Why Judgement is Poison—and How to Find the Antidote
Judgement is like a poison. When you jump to judgmental or defensive conclusions about a team member’s performance or attitude, it can affect and corrupt your leadership and your entire organization. It might even eventually spread to create a culture of disconnected, low morale, and high turn-over.
The Problem with Judgement: A Case Study
In my years of working with manufacturing teams, I’ve seen many cases where judgment poisoned an organization. One that sticks with me is the story of Kyle, a seasoned leader with over fifteen years of experience at his plant. Kyle was an expert in technical processes and great at forming connections with others. As a result, he was asked to bring his expertise to another plant in a different state.
When he arrived at the new plant, Kyle got to work. He identified issues, shared his solutions, and helped the plant come up with new processes to address their most-pressing challenges. After a few weeks, he was able to return to his own state and plant and left feeling great about his ideas and the other plant’s plans to make big changes.
But when Kyle returned to the other plant for a site visit a few weeks later, he was in for a surprise. Even though the other plant reported progress and changes, nothing had been completed! Of course, Kyle was upset about this. He felt like his time had been wasted and that the other plant didn’t appreciate all he’d done to help them. In his anger and disgust, Kyle’s mind went straight to negative, judgmental thoughts about the team at the other plant. Since they didn’t get the work done, he assumed they were lazy and lacked drive and accountability.
Curiosity: The Antidote
We’ve all had experiences like Kyle’s. When something goes wrong, it’s easy to shift into judgement mode... and when that happens, you can fall into a cycle of always telling your team what to do, rather than working with them to find the root cause and productive solutions.
There’s an antidote to the poison of judgement: curiosity! If you encounter a situation like Kyle’s, take a moment to pause. Remember that your team members are people, too, and search for a way for be empathetic toward their challenges. Change your mindset to see your team members, rather than just judging them for their mistakes or failures. Start a dialogue to connect with them and find the deeper issues.
To start your curious dialogue, try open-ended questions like:
- How are you feeling?
- What do you want to do?
- What is the greatest impact this team could have right now?
- What can we do right now to fix this issue?
Through questions like these, you can delve deeper. In Kyle’s case, curious conversations with the team highlighted underlying issues that were preventing the team for completing their work. Once they found the issue, Kyle and the team were able to work together to find a new, more productive solution, and were able to successfully complete their work. The change in Kyle’s approach, had a direct impact to the results of the plant, and the moral!
If Kyle had stayed in his judgmental mindset, he might have never discovered the right solutions. It’s a perfect example of the power of curiosity!