by Tyler Reimschisel, MD
In the last few articles of the Tips for High-Impact Teamwork series, I have been offering several practical steps we can take to mitigate egocentric and implicit biases that impact how we engage together in a team. In this article I want to address a common piece of advice we often hear about interacting with others, including our teammates, because it may not be as wise as we are led to believe.
You have probably heard the admonition that we should imagine what it is like to be the other person so we can better understand their perspective. We should try to put ourselves in their place in order to overcome the biases that we have in our own limited lived experiences. I certainly appreciate the wisdom of recognizing that our perspective may be partially incorrect, fallible, or frankly incorrect. In fact, that is exactly the reason I have written the last several articles in this series. I am not concerned about the motivation and intent of asking someone to imagine themselves as the other person. The concern I have is believing that we can actually do that accurately. Since we are not the other person, we cannot actually and truly know how the other person feels, sees the world, processes an event, or thinks about a situation. Believing we can is another form of the illusion of insight that I wrote about previously.
If we try to imagine the situation, previous conversation, dilemma, or other topic from the perspective of our teammates, co-workers, clients, or patients, it could be a helpful way for us to realize our perspective is not necessarily the only one, that others may have a different perspective that also has merit, and that no one involved has complete or perfect insight. In other words, this approach can help us understand ourselves better and appreciate our own limitations and fallibility. However, we should guard against believing that our earnest efforts in this regard will provide an accurate or complete understanding of the perspectives of others. Since this exercise depends on our own brains, including our explicit and implicit biases and other unique lenses through which we process our perceptions, it is impossible for us to actually experience the world as anyone else does. It is best to remember that my perception of another person’s perspective is not actually that person’s perspective, and believing our sincerity ensures the effectiveness of our ability to see the world as someone else does, is simply going to make us sincerely wrong.
I fully realize that this caution about perspective taking probably contradicts all the sage advice you have heard about honestly seeking to understand the perspectives of others. In fact, there is evidence that asking someone to purposely try to take another person’s perspective actually worsens their ability to see the situation as the other person sees it. For example, as he summarizes in his excellent book Mindwise, Epley and his colleagues had volunteers complete several mind-reading tests, such as predicting the emotion someone was feeling by looking at a picture of them or by trying to predict the thoughts of another person while looking just at their eyes. They found that asking the volunteers to imagine the world through that person’s eyes by “putting themselves in their shoes” decreased the accuracy of their ability to predict how the other person was feeling or what they were thinking (Epley 2014: 168). Other studies show that if your understanding about another individual’s situation is mistaken, then carefully and diligently imagining yourself in the other person’s situation will increase the misunderstanding (Eyal 2010 and Tarrant 2012). In other words, if our view of the other person is based on stereotypes, inaccuracies or partial viewpoints, then dwelling on those mistaken beliefs while trying to imagine their perspective is simply going to exacerbate misunderstanding.
You may be wondering what we should do if we want to better understand another person’s perspective but perspective taking is fraught with problems. Well, a better, more accurate approach is perspective getting. If you want to know how someone thinks about or sees an issue or situation, you should get their perspective by carefully listening to them explain their perspective, not simply imagining in your own biased mind what that perspective could be. One of my favorite studies about perspective getting is one that Epley and his colleagues completed (Eyal 2018). They had 104 romantic partners (most were married) complete a 20-question, Likert-scale survey about their attitudes towards different life questions. For those in the control group, one partner was asked to predict how the other partner would answer the questions. For those in the perspective-taking arm of the study, one partner was asked to intentionally adopt the other partner’s perspective by writing about a day in the life of that person, then complete the survey as if they were in their partner’s shoes. For those in the perspective-getting arm of the study, one partner was allowed to talk to the other person about the actual survey questions. The responding partner did not actually say which Likert score they would give to each question, but the partners did have a conversation about each question.
The error rate for the control group was 30%, but the error rate for the perspective-taking group was actually a bit worse at 35%! In other words, based on this and other studies, perspective-taking, even for the people who we probably know the best on the planet, can actually worsen the accuracy with which we understand their perspective. On the other hand, the perspective-getting group did the best with an error rate of about 15%. I think that is still a nonnegligible error rate, yet it was noticeably better than the other groups.
Another fascinating aspect of this study is the researchers asked what the confidence level that the members in the couples had with predicting their partner’s answers. All of them over-predicted the accuracy of their predictions (naïve realism and illusion of insight strikes again!!). However, those with the highest error rate (perspective-taking group) were the ones who were most overconfident, and those with the lowest error rate (perspective-getting group) were the ones with the lowest overconfidence. In other words, perspective-taking can worsen the accuracy of our perceptions of another person, and it certainly does not improve accuracy. In addition, it appears to lead people to being over-confident in the ignorance that they are unaware of! Not a good place to be when we are trying to improve our teamwork interactions.
If I really value the other person and want to accurately understand their perspective, I need to get it from them by talking to them, listening intently without judgment or critique, asking genuine questions and reflecting our understanding back to them until they agree that I truly understand their perspective. The effectiveness of this process is enhanced if we build authentic relationships with our team members and foster psychological safety so they feel safe telling us things that may be hard for us to hear or we may not agree with. Although this can require an investment of time, I believe that it is only through this robust process of perspective getting that I can start to have glimmers of how they perceive a given issue or situation. If we cannot devote the time to this process, then we should at least keep in mind that our understanding of how others see the world is almost certainly inaccurate as some points and frankly incorrect in other ways. Furthermore, the confidence we have in the accuracy of our beliefs about how others perceive the world is most likely overstated, especially if we have not listened carefully to them about their viewpoints.
As I conclude today’s article, I want to remind you that several times a month our office offers various ways for staff, students and faculty to connect with each other and with individuals in Cleveland and at other institutions. The upcoming Connections events includes the following:
April 17, 10 a.m.–noon EDT
Teamwork Workshop on Feedback and Difficult Conversations
In this workshop we will discuss deconstructive feedback and how it can be utilized effectively in a diverse team. You will then practice deconstructive communication in difficult conversations. The workshop is FREE. Location: TVUC Ballroom A on the CWRU main campus.
May 14, noon–1 p.m. EDT
Come to the courtyard of the Samson Pavilion to play various board games with others in our community.
May 15, 10 a.m.–noon EDT
Teamwork Workshop on Conflict Management and Negotiation
In this workshop we will discuss a deconstructive approach to conflict management and negotiation. The session will include case studies, practical application of conflict management and negotiation strategies, and role playing with highly-impactful debriefs. The workshop is FREE. Location: Samson Pavilion, Room 139, in the Health Education Campus.
June 11, noon–1 p.m. EDT
Come to the courtyard of the Samson Pavilion to play various board games with others in our community.
June 26, 10 a.m.–noon EDT
Teamwork Workshop on Conflict Management and Negotiation
In this workshop we will discuss a deconstructive approach to conflict management and negotiation. The session will include case studies, practical application of conflict management and negotiation strategies, and role playing with highly-impactful debriefs. The workshop is FREE. Location: TVUC Ballroom A on the CWRU main campus.
We believe these experiences will broaden your network and build stronger relationships. Please check out our Connections webpages for more details. The Huddle Calendar also lists upcoming activities.
References:
Eyal T and Epley N. “How to seem telepathic: enabling mind reading by matching construal”. Psychological Science 2010:21(5): 700-705.
Eyal T et al. “Perspective mistaking: accurately understanding the mind of another requires getting perspective not taking perspective”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2018;114(4): 547-571.
Epley N. Mindwise. Vintage Books, 2014.
Tarrant MR et al. “Social identification structures the effects of perspective taking”. Psychological Science 2012;23:973-978.
Todd AR et al. “When focusing on differences leads to similar perspectives”. Psychological Science 2011:22(1): 134-141.