Are you in the habit of jumping to conclusions about things other people do? If so, you’d be well advised to look before you leap!
Regrettably, mental laziness leads us to take everything we see and hear at face value. Moreover, it’s human nature to be suspicious. We’re very quick to add two and two. It’s unfortunate that we often come up with five.
And when we make a wrong calculation, someone else can end up paying a hefty price!
Once we realize, if we ever do, that we’ve been a little bit too hasty in passing judgment, the damage has already been done. Feelings of resentment and other powerful emotions aren’t the best thing for anyone’s physical or emotional health. More serious still is the damage done to our personal relationships.
Just consider this true story that I read this week.
You could argue that cases like this are so unusual that they don’t prove anything. True, such extreme incidents may not happen every day, although I’m not entirely convinced that they don’t. But countless less extreme, less dramatic examples of the same syndrome certainly do occur daily.
In fact, probably every minute.
A company that provided courier services had several employees working together in a sorting room. Among the packages they processed were thick and heavily sealed envelopes that held valuable items like jewelry or large amounts of cash. These items were not delivered to the recipients’ addresses, but were kept in a locked, secret drawer until the owners came to claim them.
One day, an envelope with a large sum of money disappeared. The managers didn’t suspect theft. All their employees were old timers with good reputations. No one else could have known how to access the secret drawer.
After an extensive search, they concluded that the money had been handed over to the wrong party by mistake and were just thankful that such losses were covered by insurance.
But when another envelope disappeared followed by another, management realized they had a serious problem. All the employees were summoned to a lie detector test and with the machine attached, were asked straight out if they had taken the money. What they didn’t bargain for was that seasoned liars, apparently, are sometimes immune to lie detectors!
The last to be tested was Joe, the most senior and probably the most highly regarded of all the staff. He was asked if he suspected any of his colleagues. Actually, he did. But since he had noting concrete on which to base his suspicions, he answered in the negative.
Bingo! Joe’s “dishonest” response was registered on the machine as a lie!
“So you’re the thief!” the interrogator cried. And like lightning, news spread throughout the organization, and beyond, that the mystery of the missing envelopes had been solved.
Fortunately, since there was no actual evidence in black and white, his employers weren’t able to fire Joe – at least not yet. But of course, his status in the company had changed. Suspicious eyes followed him wherever he went. Worst of all, his boss even informed his father-in-law that Joe was the prime suspect in the case.
All the while, Joe continued to carry out his duties with total devotion, even as envelopes continued to disappear and the stares of Joe’s colleagues and the whispering behind his back became more intense.
Eventually, a private detective was hired. He prepared an enticing envelope packed with green bills. The bills were sprayed with an invisible substance that left undetected traces on the hands of those that touched them.
Sure enough, that very day, the targeted envelope vanished into thin air. The managers rubbed their hands in glee. Next day, the employees were called into the office one by one and asked to hold out their hands in front of a special machine.
Joe was one of the first, but – nothing. The managers looked at each other uneasily. Later that day, six employees tearfully admitted to their crimes and were fired.
And what happened to Joe after that? Did he get a raise, or a promotion? A letter of apology? Anything at all to compensate for the mental anguish he had been wrongfully subjected to?
“All I got,” snorts Joe when his friends ask him these questions, “was an extra workload on account of the guys who were summarily dismissed.”
Do I need to comment further?
Most people understand what it means to give someone “the benefit of the doubt”. Even more, they’re fully prepared to put that principle into practice.
The problem is that they stubbornly refuse to believe that there IS a doubt.
You’re right about jumping to conclusions, but sometimes circumstances take it out of your control. This week another consultant put into a higher position than mine put out a directive that would have shut my overall effectiveness down almost totally. He had no idea what he was asking for, but put it out anyway. The guy I’m reporting to didn’t seem as though he was trying to do anything about it, even though this guy was in another department, so I felt as though I had no support, and was ready to move on; after all, why take someone’s money for no reason. Instead, I find out later that he was talking to the guy backchannel; he just never thought about telling me until he had gotten some things resolved. So, the circumstance brought me to the brink of leaving a high paying consulting gig because the other person wasn’t communicating effectively with me. In my mind, he should have come to me immediately and said he was going to get to the bottom of the directive, as we’d both gotten it at the same time. As we both know, bad communications have started wars; I’m glad the flag of peace was raised on this one just in time.