Why is Everyone Agreeing with You?

It has been said that the sweetest sound for most people is their own name.?Related, we instinctively love when people agree with us.?The harmonious sound of “you’re right!” validates our opinions, feeds our self-worth, and adds a sweet dose of dopamine as a cherry on top.?We’ve spent a lifetime earning those doses of dopamine.?In school, they were reserved for the students with the correct answer.?In social settings, they were gained for being witty, clever, or funny.?As a young professional, they were the social proof that our egos desperately needed to validate our value to the organization.?When we become a leader, a transformation occurs that changes the rules of the game. Simply put, if you are looking for people to agree with you, obtain yourself a position of authority.??

When I was a young officer in the United States Navy, a Navy Captain nearing retirement once told me, “Matt, as you rise the ranks, you will find that your jokes mysteriously get funnier.”

The phenomenon to which I am referring is actually a cognitive bias called the sunflower bias wherein people will tend to agree with their boss.?The boss’ ideas seem like good ones, their jokes are funny, and their opinions are held in artificially high esteem. Please note, that I am not referring to the conscious decision that some people make to “kiss up” to leadership.?A cognitive bias occurs below our level of consciousness and adversely impacts our decision making.

As a leader, if you knew that there was an unconscious bias impacting your team’s decision making that you could reduce or eliminate, would you??You’d be foolish not to, right??Unfortunately, it takes a special type of leader to address the sunflower bias, because who doesn’t like being agreed with??The blind spot is further camouflaged by another type of cognitive bias – the confirmation bias.?Confirmation bias is the tendency to preferentially favor information that confirms our existing beliefs.?Most leaders are leaders because they have enjoyed a degree of success in their careers.?Therefore, it is reasonable for a leader to hold a belief that they are talented, skilled, and insightful.?Unfortunately, as true as this belief may be, as it often is, the combination of the sunflower bias and the confirmation bias degrades the performance, the communications, and the decision making of teams.

Before tackling what a leader can do about combatting these cognitive biases, we should take a moment to elaborate on why the consequences of the sunflower and confirmation bias are negatively impactful.?I would contend that leaders do two things.?One – make more leaders.?And two – make decisions.?Organizations entrust their leaders to make well-informed, thoughtful, and wise decisions.?In order to do so effectively and consistently, leaders should ensure that they are collecting the best information possible to inform their decisions.?Along with their own personal experiences, there is no better resource than the thoughts and experiences of their team.?Unfortunately, if we remain blind to the sunflower bias, we will not reap the benefits of these thoughts and experiences.?Often, leaders, especially strong leaders, can get away with this.?After all, they are the leader for a reason and it is not unlikely that the leader would be the best decision-maker on the team.?However, if a leader wants to optimize their decision-making ability and protect themselves from their blind spots, that leader should be doing everything in their power to extract every ounce of information from their team.

So what is a leader to do to overcome the combination of the sunflower and confirmation bias??Here are three ideas that I offer for your consideration.

Avoid poisoning the well.?To a reasonable extent and where possible, avoid sharing your opinion or inclination on an issue until you have received input from your team.?Once you express your opinion on a matter, the input that you receive will often be filtered through the sunflower bias.?This is not to suggest that you won’t have team members that will give honest feedback.?If you have developed a psychologically safe environment, you will absolutely get people’s honest feedback.?However, recall that cognitive biases operate beneath the surface of consciousness. Therefore, it is not eliminated simply by asking for and responding well to feedback. ?Sometimes, it is okay to poison the well by providing direction based exclusively on your own experiences and opinions.?This may be the case for an urgent matter requiring immediate action.?I am not making a case that every decision that a leader makes needs to include every ounce of information that exists on their team.?However, I would contend that some decisions do and, at a minimum, a leader should be aware of when they are poisoning the well and when they are not.?A word of caution: speaking last on a particular topic is a good start, but the varsity level solution is a bit more nuanced than this.?For example, be very careful about tipping your hand through your facial expressions, body language, and questions that you present to opinions as they are shared.?All of these can reveal your thoughts and poison the well.

Leverage the sunflower bias.?The martial art of Judo emphasizes combat techniques that use your opponent's weight and strength as weapons against him. The same strategy can be employed to combat the sunflower bias.?For example, let’s say that you’ve made a decision.?You’ve asked for input from your team, you feel like the decision was a collaborative one, but you want to eliminate the possibility that the sunflower bias is at play. I recommend asking the team a question that will engage the sunflower bias but flip the script on its output.?Specifically, consider sharing the following sentiment:?“I have this gnawing feeling that we are missing something.?Any thoughts on what that might be?” or “I feel like there is a weakness in this course of action that we haven’t addressed.?Any thoughts on what that might be?” or “I suspect there is a risk that we haven’t identified, what is it?” This technique is a powerful way to extract information that was previously blocked by the sunflower bias.

Be vulnerable and authentic.?For many reasons beyond combatting the sunflower bias, vulnerability and authenticity can supercharge a leader’s effectiveness.?However, as it applies to the sunflower bias, every leader should know and be comfortable with telling their team when they need help.?“Here is a problem and I’m not sure what to do. Can you help me?”?Consider saying this and then shut up and listen.?The more you explain what you are thinking and why you are leaning in one direction or another, you’ve influenced the feedback that you will get.?Additionally, the impact of being vulnerable and authentic in all of your interactions with your team can seep beneath the level of consciousness and eat away, but not eliminate, the sunflower bias.??

There are many cognitive biases that impact our decision-making ability.?The best leaders will become a student of these biases and arm themselves with a defense against them because the best decision-makers are often the best leaders.?Any incremental advantage we can gain in our decision making will pay dividends in our leadership career.?The combination of the sunflower bias and the confirmation bias is a particularly powerful one and one that is a blind spot more often than not.?I look forward to hearing your thoughts about combatting these biases