Life's Fallacies - Part 2 - Believing That Everyone Has the Greater Good in Mind

I continue to fall prey to this fallacious thinking.  Often times at work or elsewhere, I believe that a collective group which spends significant time together and is tasked with an assignment is truly in it for the organization's betterment.  Not so.

Often times, some members may have their own hidden agenda or self-aggrandizing goals.  What perplexes me is how that one hidden agenda or desire for self-aggrandizement is totally opposite of what the group or its leaders want to achieve.

In the past year, I was involved in a matter, outside of work, in which I had allowed myself to believe that all individuals truly had the greater good at heart.  I deluded myself into thinking that all would put their personal preferences aside, refrain from taking sides, and seek to a unified, or 3rd alternative, solution.  Such was not the case and group became splintered.  This, too, can happen in our professional lives.

How can we prevent this?  In retrospect and subject to my further study into this, I believe that anyone designated to lead a group needs to clearly delineate and articulate the goals and expectations.  That individual must have the courage of their convictions to ensure that the greater good is kept in the forefront always by reminding the group incessantly of this.  That individual must be willing to call others out who are demonstrating, either visibly or surreptiously, a straying from the greater good.  In short, one must ensure that everyone clearly understands the rules and plays by them.  Infractions must be addressed decisively and swiftly.

Next blogs: the fallacy that disagreement is bad and that everyone is self-aware.