Does your organization have more human sunflowers? how to overcome

Sunflowers get their name for their tendency to follow the sun. They face the sun as it rises in the east and follow it across the sky throughout the day.

Have you come across Human sunflowers in your organization?

In the corporate environment, Sunflower Bias?was coined to explain how some team members always seem to follow the leader, they rarely push back, rarely contribute any original thought, and rarely speak until the leader has spoken.

Sunflower bias is a cognitive bias in which people tend to agree with the most dominant or assertive person in a group. In the same way, people with sunflower bias tend to follow the lead of the most dominant person in a group, even if they disagree with them.

Before we criticize this bias harshly, it’s worth remembering that we have created this behavior at the early stage of our life and followed it at work

• In school, students are discouraged from challenging their teachers. The best grades go to those who learn what the teachers want and then give it to them. It’s like a sunflower training program.
• At work, the boss is the new teacher. Practices including confirmations, Salary Revision, Promotion recognition, and even leaves are centric around the boss’s mercy. Employees know that the best way to make it through is by supporting the boss and not making waves. Again, sunflower indoctrination.

There are several reasons why sunflower bias is so common in the workplace and the prime reason for heliotropic behavior present in a team or in an organizational culture is “Psychological Safety” There are warehouses full of research on what makes a high-performing team, and the consistent result is one of psychological safety. The best teams feel free to express their ideas without exposing themselves to ridicule. They’re able to take risks without fear of negative consequences.

It makes sense! In a culture of blame and punishment for mistakes obviously, any individual will take a risk-averse position. If bringing up new ideas and concerns is met with ridicule and humiliation, very few volunteer for new ideas and concerns. No one wants to stick their neck out when a?toxic culture?will turn it to your disadvantage.

It’s much safer to be a sunflower and just follow the boss. One?Gallup poll?showed that only 30% of employees strongly agree that their opinions count at work. Despite knowing the importance of inclusion and condor, we still struggle to create it. And if we want to turn this around and overcome Sunflower bias, it starts with certain aspect of leadership.

If you’re a leader, you’ve probably heard the quote “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Unfortunately, when it comes to which one gets more attention from leaders, it’s strategy, without question.

This is because, to most leaders, strategy is easier to manage. What many leaders fail to realize is that if they aren’t managing their culture, their culture is managing them. If you have any doubt as to which category you fall in, ask yourself this question, is your culture working for you, or against you?

It’s the primary job of the leader to create an environment where people can give?candid feedback, openly?admit their mistakes, and learn from one another. It’s the only path to gain creative input, drive innovation, and build engagement across your team/ organization.

Been in corporate for the last 18 years associated with leading Conglomerates, Promoter Driven Organizations, PE fund companies, and Fast-paced starts up’s - Sunflower Bias is a very common phenomenon, and have personally been a victim of it. From the experience of being a victim and a flip side of a Change Agent worked on interventions to alleviate this bias below are my few thoughts that a Leader should reflect in the workplace. It all comes back to leadership to alleviate this bias through positive behavior and change in them.

Start by Recognizing the Gap (and Maybe Apologizing).?

if you are a leader and haven’t been encouraging these behaviors, acknowledge it. Members of a team want to see ownership in their managers, and they want to see a commitment to turning around an imperfect situation. Publicly acknowledging this gap also gives everyone a chance to remind themsf they start to backslide into old habits.

Ask Good Questions.?

People will understandably hesitate to begin volunteering candid feedback. Don’t expect them to. Start by asking people for their input and showing that you’re interested in their ideas.

Yet it’s important to remember that not all questions are created equal. Questions that focus on assigning blame will cause people to clam up. Questions that start with Who, Why, or When tend to put people on the defensive. Who is responsible for this? Why aren’t finished? When will this be complete??It’s not that you don’t need to know these answers, but they are often better served for individual discussions. Personally, I get switched off with these W’s and H Questions!

A better option for encouraging candor instead of fault finding How and What questions to inclusive questions such as What can we do next? How can we move forward??These focus more on the future and do more to encourage people to share their ideas.

Respond with Empathy.

Of course, none of these matters unless you respond well once people begin sharing their ideas. People may doubt what you say, but they will believe what you do. As people begin to open up, offer feedback, and take intelligent risks, they’ll watch for how you respond. That response will be the basis of how they behave in the future.

If you condescend to people or criticize their ideas, it will outweigh any number of speeches on the importance of psychological safety. But if you respond with empathy and understanding, you reinforce the idea that you’re all in this together. You show people that you understand their concerns because you have experienced them. And there are a few better ways to encourage constructive candour and drive employee engagement.

Understand the thin difference between Accountability and Blame

In corporate very often we came across “employees must be held accountable for their actions”, what it means is that the “employee is to be blamed and be punished for their actions.” Blame is focused on the past and on punishing the offender. The thinking behind assigning blame is that identifying the offender and punishing them will correct the poor behavior.

The reality is that the only thing people learn from being blamed is to become better at hiding their mistakes. Historically, most workplace problems have been blamed on “human error.” Why? Because it’s easy. It’s human nature to take mental shortcuts and look for?simple explanations?and scapegoats.

A culture of blame is inherently inefficient. You can evidence the presence of the three self-destructive cycles in a toxic blaming culture – The cycle of Inaction, The Cycle of Ignorance, and The Cycle of Infighting. These Cycles of the 3 I’s will detract the organization to lower performance and over the period to non-existence.

Accountability is not the same thing as blame or punishment. Accountability means taking responsibility for results, good or bad. It means finding solutions to problems and applying lessons learned to improve future results. Being accountable is constructive because it focuses on the future.

?The following seven practices a leader should follow to lay the foundation for creating a culture of accountability.

1. Delegate effectively.?This includes taking the time to clearly articulate the desired results in writing, specify the delegate’s decision-making authority, provide required resources, and provide regular feedback. Most, if not all, problems would be mitigated if leaders followed this pattern of delegation.
2. View problems as learning opportunities.?There is a saying “Where no problem is perceived, there can be no improvement.” Never forget that we are all still learning to do our jobs better, and we learn best from our mistakes. Most importantly, make sure the people you lead know that you hold this belief.
3. Lead with inquiry.?Don’t assume you have all the facts. When you ask questions with a sincere desire to learn, you are less likely to provoke a defensive reaction.
4. Focus on the problem and solution, not the person.?Focusing on the issue or problem, not on the person, creates an open, trusting, communication-rich environment.
5. Look for breakdowns in the process.?Flawed systems, or processes, contribute to most workplace problems. We tend to assume that the cause of problems happened right before and in the same vicinity where the problem occurred. Think beyond the obvious to discover contributing factors separated from the problem by time and proximity. Poor leaders ask “Who’s at fault?” Strong leaders ask “Where did the process break down?
6. Act like a leader.?When things go right, good leaders deflect the credit. When things go wrong, good leaders take all the responsibility. That’s tough, but that’s the price of admission to leadership.
7. Ask yourself “How did I contribute to this problem?” Asking yourself this question will help you apply all the other “Six” accountability practices.

Promoting Human Sunflowers or inculcating a candor environment that promotes self-accountability is purely in the hands of leaders. Be mindful of the new talent generation who are more purpose-driven than previous generations, and they are looking for work that is meaningful and that aligns with their values. They are also more independent and self-directed, and they want to have control over their own lives.

It is time for leaders to re-engineer their outlook on managing their human talent. Start nurturing a culture of Self Accountability.

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