real pause, turns the conversation personal again asking where I live. Unfortunately for me, the suburb I live in is famous for its nude beach and he asks if I frequent it much. I’m pretty easy going but I also think I’m pretty much done here. This time when my phone rings, I ask if I can answer. It’s Ron - the Director, asking where I am. I look around mortified to see a stately gentleman standing by the edge of the tables on the phone in the sweltering heat looking a little frustrated.
Oh god.
I stand.
By this time my new buddy had checked his texts. He stands also and waves at his date. Thankfully he looks sheepish because I was starting to wonder if anything could make the man blush. I head over to this stranger who I now greet like a biological parent I am meeting at an airport for the first time. I’m mortified I’ve kept him waiting and I whisper urgently ‘Can we walk?’
This profound and eventually humorous experience (thankfully Ron had a sense of humour also) is one I’m happy never to have again, but it doesn’t remind us how many times a day we continue to find a way to justify our assumptions regardless of the emerging evidence.
Our minds are wired to make everything fit rules we already have in place.
It worked when we were not getting thousands of new data sources every day. But what was once a dust and tidy up is now due for a prefrontal spring clean that most of us resist. In the short term it can feel like chaos (I have to view Marty from Finance with open, curious eyes every time we talk instead of concluding he has never liked me).
We’ve all seen the research on unconscious bias and how in a world that starts to shape our feeds around what it knows we already believe, assumptions become facts.
In the longer term, the faster we review, the more we will thrive.
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