Page 88 - Fearless Leadership

The Need to Be Right 75

THE MECHANISM: THE CLOSED LOOP OF
AUTOMATIC LISTENING

The mechanism that explains the need to be right and keeps it in place
is automatic listening. Automatic listening is the process of unconsciously
filtering and distorting information to support your views and beliefs.
From start to finish, the entire process is designed to give validity to your
interpretations. It ultimately shapes how you behave and the choices
you make.
Before we explore how automatic listening works, let’s look at how the
mind deals with information. Think of the content of your mind as “stuff.”
This includes all beliefs, opinions, points of view, judgments, assessments,
prejudices, delusions, and positions.
Our stuff is made up; it is invented. It is an interpretation of reality
and not reality itself. It takes a lot of rigor to separate what we conjure
up (our interpretation) from what is really happening (the facts).
Automatic listening starts in the mind as a “wonder about” such as “I
wonder if I can trust Jack” or “I wonder if the company will really suc-
ceed.” But early doubts pave the way for fixed thinking and harsh judg-
ments. Since there is not enough time to do exhaustive research on every
situation or person you encounter, you pay attention to trigger features—
small aspects of a larger situation used to infer additional information.
Trigger features are an automatic means of eliminating ambiguity, mak-
ing a decision, or inferring a judgment.

Automatic Listening
Filtering and distorting what you hear to support what you believe

When you stop “wondering,” you euphemistically say “I have made
up my mind.” It would be more accurate to say that “I have made up
my story” because what you have done is invent your own interpretation
of reality.
The automatic listening cycle is a closed loop. Once it has begun, all
information and evidence are distorted to support your beliefs. In this way,
the cycle is self-fulfilling—you get what you believe. Without inter-
vening and breaking the cycle, it gains momentum and rigidity over time.