Focusing on behavior is an exceptionally powerful practice, but it requires great discipline and real-time awareness of potential situations where a focus on emotion or imagination can easily become the standard… a standard which is useless to the recipient and therefore entirely ineffective

In the previous article on the principle of observation, we covered the difference between what you can observe about another person (their behavior) and your imagination’s inventions about what that person’s motivations or intentions are. We discussed the importance of discriminating between observation and imagination, and the conclusion was reached that we should focus on what other people do, not their reasons for doing it or imagined facts not in evidence. From this, we drew the following recommendations:

• When you wish to complain about anything, only speak of what you actually saw or quote what you heard someone say.
• Never guess why someone would write, say, or do something. You don’t know why. You will never know why. They probably don’t know why. Focus on what they do and what they say, not your imaginary reasons for them doing or saying it.
• Holding other people accountable for our reactions to what we observe is foolish. Offense is taken, not given. People who get offended usually are imagining a far more negative motivation for what they observed than is really there.
• Feeling certain about the accuracy of your imaginings is a sign of low intelligence. The more certain you are as to what another person is thinking or feeling, the less likely it is that you are correct.
• Assume everything you imagine about another person’s emotions, intentions, or motivations is wrong, and you will be right 99% of the time.

In a follow-up article called How to Focus on Behavior, we talked about how we might imagine someone to be angry. We might be entirely convinced they are angry because their behavior to us indicates anger, and yet that person might not actually be angry. We should, therefore, focus on the behaviors we observe, not the imagined background of emotions, intentions, and motivations. We could be, and often are, wrong.

But even if we are not wrong, asking others to change our thoughts or emotional states is ineffective. Another person cannot make us happy or relaxed. Our emotions emanate from within us, as discussed in the article on responsbility. We own those emotions, and only we can affect them. Other people do not offend us, we take offense.

That is a critical point to understand and it bears repeating: Other people do not offend us. We take offense.

We will be polite and professional understanding that others will not practice these principles of responsibility and observation. The reality is that most people are irresponsible and focus on their imaginations. Rather than living in the moment, they live in the future, the past, or some combination of grudging against what has been done and what they will do in response in the future.

But we control ourselves, we own our own emotions, and we own our imaginations. Professionals focus on the behaviors they observe as they observe them, giving them The Four Benefits of Focusing on Behavior:

1. Emotional Control
2. An Expanding Circle of Influence
3. Actionable Feedback and Criticism
4. The Ability to Elicit Feedback

Combining observation and responsibility, we focus on behavior.

Don’t Ask Why

An employee, Mike, was asked to put a report on his boss Steve’s desk at 9am. Mike walked to his Steve’s office at 8:30am to ensure he placed the report there early. The door to Steve’s office was locked. Turning to the desk of Steve’s executive assistant, the Mikie placed the report on that desk instead, figuring that the assistant would provide the report to Steve.

When he arrived at 9am, Steve found no report was on his desk. His assistant was out of the office, and he had not looked on that desk for the report. Steve fired up his email program and wrote to Mike:

Why didn’t you put the report on my desk at 9am like I asked you?

Mike read the email and started to respond to it. He then deleted most of his response and wrote another response. He then edited that message heavily, decided it was still too strong, and then went and got some more coffee.

Steve made two mistakes:

1. His desk was not available for the report to be placed on it, and he failed to check his assistant’s desk. Can’t Steve look up and see his own assistant is out and realize that things that his assistant makes happen auto-magically are not happening today and do for himself?
2. Steve asked the question, “Why?”

The answer to questions with why in them are almost always irrelevant to managers, especially if an employee has failed to do something. Asking why is asking for excuses - excuses which may or may not be fictional depending on the employee and the manager’s relationship to them.

Consider some of the unspoken answers to why questions below:

• Why didn’t you put the report on my desk? Because you were too stupid to leave your door unlocked.
• Why didn’t you come to the meeting on time? My third grandmother died this month. I’ve now lost a total of eight grandmothers in the last year. Why do you think? I overslept and don’t want to tell you.
• Why didn’t you provide status at 10am like I asked? Because I forgot? Lessee, I’m sure I can think of something other than ‘I am an idiot and forgot’ to tell my boss. Oh yeah. Because my car broke down and the dog ate my homework.

Asking people who work for you to tell you their inner motivations for why they did things is almost an invasion of privacy, and most people respond to it defensively when it comes from their coworkers. At work, reputation is everything, and people will act to protect their reputations… they will even risk their reputations by acting dishonestly.

The thing of it is… Steve doesn’t need to know why. He needs the report.

• “Where is the report that I asked for?” On your assistant’s desk. Your door was locked.

I don’t know why that seems less accusatory, but it does. It seems even less so when someone forgot something:

• “What is the current status?” Here it is.
  

Yes, at some point you need to address the fact that they did not provide the status on time, and that is exactly what I recommend you focus on: behavior.

Do not ask why. Instead, point out your observation: I did not find a report on my desk at 9am. I did not see status from you at 10am. You did not come to the meeting on time.

Many managers will want to know why these things happened. Some will ask why because they really do not think about the words they use when they confront their employees’ mistakes. Parents also make this mistake with their children. Think about this powerful analogy: “Why did you jump on the couch when I told you not to?”

“I don’t know.”

Often, we do not even know why we do things. It is humiliating to have that highlighted by others. Asking questions that no one wants to answer and therefore will be highly motivated to respond with a lie or with obfuscation is not effective unless you are prepared to investigate deeper. Most managers are not.

Some managers will ask why questions because they are concerned about their employees and want to find out if there is some extenuating circumstance. “Perhaps their grandmother died.” They don’t want to punish the behavior until they fully understand it.

However, the circumstances of the behavior really don’t matter. Professionals are responsible to fulfill their commitments. Asking for extenuating circumstances is the weasel manager’s way of asking the employee to provide some cover story that will absolve the manager from having to confront the misbehavior. Even if the story is true, even if the whole building blew up or burglars broke in and held the family hostage, asking why is not going to move you forward.

And, 99 times out of 100, the answer to why is not a really cool story about burglars and a hostage situation. Rather, it will be something that no one can use or do anything with.

Focus instead on behavior, not intentions, motivations, circumstances, environmental impacts, emotions, or other imagination. Focus on what you observe.

Examples:

• Mike forgets to bring you a report at 10am. “Mike, you did not bring the report.” is observation. Imagination sounds like, “Mike forgot the report.”
• You receive an email that you find to be rude. You observe, “The email did not contain some polite phrases it could have.” You imagine, “The email makes me angry.” or “The email is offensive.” or “The email is rude.”

Asking “Why did you forget the report?” combines both focus on imagination with focusing on the intentions of the person you are confronting. Asking, “Why did you send a rude email?” is another example of the same.

And yet managers and professionals across the world continue to ask why when confronted with behaviors that they do not like. Instead of trying to investigate the private inner workings of the minds of your coworkers, employees, or even your boss (big mistake there), focus on effectiveness. Focus on what gets things done. What gets things done when pointing out the behavior of others or dealing with it is to focus on that behavior.

Don’t ask why.