Confusing the "real" for the important

Our brains are incredibly powerful organs. Just think of the millions of stimuli you encounter each day. You see countless numbers of photons and turn those into images and scenes. You listen to sound after sound and filter that noise to language or music. However, for all its power the brain is also terrible at dealing with these abstractions.

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One of the worst abstractions is the one we place on the distance we put between ourselves and other people. I mean that literally. I see it all too often while doing my work. We have thousands of miles separate us and then let that separation spill over into our language. All of the sudden we have a Seattle team or a Charleston team. Then we start to use words like “us” or “them.” These subtle separations build over time if you let them. Soon, decisions will be made not as one but as different sites. Even worse is the important debates needed to make the right decisions end up happening online, not face to face. People try to sway others with an email. When was the last time anyone ever convinced you of anything via email (or blog post for that matter)? What happens next is we find it “easier” to just avoid the “others.” Let them figure things out on their own. Let them do whatever it is they do. We have more important things right here, right now.

This type of thinking costs teams every day. We refuse to put in the small efforts required to reduce the abstraction of a remote colleague. We don’t turn on our web cam. We forget to ask simple things like, “how are you?” when joining a call. Without adding in subtle reminders of our remote colleagues, our brains will focus on those “real” things among us. That’s a mistake.