Hi friends!
I hope you are settling into a “long winter’s nap” status. Me, I’m still vainly rushing around trying to kill everything on my to-do list. I’ll shut off eventually. (Or faceplant trying)
Today, I wanted to talk to you about a phenomenon I’ve noticed quite frequently in the course of running various creative teams. I’m calling it “The Default Effect.”
I didn’t invent this concept. In fact, you may have heard about “defaulting” in reference to moms being the “default parent” whenever the kids need something - from warming up a slice of pizza to playing 6 consecutive rounds of Uno - the kid often goes to that parent first. (Don’t I know it!)
In my observations, however, “defaulting” is not just a mom-kid thing, or a man-woman thing, or even a Godzilla-King Kong thing…it’s just human nature. Go figure.
Let me explain how this plays out in a team at work:
A couple of interns join the team. Let’s call them Intern A and Intern B.
Intern A does the first task they’re assigned pretty quickly or with minimal back-and-forth. It might be because they have better natural ability for the task, or maybe they had better instruction or support doing the task. Hard to say.
Intern B struggles or performs a little more slowly on the first task. It might be that they had incomplete instruction or have a bit less ability for the task. Again, it’s hard to say, because it’s the first task.
Cue The Default Effect.
The rest of the team starts to prefer the first person for most tasks. It’s gradual at first, but before you know it, Intern A is the “go-to” or Default person, and Intern B is avoided or ignored.
Intern A gets more and more practice, and becomes better and better, while Intern B gets slower and less confident. People have made up their minds: Intern A is “good”. Intern B is “bad”. Intern A gets all the “best” projects; Intern B gets the “lesser” projects.
Okay, there’s a lot of ways to think about this. It depends on which role you have in the scenario.
If you’re the intern (or the newbie): The first few assignments are critical for establishing the default social behavior of the others around you. Complete your work efficiently and check in before someone has to ask you to check in, especially if you run into a roadblock. Ask questions, be vocal. Establishing your reputation for quality and reliability is critical when you’re new (I know…it sounds like I’m a frickin’ Ford commercial, but it’s true). It’s way easier to set yourself up for success than to adjust perceptions after the default social behavior’s already in place.
If you’re already the “go-to” person. It might feel like you’re the most special person in your world because everyone always asks you to tackle the problems. But beware, because being the “go-to” person can easily become a drain on your life energy that actually stunts your professional growth (that deserves its own article - I’ll expand in a future post). Once you’ve established your rep as being capable, it’s time to introduce constructive boundaries. Part of being reliable (see previous paragraph) is knowing when you can’t take something on.
If you’re already the “ignored” person. You’re going to have a bit of work changing perceptions & behaviors, but here’s my advice: it is vital that you reach out to people with offers to help rather than waiting for them to reach out to you (and then to stay on task and complete the assignment once given). Also, keep watch for opportunities to arise, and speak up. If you’ve tried that and it hasn’t resulted in more involvement, something else might be amiss; try talking to your manager about it. If that isn’t helpful, I’d also recommend you to investigate other teams or new project - you’ll encounter less resistance with a new situation than you will trying to fight the default behavior of a whole team. And once your stock is up with another team, you might find the people who were ignoring you…pay attention again.
If you’re the person running the team: Some leaders might not feel this defaulting situation is not a problem. They might think: “Well, this is just Darwinian destiny. The weak fall behind, the strong prevail” - or whatever. But I’m telling you: if you’re running a team, you need to fight this defaulting behavior as much as possible. I’m talking switch people’s seats if you have to. Change their work assignments. Have them work with other managers or teammates. Anything and everything. Allowing these impenetrable cliques to form makes for an unproductive and unscalable work culture (because half the team has judged the other half “bad” and refuses to work with them - while meanwhile running themselves and their own reports ragged).
To put it into mathematical terms: Having four people who are all performing (EVEN IF they aren’t all at the same level of output) is still way more productive than having two people who try to do everything - while the other two are ignored.
Again, some people might think: “Just fire those two duds!” But, in most real-life managerial situations, getting headcount is rare. Meaning that if you dismiss someone, you can’t replace them easily. It can also be a lot harder to fire someone than you might assume. So it is prudent to be absolutely certain that there IS a serious problem with someone’s performance - and that the person isn’t just being ignored or underdeveloped due to default culture, lack of guidance, or a mismatch with a manager’s leadership style.
I’ll get off my soapbox now. Catch you in the next one!
XOXO,
Cathy