Fundamental Attribution Error - Patrick Lencioni
In the video “Fundamental Attribution Error,” Patrick talks about his experience of working with teams. He says, “when I work with teams, I find that there's something that stifles trust-building.” He says that something is the fundamental attribution error. The fundamental attribution error refers to human’s tendency to attribute other people's negative behaviors to their character. For example, when someone annoys us, we make an internal attribution that “they've got a fundamental problem that they have to change.” But if we, on the other hand, annoy other people we attribute it to my environment and say, “I'm just having a bad day or a tough situation here. If we are on the freeway and cut somebody off, we rationalize that it's because we need to get somewhere on time. But, if someone else cuts us off, we tend to think that person is rude and has a bad attitude.
This is very common and very human. However, it must be avoided in teams because if we can't understand one another and can’t make an accurate attribution about the other team members, we are not going to trust each other. So, what we need to do is, as St. Francis said, “seek to understand more than to be understood.” So, if we can understand and avoid the fundamental attribution error, we are going to be able to trust more effectively and quickly in our teams.
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