Too Good To Be True

“If something is too good to be true, it usually is.” Not sure who uttered this first truth bomb (I’d like to give them a high-five). It is one I have heard so many times. And one that I wish I had taken seriously as a young adult. Heck, even into my 40’s.

Sometimes we get so focused on what we want and when the stars align, it was meant to be. We don’t consider for a moment that all of those stars in a single line, that bright light which is getting brighter...might just be a train.

When this thought inspired me to write (back on track in a sec), I spent what seemed like forever, thinking about how this shows up in life. BUY THIS COURSE - GUARANTEED TO MAKE YOU $10,000. Stuff like this is served up in your feed every day. I thought of a movie that Sinbad and Phil Hartmen (RIP) starred in 20 years ago. [can’t think of the name]. Sinbad’s character was THAT guy. Chasing all of the get rich quick dreams. His living room was filled with multi-level marketing products, VCR tapes of infomercials, workbooks...it was a little sad to see the character struggling. (if you don’t know what a VCR tape is, you may want to stop reading.) lol. The point is, he was hypnotized by the idea of low-effort, high-reward; it never crossed his mind that something could be ‘too good to be true.’

Many years ago as a young manager, I can remember working with my team on sales training. It was a casual training session in which all participated. Hands-on you could say. I was a little nervous coming into the compensation review part of the meeting. For one, it is always a sensitive subject. However, in this session, I was trying something new. I wanted to get a group consensus. I wanted to leave with everyone voting YES in favor of a plan.

I did. Holy crap, I got 12 middle-aged men to agree on something relating to their compensation. Leading up to the meeting, my boss was giving me a hard time about my approach. I thought we would never make it out of the room. That no one would agree on the same things. Ha! I got it done.

It was almost too easy. That is what I thought that night. There was some back and forth and some friction...but nowhere near to the level I had prepared for, or my boss was sure of. Was I really that good?

NOPE!!!

I learned a very valuable lesson that quarter. After the meeting, life carries on. The reps are back in their part of the country doing what they do best. I made a point to circle back with everyone a few weeks later. Talking with Rick (let’s call him), the one I was sure was likely to push back, I picked up on something. He seemed distant and almost indifferent to what we were talking about.

When I shared what I was feeling/picking up from our conversation, he came clean. He had just, in the past 2 days, accepted an offer to work for our largest competitor. I was floored. Let me stop here and say that as a young manager, I missed so many signs that Rick was looking elsewhere. That he was not happy. Some because of his personality...mostly because I was a very green leader and still had much to learn.

[get to the point, Brad]

When I asked Rick about the sales meeting and his vote with the others on Comp Package A, he shrugged. “It was just easier to go along with everyone else.”

I learned something called “the Paradox of Unamininity.” When group consensus is needed, we all want a unanimous decision. We believe it means everyone is on the same page, everyone has bought in, and everyone is good to go. Like Sinbad, we can be blinded by this desire to have everyone agree and get a ‘quick win.’ I know I was back then.

Under ancient Jewish law, if a suspect on trial was unanimously found guilty by all judges, then the suspect was acquitted. This reasoning sounds counterintuitive, but the legislators of the time had noticed that unanimous agreement often indicates the presence of systemic error in the judicial process, even if the exact nature of the error is yet to be discovered. They intuitively reasoned that when something seems too good to be true, most likely a mistake was made.

• Excerpt from: The proceedings of the royal society

I think this idea shows up in many places today.?This article is a reminder to all of us to challenge unanimous thinking.?It might very well be truth and real thinking. It is worth pausing to ponder this possibility.

As for Rick, I asked him about the timing of his decision to leave and his mindset in/around the meeting. As it turned out, if we had met then, or within a few days, I would have had a good chance to influence his decision to depart.??