Moving Past Preconceptions

How not what: the hard part of implementing change is not figuring out what to do but how to do it. Here are some pragmatic action steps you can start taking today.?

Preconceptions can hold us back from being our best selves and living our best lives by keeping us stuck in familiar patterns that may no longer serve us. They make it hard to expand our social connections or adapt to new colleagues, because we’re invested in outmoded beliefs about who we like and who we don’t much care for. They squelch our creativity by causing us to look skeptically at new ideas and new practices rather than taking an experimental approach. In this way, preconceptions actually undermine our ability to learn.?

So how do we move past preconceptions? After all they can be deeply rooted and are easy to rationalize.

In my experience, the most effective way to address them is by taking action. Not by trying to talk ourselves out of them, or using logic or contrary examples to loosen their mental hold. But by simply trying out different behaviors and gauging their effect.

Inclusive Leadership

This approach works because acting differently increases the likelihood that we’ll elicit different responses from those around us. And these responses can then reshape our thinking in an organic way.?

We’re all familiar with how this works.

Say there’s a person at work that we don’t particularly like. When we’re around them, or when we think about them, a preconception or unconscious bias may kick in. This bias, which by definition lies beyond the control of our conscious mind, serves to reinforce our negative view. Our preconception may also shape our view of anyone else we view as the same kind of person, because of gender, ethnicity, age, political beliefs, or even mannerisms of speech.

But then we have an encounter with this person where we try, however awkwardly, to act in a more open and affirming way. As a result, we get a positive response. Soon, despite our initial aversion, we discover that we share a number of things in common with this person and revise our previous opinion ever so slightly. Over time, we may begin to rethink our assumptions about this person and about others whom we’ve assumed to be like this person.

This mental evolution reflects a simple truth: that it’s easier to act our way into new ways of thinking than it is to think our way into new ways of acting.?This insight is the foundation upon which cognitive therapy rests. It also shapes many 12 Step programs.

How to Bridge Workplace Divides

Simple behavioral tweaks can also help us become more creative by opening us to new ideas and practices. For example, a colleague might suggest a new way of approaching a customer group we’ve been trying to engage. We don’t think her idea will work because we once tried something similar, only to have it fail. So our impulse is to push back.

Yet what if, instead of defaulting to our usual practice of explaining why her suggestion won’t work, we suspended our skepticism and practiced a new behavior? What if we simply said, “Let’s give it a try. How can I help?”

Action is the key here. Not telling ourselves to keep an open mind, but demonstrating by our response that we’re doing it.

This approach actually runs contrary to a lot of advice we’re given these days. I frequently read books on leadership or attend seminars that basically just convey a lot of imperatives: Keep an open mind! Build relationships! Listen! Establish trust!

These are all worthy goals, of course, but what’s missing is the how. And the how is vested in action, as opposed to the what or the why.

And it is through taking action that preconceptions die.

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