Where did we go wrong?

Hiring a leader? Understand their biases: Their mind knots.

The following is adapted from Mind Knots.

Somewhere in the world, at this very moment, in the executive suite or boardroom of a corporation or nonprofit, the organization’s top leaders are assembled around the table. They have one burning question on their minds: “Where did we go wrong?”

They’re not talking about a bad investment decision or a faltering product rollout. With the right application of teamwork and imagination, those things can be fixed.

No, they’re concerned about a much more difficult and potentially expensive problem.

A problem with a top executive. Maybe even with the CEO.

This person was hired with the best of intentions. Perhaps he or she came highly recommended or boasted an exceptional track record at some other organization. During the interviews, this person offered all the right responses, had the right executive presence, and connected well with stakeholders. 

And yet, a few months or a year later, it’s become apparent that this executive is not a good fit. He or she is creating negative effects that are compounding across the company. The organization is losing money, time, and possibly talent. This leader is a key part of the problem.

My guess is that you've likely experienced a similar situation. And if you have, then you’ve probably also wondered if there’s a way to avoid it. The answer to that question, thankfully, is yes.

Appearances Can Be Deceiving

To explain what I mean, let’s return to our boardroom, where our leadership team has reached a difficult—but necessary—decision: let the person go rather than risk them causing further damage.

Having made the painful decision to cut ties with this person, these leaders now come to the question I mentioned earlier: “How do we avoid making the same mistake again?”

To answer that, first consider that there are many reasons why a leader will not be a good fit for a position. Perhaps they lack the appropriate “mission” experience, and therefore they just don’t align with the context of the business situation and goals. Maybe they don’t quite have the proven experience required for the role, or they don’t click with the leadership team.

For these reasons and others, many candidates seem like a good fit. They say all the right things and have all the right answers. They have relevant experience, a good track record with a prior company, strong interpersonal skills, and executive presence. And yet, the match isn’t right.

Why?

Often, it's because of that person’s mental lens.

The Importance of Clear Thinking

We choose leaders in part because of what they’ve done in the past, but also because of what we think they can do in the future. We try to choose leaders who we believe can solve problems we see coming, as well as problems we may not even know about yet.

One of the most important personal qualities required by a leader is the ability to see clearly. By this I mean the ability to look at a situation and problem objectively, without bias or preconception. If a leader can do this, they have a better chance of choosing the correct solution and not some random or familiar one they’re attached to for some personal reason, but which bears no relation to the problem.

It doesn’t matter what the situation or problem is. Unless that leader approaches it with clear eyes, an open mind, and without preconceptions, there’s a very real risk of executing a wrong approach or a wrong solution.

And here’s the crucial part: our mind is the lens through which we view the world. It guides our thinking, decision-making, emotions, behaviors, and the consequences that follow. A leader’s mental lens matters.

The Obstacle: Cognitive Bias

You don’t want to be the executive who approaches a situation with preconceptions, prejudices, or a cloudy mental lens. Neither do you want to hire such a person—especially not for an executive, CEO, or board role.

However, everyone has preconceptions based on a unique data repository of experience, beliefs, and instincts in their subconscious that affect their mental calculus. In other words, we all have cognitive biases. The key is to understand what they are, how they show up, and how to manage them to work for instead of against us.

The first step to a clear mental lens is knowing ourselves including our prominent biases.

First identified by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman in 1972, cognitive bias is the tendency of the human brain to simplify incoming information to make it easier to understand and act upon. Cognitive biases help us find mental shortcuts to assist in the navigation of daily life and work.

The process of simplification is performed by a filter composed of personal experience and past events. As information is received, it’s processed by those personal filters, which can alter the substance of the information itself. Our brain then embraces a reality that may be a distortion of what really happened and what other people see. Our subconscious is personal and subjective.

In the complexity of leadership and decision making, our repository of knowledge, beliefs and experience influence how we assess a situation and how we approach problem solving. Our mental lens matters.

You can think of cognitive biases as knots in our minds that constrain the serious work of thinking in favor of quickly tying a perceived situation to a simple response. Cognitive biases are “mind knots.” They hitch us to mental habits triggered by familiar circumstances. In complex situations, that require critical thinking, cognitive biases often produce negative results.

Change Is the Enemy of Cognitive Bias

With that in mind, let’s go back to the question of how to avoid hiring a mismatched leader. Remember, part of what makes someone the “right” choice is their ability to manage unforeseen situations and to solve problems that we aren’t even aware of yet. If they are bogged down by cognitive biases—which are shortcut mental habits that tie them to past experiences and preconceptions —they will struggle to do this effectively.

That’s because the business environment is constantly changing. Operating realities that may have been true or accepted as fact even a short time ago may today be false. The competitor whom you used to ignore may now be poised to overtake you. The laws governing employment and discrimination have evolved. Technology that was cutting-edge yesterday will be obsolete tomorrow. The marketing plan that worked well a decade ago is probably worthless now.

In short, the solutions that dependably worked yesterday may not work today. What were once simple mental shortcuts have become dangerous mental models and habits. But when circumstances change, these ingrained simplified mental habits become detrimental because they tie us in place.

In other words, because every business challenge and every opportunity are likely to be fundamentally new, each must be approached objectively and thoughtfully with unconstrained thinking.

Managing Mind Knots is an Organizational Affair

When it comes to hiring an executive for a position of responsibility, having a glimpse into the primary mind knots to which they are predisposed can be game-changing. Why? Because managing a leader’s mind knots inevitably becomes an organizational affair—one that can result in a positive outcome, or one that can go really badly.

When you understand someone’s prominent mind knots, you’ll better understand how they process information, situations, experiences, and challenges. Mind knots affect the decisions they make and the actions they take. This can bring focus and foundational insights to our view of leadership capability within the context of a situation. Cognitive and emotional biases can affect many leadership dimensions that we commonly pay attention to including strategic thinking and judgment, operating and communication style, instincts, competencies, acumen, values, performance drivers, and emotional intelligence.

That’s why leaders—especially when they hire other leaders—need to understand the reality and ramifications of cognitive biases. Awareness is the first step. But that’s not enough. Being able to recognize and identify biases and having strategies for managing these mind knots, positions a leader for maximum effectiveness. The best approach is having frameworks to flip the strength of these biases from knots that tie leaders down, to knots that move them forward to optimal outcomes.

For more advice on how to create a framework to transform biases from weaknesses to strengths, for the leader and for the organization you can find Mind Knots on Amazon.

Lisa Tromba is the Managing Partner of Lisa Tromba Associates – Executive Search (formerly Luisi Tromba Advisors, of which she was co-founder), and founder of Leadership Intelligence Services, LLC. For more than 25 years, Tromba has guided companies from mid-market enterprises to Fortune 100 powerhouses in searching for and selecting their executive leadership.

Today, she caters to lower- to mid-market companies in search of executive leadership. Her high-touch, high-impact, solution-oriented approach includes considering the impact of psychological bias on leadership.

Tromba has spoken on leadership topics to corporate, trade, and academic audiences, including Executive MBA participants. Publications featuring her work include Authority Magazine, Training Industry, Chief Executive Magazine, the AMA Quarterly, and she is quoted in the book From Cinderella to CEO.