Keys to improving board meeting dynamics

The US psychologist, Gary Klein, has a reputation for being a great storyteller.  One story that he relates is about a time that his wife complained her front door key was sticking.  Klein’s response was to say “my key works well, your key must be bad”.

Therefore, the next day, Gary Klein dutifully went to the local hardware store to cut a copy of his key to give his wife.  However, when he returned home, he discovered that the new copy got stuck too.

Klein’s subsequent conclusion was that the key cutting machine must also be faulty, so the following day he went to a different key cutter who cut a second copy for him.

When he got home, he found that the second new copy got stuck too.  Finally, he tried his own key.  Paying close very attention to what was happening, he found that it was also quite sticky.

It then dawned on Gary Klein that he had been failing to notice how the lock had slowly become more and more fussy over time.  He had adapted to the lock’s fussiness, simply shrugging it off without further thought.  The Klein family now had four keys, and all of them were tending to stick.  Klein then got some lubricant, oiled the lock, and found that all four keys now worked perfectly.

Klein’s story is a somewhat trivial illustration of a serious issue that faces many school boards, which is a cognitive bias called the Fundamental Attribution Error.  This error in thinking arises when we blame other people’s traits, or external situational or environmental factors (like a bad key) for failures while ignoring or de-emphasising our own behaviours (symbolised by the faulty machine/lock).  In the case of Klein’s story, the problem was that he was overlooking a shared, subtle issue: the key itself was sticking for everyone.  This simple oversight highlights how any of us fall into the trap of overlooking simple, common explanations until we are forced to pay attention to an obvious, universal problem.

Klein’s sticky key becomes significant in several ways when we reflect upon the manner in which (some) school board members (sometimes) think:

• Initial Framing: Klein assumed his key was the “gold standard”, simply because it worked for him.  He framed the problem as “wife’s key = broken”, an assumption which by definition blinded him to other possibilities.  Can you think of the possible consequences in a board meeting if some members struggle to set aside their own personal assumptions and thus fail to explore other possibilities and viewpoints, especially if their personal assumptions explicitly exclude the viewpoints of others?
• The “Faulty Machine: Excuse: When Klein’s first copy failed, he didn’t question his original assumption.  Instead, he blamed the hardware store’s machine.  This reflects a practice shown by some school board members I have worked with over the years who attempt to “explain away” evidence which contradicts their own mental models, paying attention only to evidence that supports their pre-existing viewpoint.  This is a common logical fallacy known as confirmation bias.
• The Power of Attention: Gary Klein only discovered the truth when he stopped operating on autopilot and actually paid attention to the feedback his own hand was receiving.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if every member of every school board paid attention and reflected on what others are saying with an open mind?
• Adaptive Decision Making: The story sets up Klein’s main argument, which is that in ‘real world’ situations where things are messy and ambiguous (like school board meetings), rigidly following a plan (or a flawed mental model) inevitably leads to errors (see turns are permitted article).  True wisdom demands the ability to spot anomalies and adjust thinking when the “key” stops turning. 

Because all meetings depend on interaction among people with different assumptions, values, perspectives, and communication styles, it is almost inevitable that conflict will sometimes occur.  The impact and significance of conflict depends on what the conflict is about, how it is initiated, and how it is managed.  Suppressed conflict seems inevitably to surface eventually.  When one person raises a seemingly negative point of view, at least the others who are present have a chance to address the issue.

The creator of Dilbert, Scott Adams, coined the term “halfpinion” to describe this issue.  A halfpinion is an opinion formed by someone who has been exposed to only half of an argument.  An example would be “we should freeze school fees next year because it will make the school more affordable for families grappling with inflation” while failing to consider the implications for the school in covering expenses such as teachers’ salaries, resources for students, and so on.

Vanessa Toro, who describes herself as a Brand + Cultural Strategy Director and Indifference-Slayer, argues (without using the term) that halfpinions are increasingly becoming accepted in politics and in mainstream work (which would include school boards), and she explains this in terms of the binary thinking which computerisation seems to force upon us.  She argues that we built computers to think in binary, and somewhere along the way, we decided to join them.

Good-bad.  Right-wrong.  Hero-villain.  There is no longer any room for context, contradiction or taking time to think.  Perhaps pessimistically, Toro argues that discussions are no longer about truth, but about certainty, in which case certainty triumphs because it is easier than engaging in a serious conversation to discern truth.

Halfpinions are a common consequence of the issue Toro and Klein are both describing: the impact of an unwillingness or inability to set aside assumptions combined with narrow confirmation bias.  It is sadly often used deliberately as a powerful tool to shut down meaningful discussion or debate in a board meeting.

When attendees are unable to express differences of opinion (for whatever reason), covert forms of conflict often emerge which were not initially apparent, simply because participants’ assumptions have not been identified or clarified.  In such difficult situations, the meeting may degenerate into anarchy unless the conflict can be redirected towards productive discussion by a wise, adept chair who employs some or all of the following techniques:

• Reduce tension by injecting some humour.
• Respond to disagreements by asking questions, seeking clarification or examples.
• Insist that disagreements are expressed sensitively, focussing on the issue rather than the person.
• Identify and focus on the areas of agreement and common ground.
• Suggest that disagreements be negotiated away from the meeting, either in a conversation over coffee between those who disagree, or in more extreme cases, by setting up a task force to examine the issues and return to a future meeting with a recommendation.
• Insist that members follow the Code of Conduct.  Most school boards have a Code of Conduct to establish behavioural norms and enshrine expectations of proper behaviour.  A Code of Conduct is essentially a set of agreed rules designed to ensure ethical practices are followed by every board member.  Codes of Conduct can be helpful in overcoming the Fundamental Attribution Error that Klein described, but of course it is impossible to develop a set of rules that guarantees the elimination of bad decision-making!

The problem with open conflict at board meetings is that arguments (or, more euphemistically, robust discussions) are seldom effective when they are governed by rules, because rules tend to reinforce exchanges on the assumption that they will be adversarial.  Rather, arguments are probably best when they are governed by virtues.  In other words, if people have the appropriate skills and clear understandings of how respectful discourse should be conducted (and if they are good at doing that, they like doing that, they are interested in doing that, and they are genuinely interested in having open interactions with other people), then they are probably going to get on pretty well and have a productive discussion.  In such cases, the interlocutors probably do not need the sections of a Code of Conduct that provide rules relating to respectful dialogue at meetings.  For such people, the rules would be a blunt instrument compared with what they are already bringing as human beings into the deliberation.  

Unfortunately, not all board members bring those virtuous skills, often because they do not have the capacity to identify or understand their own unstated assumptions.  Not all board members share the virtue of knowing how to deliberate with other people.  More specifically, I have worked with board members who are not very effective at persuading other people, even though their own egos tell them otherwise.  Such people seldom even try to win arguments, but rather they simply try to de-fang or neuter their opponents.  In many board environments, there are attendees who appear to be more comfortable trying to win arguments by bluster, emotional appeals or through sheer authority, all of which are totally different processes from persuasion.  They are the complete opposite of reflective deliberation.  

This is what Gary Klein is trying to address when he reminds us that even experts (and yes, this includes members of school boards!) can spend unproductive time cutting the wrong keys if they aren’t willing to set aside their unfounded assumptions and question their starting premises.

- Dr Stephen Codrington