Potentially harmful: coach, trainer, consultant and the "guru syndrome"

To the many people who might think and say that we are governed by power, money and sex, I would reply that our world today is governed by "information", which confers power that can be exercised in a variety of ways. Are these people wrong? No, of course not, and there are many examples, in all areas of life and in all disciplines, of situations illustrated by this statement, even if for reasons of media coverage we will retain more of what has been made public, for good or bad reasons. It is the political sphere that probably breaks all records.

One of the elements of a group's functioning is gregarious positioning, which allows us to "perceive" the place we occupy in it as well as that of others. It results from this our degree of spontaneous comfort within the entity (family, circle of friends, association, club, team, department, company...) as well as our a priori degree of confidence towards the individuals who compose it. In each of our interactions with others, this positioning determines the balance of power and/or cooperation that develops. This social regulation between individuals "of the same species" has multiple objectives: to limit internal conflicts, to ensure individual and collective survival. It is responsible for the construction of the hierarchy in the group and the level of confidence/mistrust in relation to the other members.

In addition to these essential ingredients that partly illustrate the way our society works, let's add what appears at the beginning of this article: information, from its genesis to the achievement of an effect on its targets through transmission and communication channels. And there is much more to write about than just an article, of course. In particular, since the advent of the internet and social media, our world has seen an explosion of information flows. And like anything that takes on uncontrollable proportions, this is one of the cornerstones of the exercise of power.

It is true that we all communicate, at various moments of each of our days, in private as well as at work, through the exchange of three distinct sets of information, in different quantities depending on the context: facts and data, opinions and judgments, emotions and feelings. There are professions practised by people who handle information much more than others, or even manipulate it. The difference between the two verbs will be from my point of view characterised by the intention at the base: benevolent (aiming at playing a role in improving the other's situation), selfish (aiming at playing a role in improving one's own situation without caring about the other's) or even malicious (aiming at playing a role in deteriorating or even destroying the other's situation). At the top of the list are journalists (television, radio and the written press), teachers (professors, trainers, consultants, coaches), marketeers, advertisers, politicians, scientists (probably to a lesser extent), salesmen, etc...

It will be easy for us to incriminate these actors of the press, eager for thunderous scoops and driven to flush them out (or to fabricate them?), influenced or constrained by their editorial line, to depict a situation, under a particular light, omitting certain details, adding others, transforming the latter, and thus inserting, in addition to exact things, erroneous, distorted, biased, altered, falsified elements, in the mind of the receiver, with a lot of personal and interpersonal risks. And this is where the Internet and social networks come into play, promoting the proliferation of what I would call informational viruses.

In a different way with similar effects, scientists play a more important role than what we think in the creation of certain beliefs, sometimes pushing to excess (or feeling pushed to the extreme) their duty to publish and mediate the fruit of their work. Whether in a university, in an independent laboratory, or in the ranks of a company, they know that their progress depends in part on what they will publish and thus offer to the criticism of their peers. The world in which we live puts an intolerable pressure on our frail shoulders, which defines in our minds the societal importance of surpassing ourselves, of acting in a climate of "urgency", based on information that may be fragmentary and not always sufficiently verified.

It will probably be useless to convince anyone of the role played by politicians (and their teams), who, like members of the press, are led to manipulate information to influence the masses by respecting the party's charter and programme and, more broadly, their cultural, religious, philosophical and sometimes doctrinal elements. I will certainly not dwell on some of their highly questionable or even unacceptable practices. We can say, without too much risk of generalisation, exaggeration, stereotyping or labelling, that egocentrism reigns in master and malevolence is just waiting to be expressed.

I would like to zoom in on the consultant, trainer, coach and other facilitator who play a role more often than we would like, close to that of the sorcerer's apprentice. It is indeed tempting to declare oneself an expert in a subject, in the light of a book read or a training course followed. Understood? Retained? Presented in an appetizing way for the apprenticeship ? Sometimes there is a form of intellectual arrogance that translates into the impression of having grasped everything, memorized everything and being able to talk about it. One of the causes of this problem is the role played by cognitive biases. There is a whole series of them that separately and in combination influence the way we practice these professions.

It is indeed complicated to define one's real level of expertise in a given field, since there is very rarely an objective scale that allows us to compare the knowledge, skills and degree of expertise of two people in the same field. The simple fact of using the term expert is therefore delicate. The universal principle of authority emphasizes the influence that clothing, titles and general appearance have on others. We know that their impact is based on psychological factors. If they are not real, at least not always, we, trainers, coaches, consultants, sell ourselves partly thanks to these elements. It's only a small step to get us to believe it ourselves.

Here are 9 cognitive biases that play an important role in what I call here "the guru syndrome": 

The confirmation bias: it consists in taking into consideration only the elements that confirm our theses, hypotheses, choices and decisions in such a way that any information that does not go in this direction will be rejected, without the person even realising it. And that is one of the dangers that hangs over these professions. If a book represents a reference for us, it will be more difficult for us to take into account something that is not in line with that book. If we are marked by a course, we risk dismissing anything that deviates from what it advocates. If we hold a person in esteem and call him or her a referent, it will be more difficult to consider opinions that are not in line with his or her own.

The availability bias: this consists in relying on directly available information. It acts in at least two different ways. The first by restricting our search territory to other elements by limiting it to the immediate environment. The second is keeping in mind anything that is more salient than another and that occupies the mental space to the point of forgetting to look elsewhere as well.

The self-indulgence bias: the tendency to take credit for one's successes and attribute one's failures to unfavourable external factors or to others. Therefore, if a training course has resulted in very good évaluations, a coaching has given results, a consultancy mission has allowed to move forward, this may only be attributed to the speaker. If, on the contrary, a training course resulted in average or bad evaluations, a coaching did not generate any change and a consultancy assignment did not make progress, the risk is to attribute this relative failure to the participants, to the tools, to the non-involvement of the senior executives, to the bad definition of the starting perimeter...

Overconfidence: this is the tendency to overestimate one's skills, expertise and knowledge. It leads us to believe that we have better abilities than the average person in the same job. So, if a trainer considers himself to be among the best in his category, how open will he be to suggestions? How will he or she react to tools, techniques, methods, models that are unfamiliar to him or her? How will he or she position himself or herself in the face of objections? If a consultant is confronted with a client's refusal because he does not believe in his method, how flexible will he be in relation to a suggestion that does not go in his direction? We can of course link this cognitive bias to gregarious positioning.

The illusion of knowledge: it consists in basing ourselves on elements that are so ingrained that they have become indisputable and exact in our minds, even if they are erroneous beliefs. To apprehend a reality on this basis is not conducive to the collection of further information. The situation is therefore wrongly judged to be similar to other cases we have experienced or know about and leads to a reaction that comes from our habits. In this way we risk under-exploiting other possibilities.

The mere exposure effect: this is the increase in the likelihood of feeling positive about someone or something simply by repeated exposure to that person or object. When we listen to music for the first time, we may not like it. If we hear it several times afterwards, it is possible or even likely that it will sound more familiar. If a trainer has seen and heard the same formula, the same method, the same model many times, he may consider it better than another and may impose it on his participants.

The negativity bias: giving more weight to negative experiences than positive ones and remembering them more. In this, it is related to the availability bias. If a coach encounters a particular situation that reminds him of a bad experience or failure, it is possible that he lets himself be exaggeratedly influenced by the past and the risk exists that he avoids certain questions, prevents himself from taking a particular stance, under the pretext that it refers to the failure or past experience.

The self-fulfilling prophecy: a fearsome mechanism that appears at the start of a personal belief or information that we are confronted with. The fact that we expect more of an event such as "predicted" influences our behaviour, which increases the probability that the prophecy will be fulfilled. A trainer who receives information about the "inculture" of his participants, a coach who is informed that everything has already been tried with the coachee without result, a consultant who learns that the situation he is facing is considered desperate, risks either lowering his own level of demands or, on the contrary, doing so much that he will appear tyrannical.

And a last one, the Halo effect: who can play multiple roles as well for the coach/trainer/consultant as for the interlocutor. If the trainer, coach or consultant makes a very good first impression and is aware of it, it is possible, knowing that the positive halo effect plays in his favour by increasing the perception of his qualities, that he will give in to a form of ease and will be more categorical about his ideas and tools. If, another example, the participant, the coachee or the client appears to us to be unsympathetic, which leads to a negative halo effect, i.e. the impression of everything that the person says or does will be less or not appropriate, interesting, correct and in this case too, this can lead to a hardening on our part.

I already said it in a previous article, and I am risking this repetition, so important it seems to me. I recently heard and saw on television, during the news, a short excerpt from a report in which an economics professor from a renowned Brussels business school spoke of "reptilian intelligence". If the term reptilian had its hour of glory after the publication by Paul MacLean of his theory of the triune brain, it has been widely criticized and contested afterwards by many other scientists and by experiments carried out with functional magnetic resonance imaging machines. On the other hand, we can rejoice in what this approach has brought: an opportunity to apprehend complex concepts through simple "images". Are we therefore swimming in science fiction with the term "reptilian intelligence"? Yes, unfortunately. The tragedy is that, this kind of assertion put in the hands of students or lamda spectators, not sufficiently informed and/or unable to exercise their critical thinking, enters through the ear of the container, penetrates the brain and risks staying there, transformed into a belief and widely disseminated by radio, television, newspapers and magazines, Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter and other social media. The resulting tidal wave cannot be stopped.

In the same spirit, some people who represent the professions we are talking about here sometimes (or more often) use imprecise, inappropriate or even erroneous vocabulary. For example, they talk about attitude or behaviour, management or leadership, people management, manager coach, test or questionnaire, self-diagnosis..., during their interventions and slip into the minds of those who listen to them countless approximations, sow doubt and cause intellectual damage. The difficulty is great and the challenge difficult to overcome. Thanks to their reputation, their hora, their charisma, their titles, their clothes, the way they are presented..., they possess many levers that act on their power of conviction and their ability to influence, like the "nuisance" power of certain journalists or politicians, whether they intend to cause harm or not, for that matter.

It is also a question of ethics in view of the responsibility that these people bear towards their students, participants. In this connection, some interlocutors have already told me that as long as the participants were happy, that was the main thing. I am very uncomfortable with this kind of reactions, which seems to me to be a sign of a difficulty in questioning oneself as well as a relative indifference to the accuracy of the information shared. To exaggerate the issue, we could therefore tell a bunch of nonsense, and fill our interventions with false data, incorrect reasoning and fallacious arguments as long as our interlocutors remain satisfied. That, of course, makes no sense.

In conclusion, here are a few ideas on how to hope to get through the sometimes extremely dense and tight meshes of the "guru syndrome":

• Understand how to better co-exist with cognitive biases and how to reduce their harmful effects.
• Practice modesty, as long as it is not paralysing and provokes systematic questioning which would result in a lack of self-confidence. It is more likely to allow us to take a step back and not to refuse to approach any situation from another angle.
• Show benevolence remains a sovereign basis. If it guides us towards a positive intention towards our interlocutor, we are more likely to be open to other opinions and approaches.
• Try first cooperation as it consists in exploiting (in the good sense of the word) the relationship to the other in order to enrich it and to reflect not on the basis of positions but on the basis of interests and, in particular, those that are common.
• Exercise critical thinking by refusing to limit oneself to one book, one language, one source, one opinion; by checking the credibility of sources; by taking a step back from one's emotions and opinions and by remaining open to anything that challenges our views.

As a trainer, coach or a consultant, I consider the real expert to be in the group. Indeed, there is a big difference between "negotiating well" and "being an expert in negotiation". If the nuance escapes us and we confuse the two, we reinforce our "guru syndrome".

This is one of the reasons why it is quite fortunate that trainers, coaches and consultants spend part of their careers as employees in various organisations. Life in a company offers multiple opportunities to better understand the notions of hierarchy, performance, motivation, empathy, assertiveness and to better grasp emotional situations such as conflicts, complaints and internal competition. Of course, this does not mean that those who have not been through companies will not be able to understand. It does, however, help us to identify the difference between acting as a leader and being a leadership expert.

Let's "leave" our ego at the entrance of the room where we intervene. This expression dear to Daniel Goleman deserves all our attention because the ego is a source of traps, difficulties, conflicts and failures.

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