Exercise 5: Write Others’ Beliefs and Write Society’s Beliefs

[Joshua]

Exercise 5

Please post your reflections on the Write Others’ Beliefs exercise combined with writing society’s beliefs here including addressing some of the questions on page 48.

To clarify, create two lists this week, one for others’ beliefs, the other for society’s beliefs.

[Beth]

Leadership Step by Step

Others’ Beliefs Reflections

I reflected on and thought about others’ beliefs a lot this week and I need to acknowledge that carrying around something to write on and to write what I’m observing in the moment is not something I did very often. I observed and noted what I thought might be a person’s belief, but I wrote it down later. On my first run through the chapter, I missed the “society’s beliefs” part, so I just did that at the end of the week.

I have spent most of my professional life working with people in ways that take deep dives into what they believe and how that influences their behavior and emotions. In preparing for that career, I took a deep dive into my own beliefs and the consequences of those in my life. It was still helpful to do this exercise in a more random way, looking at the people and the world around me in the frame of beliefs.

I suppose that one trend in my observations might be that I tend to look through a lens of emotions and so my observations were often focused on what emotions I believed I was witnessing. Fear, joy, guilt, anger, hopelessness, hopefulness (and more) underly the beliefs I identified.

Regularly observing how others are behaving through the lens of beliefs helped me keep it in my pocket for regular use. How accurate I was is not determinable without further information. It is my experience that we learn how accurate we are as we interact with people using the underlying assumption about their beliefs and observe if that assumption moves us in the direction of better understanding. I think I am accurate much of the time based on my experience in life thus far.

Consciously taking the vantage point of looking for beliefs was helpful in recognizing my own judgements. This motivated me to look beyond that impulsive response to one of interest and curiosity. In this time of political upheaval, I found the practice helpful and calming.

I participated in several meetings this week around an organized response to what is anticipated to be coming with the next administration. I noticed that much of what was accomplished by those leading these meetings was a very strategic effort to help people join in a belief that individual action matters and is most effective in numbers. Truly, the meetings were all about addressing beliefs. The specifics of this or that action was secondary to first believing that our actions do matter.

I like the idea of “keeping in my pocket” for use at any time my curiosity about what the belief is that underlies any given behavior I am witnessing.

Society’s Beliefs

1. Buying things in packaging is normal
2. Government should help me/ protect me
3. Borders protect us
4. Flying is normal
5. Buying more improves the economy
6. Technology will help solve the climate crisis
7. Laws should be fair
8. Music is part of our identity
9. Money matters
10. Family matters
11. Creating trash is normal
12. “Someone” is in charge

[Hayden Kessinger]

Beliefs

The exercise this week often required a few steps: first, I’d judge someone’s behavior, then use that to identify the strategy they were using, then use that to get to their belief. For example, I saw someone using their phone while others were presenting to the group. First, I thought something like “[person’s name] is rude.” Then, I thought, “okay, maybe they are, maybe they aren’t but this action is showing that they don’t care about what the presenters have to say.” Then, with more reflection, I decided they believe that doing things for oneself is more important than listening to others. I don’t know if this needs more refining or if its accurate, but I think I’m on the right track.

I forgot to read the full chapter before today so I went into this exercise slightly unprepared. I also forgot to write down society’s beliefs. Nonetheless, here is my list and reflections.

Others’ beliefs:

1. Bird research is important for conservation
2. Community is important for human survival
3. Outreach for conservation is important
4. Doing things for oneself is more important than listening to others
5. Marine conservation is more important than other types of conservation
6. Serving others is a high priority
7. Sustainability is important
8. Education is the best career
9. Alcohol makes life better
10. Everyone deserves equal treatment regardless of their identity
11. Personal action doesn’t matter in conservation

As I looked through my list, I realized that a few of the beliefs I wrote down for others were very likely not correct. Or they were at least not the root belief. It’s really interesting to recognize how inaccurate my initial assumptions of others can be.

Did I notice any trends?

Since I didn’t practice very much, I didn’t notice trends in others’ beliefs. I did notice trends in the way I thought about their behaviors and beliefs.

How did identifying beliefs feel?

A little bit cumbersome at first. As I said above, I usually started with my own judgment and landed on a belief from there. I did get a little better over time but I need more practice. That said, It feels really good to think more deeply about people’s behaviors and what beliefs they are a result of. Doing that, lets me understand and relate to them more, even if we don’t agree.

Did I feel you developed a skill?

Kinda. I need to practice more intentionally to develop it.

How accurate do I think I was?

I think my initial thoughts about others’ beliefs were typically not accurate. Once I sat with my judgment more, I think I was more accurate. But still not confident I can identify others’ beliefs super well.

Did I feel differently about people when I thought of their beliefs?

Definitely! Once I paused to think about why they may be behaving in a particular way, I could understand their actions more and have more empathy for them. Doing that also let me move away from judgment and even reflect upon my own behaviors. I notice that when I feel negative judgment for someone’s actions, it’s often because I used to, or still occasionally, behave that way and I don’t want to. So, when others are doing it too, I feel contempt.

Does reading people’s beliefs make me think differently about leadership?

Yes. I’d like to think I’ve been embodying a similar level of empathy for a few years now. I always wonder why certain people do certain things and I like to look for reasons.

Where and how might I apply your experience in the rest of my life?

Again, everywhere, I think. I need to sort of re-do this week’s exercise, but I still got value from the little work I did.

[Evelyn Wallace]

Evelyn Wallace: The Beliefs of Others

-Did you notice any trends?
I noticed that I have rather different views on most things than mainstream society. I noticed confirmation on my underlying theory on humanity: everyone thinks they’re the good guy. I also noticed that I was more likely to notice the beliefs behind someone’s “irrational” (to me, pre-reflection) behavior than their “rational” behavior. This exercise was usually immediately preceded by some reflexive thought like “that’s silly” or “why would anyone ever…?”

-How did identifying beliefs feel?
It made me feel a sense of compassion. I even practiced this exercise while watching (well-constructed) fictional narratives: what did that character believe such that they acted in that particular way? For what it’s worth, I also practiced with non-fictional historic narratives, and it helped me articulate what I’ve been trying to articulate for a while. Many Germans post WWI believed they had been unfairly punished by the rest of Europe and they believed Hitler offered a pathway back toward national pride and a sense of belonging. It felt humanizing to be able identify: yes, I can understand how people in those circumstances believe those things (and then why they behaved accordingly).

-Did you feel like you developed a skill?
Yes. I feel like I can now put myself in someone’s place, to the extent that I am able. This exercise helped me notice all human behavior—even/ especially the stuff I used to find legitimately puzzling— and get to a point where I can see (to quote Ringo on David Letterman answering a question about why Michael Jackson might have held a baby over a balcony) how “it probably seemed like a good idea at the time.”

-How accurate do you think you were?
Of course I think I was pretty accurate. Maybe we all think that about our own performance?

-Did you feel differently about people when you thought about their beliefs?
Yes. As mentioned earlier, I felt more compassion toward folks once I paired their behavior with the likely belief.

-Does reading people’s beliefs make you think differently about leadership?
I’m not sure yet.

-Where and how might you apply your experience in the rest of your life?
Practicing the skill of assessing the beliefs of others has already helped me be less emotionally activated by the seemingly irrational, detrimental, harmful, and even genocidal behavior of my fellow human. In other words, I can apply this in moments of frustration or outrage to bring myself some peace of mind. I imagine this will apply to how I lead people, as well, I’m just not at the state to be able to articulate that yet.

[Joe Spradley]

Reflection on the “Write Others’ Beliefs” Exercise

This week, I immersed myself in the question: “What belief would make that behavior make sense?” This inquiry led me to contemplate significant topics such as the U.S. presidential election, environmental challenges, and the rise of artificial intelligence.

Identifying Others’ Beliefs

I sample of my list of beliefs that I observed in individuals and society:
1. Elon believes that immense power can lead to positive change.
2. Society believes that love triumphs over hate.
3. A majority believes in protecting abortion rights.
4. Many voting Americans believe that Trump should be president.
5. America prioritizes safety over certain liberal values.
6. My roommate believes that most people’s lives are affected by who is president.

I noticed that people’s beliefs are deeply intertwined with their values and perceptions of security, freedom, and progress. The recent election highlighted how divergent beliefs can shape behaviors and decisions on a national scale, especially on issues like reproductive rights and public safety. Identifying others’ beliefs felt somewhat intrusive and uncomfortable at first, as it was challenging to infer what others might believe without projecting my own biases. However, this process opened the door to greater empathy and understanding, allowing me to see perspectives different from my own.

Since the election, I’ve experienced a surge of frustration, anger, and grief. Acknowledging these emotions has been difficult but necessary. This exercise helped me channel these feelings into a more empathetic understanding of others, even those with whom I disagree. By consistently asking what underlying belief might explain someone’s behavior, I began to develop the skill of empathetic inquiry, stepping outside of my immediate reactions. This doesn’t come easily and requires conscious effort, but it’s invaluable for meaningful communication and relationships.

[Jim Jenkins]

5-NOTICING THE BELIEFS OF OTHERS

Society Beliefs:

1. Apparent belief that there is no need to wear a mask for their own or even others’ health when travelling in tight quarters.

2. Belief that climate change represents a threat to business and the human species

3. Belief you can decouple carbon emissions from economic growth sufficiently to live up to the Paris Agreement

4. Belief some new technology will magically appear and solve the above

5. Belief climate change is the only sustainability problem

6. Belief there will continue to be stable prices on energy and materials (when energy expenditures are increasing)

7. Belief that increases in energy efficiencies lead to absolute energy and material reductions in a growth-based system

8. Believing recycling will solve the ecological crisis on it’s own

9. Believing that services have an insignificant, ecological footprint

10. Believing you can be a part of the solution to the ecological crises without addressing inequality

11. Believing minimum wages are enough

12. Believing you have to be the hero (justice is the answer, not charity)

13. Believing net zero – “do no harm” – is enough

14. Believing you can offset carbon emissions and continue business as usual

15. Believing you can only scale impact by growing your company’s size

16. Believing bigger is always better

17. Believing you can wait for legislators to level the playing field before you act sufficiently

Other’s Beliefs and some more of mine that I encountered:

1. Belief that stewardship (my department) should not take on some ownership for product sustainability just because we don’t have enough resources and not our role.

2. Belief that organizations should not aggregate product sustainability metrics to benchmark where we are for fear that they will be reported publicly if the numbers get out.

3. Group’s belief that product stewardship function is not going to change for the better.

4. Belief (business) that it’s ok to not acknowledge some product hazards

5. Belief that society will just have to accept a company’s products even though they have significant environmental footprints

6. Believing you can’t make much of a difference so why try

7. Believing your religion is the only one that got it right

8. Belief that you are meant for greater things and you were put on the earth for a reason

9. Belief that showing an interest in employees and their passions is a motivator for greater achievements

10. Belief that the chemical industry can eliminate hazardous materials and create sustainable product solutions

11. Belief by others that my sustainability projects are turning into something (wants to be a part of them)

12. The leader that thinks it’s ok to cut employees off when they are speaking

REFLECTION

Did you notice any trends?
A number of leadership and sustainability themes. Many of the beliefs were negative or limiting. Brings out the importance of mindset that if you frame in the negative, it becomes self defeating.

How did identifying beliefs feel?
Empowering, exciting like being able to see in the dark where others can’t.

Did you feel like you developed a skill?
Maybe experiencing a new practice. Don’t feel it is a skill yet.

How accurate do you think you were?
All were topics I observed from others through the week. Some were obvious because the person essentially repeated what their belief is. BUT thinking you know what the underlying belief is for a person if they don’t actually say it could be dangerous. It seems easy to make false assumptions.

Did you feel differently about people when you thought of their beliefs?
I suppose so. Need more experience. Helps me understand them better, where they are likely coming from and opens up an opportunity to ask questions to confirm their beliefs. This in turn presents the opportunity to tailer my speech to them for more effective communication and collaboration.

Does reading people’s beliefs make you feel differently about leadership?
It shines a stronger light on how to improve my leadership effectiveness by paying more attention to underlying beliefs that are driving behaviours, opportunity points to relate/connect with people and makes me feel less judgmental at face value about something they might say.

Where and how might you apply your experience in the remainder of your life?
By paying attention to my beliefs and those of others in conversations, whether they are same or different, I can be a much stronger connecter and inspiring leader. Adding the paraphrasing peoples beliefs back to them (something I’m very good at) or asking questions to confirm their beliefs will be much more of a door opener.

[Olivia Ong]

Leadership Step by Step Exercise 5:

Other Peoples’ Beliefs:

Sales is an exchange between two parties each getting something they want.
Sales is getting someone to do something they don’t want to do.
Objects to be donated must be whole or fully usable as is in order to be donated.
Projects should be worked on one at a time to focus energy and intention.
High level insults do not carry profanities.
Reinvesting a portion of benefits received through referrals back into the relationships is the human or courteous thing to do.
Walking 35 minutes to dinner will help work up an appetite.
Walking after eating helps regulate blood sugar absorption.
Eating until we are stuffed is living the good life.
If you don’t help someone achieve their greatest success, you are evil.
Challenging someone in public to agree with me makes them feel pressure to agree, especially if I have more experience, wealth, status, etc.
It’s okay to get triggered and act my emotions out towards someone.
Being liked, popular, or good-looking is useless unless you produce some results and/or value.
People who fly are fake traveling.
Traveling with a luggage is simply going to a place that was made for little wheels, not real traveling.
Flying to a place holds no value and is a detriment to
Mentioning a memory 15 years ago and over glorifying it will help to make us close.

Societal Beliefs:
Sales transactions are generally pushy and undesired.
Showing your anger is giving your power away.
Flying is normal and is okay.
Overeating is normal and is a symbol of general well-being.
Wasting food is okay.
People like stuff.

Did you notice any trends? No

How did identifying beliefs feel?

It was freeing. Identifying others’ beliefs meant that I didn’t have to adopt them.

Did you feel like you developed a skill? Not one that I didn’t already have.

How accurate do you think you were? About 90%

Did you feel differently about people when you thought of their beliefs?

Depends. I noticed how strongly people felt convicted of their beliefs. People who seemed emotionally less mature seemed to feel compelled to have others adopt their beliefs or felt strongly about the validity of their beliefs. This made me feel like they were less credible due to the use of high emotions.

Does reading peoples’ beliefs make you think differently about leadership?

Not really. I’ve always felt that people felt strongly of their own beliefs and wanted others to approve of them. That hasn’t really changed from this exercise.

Where and how might you apply your experience in the rest of your life?

Probably all the time – identifying other peoples’ beliefs means that I can cross reference my beliefs and decide whether or not I want to engage in a discussion to level set our beliefs, or see if there even is a need or a point to doing so.

[Eugene Bible]

Writing Others’ Beliefs

The exercise of the week was to write the beliefs of others (to the best of my ability, based on observations of behavior and words of others). I found the exercise to be more difficult than I anticipated it to be.

Observing others with the goal of trying to identify their beliefs is harder than it sounds. First of all, I would frequently just forget to do it while I was having interactions with people – it usually takes most of my focus to stay fully engaged in conversations and enjoy time with people, and adding an extra challenge of trying to analyze their behaviors was certainly pushing the boundaries of my mental capacity. Most of the time, I would have to take some time to try to reflect on conversations I just had, and then I’d find myself doubting whether my “beliefs” that I’m assigning to their behavior were right or not: “I mean they said this…But is it REALLY because they believe this? It sounds kind of like a stretch..I guess I’ll write it down since this is just to the best of my ability…” Most of the beliefs I wrote never “felt” like they were right. It felt like I was judging or assuming things of others, which felt slightly uncomfortable.

It was easier to do when I thought about entire groups of people as a whole, rather than individuals. With the recent election, I found myself trying to think about what Trump supporters believe, or what Kamala supporters believe. I thought a lot about if you take society as a whole, what do we believe? Oftentimes I felt myself feeling like I was judging people, which made me go back and rethink the belief I just wrote down. For example, I might have thought “Trump supporters are racist”, but after writing it down thinking, “you know, that’s not really fair…Not ALL Trump supporters are racist…I guarantee there are racist Kamala supporters somewhere in the country too…” and started to regret some of the things I wrote. This was one of the more interesting outcomes of this exercise: it forced me to think about what my beliefs of others are, and it opened my mind and made me less likely to quickly group people into categories and label them. In a way, the activity felt like an exercise in empathy.

Doing this exercise, identifying other people’s beliefs certainly felt like a skill that I had to develop. At the beginning, it felt very difficult (and it still does, a week later), but as I did it, I did feel like I was improving, albeit slowly. Making myself conscious of the beliefs of others feels like a difficult skill to learn that takes a long time – it almost requires an entirely different mindset, which is, maybe quite obviously, something that takes a long time to adjust to.

I can see why this skill of becoming aware of others’ beliefs is a useful one in a leadership course. Leading others requires first listening and learning about the people you want to lead – you have no chance of leading someone if you can’t identify with them or show them that you’re listening to them and that you understand them. I certainly wouldn’t be interested in being led by someone who doesn’t know me, doesn’t understand what I’m trying to achieve, or have dissimilar ideas as I do, so I wouldn’t expect anyone else to want to be led by me either, if I’m not able to do the same.

Much like the last exercise, I think this is one I’m going to continue doing for the next few weeks. I still feel like it’s a skill I’m weak at, at best. I can imagine a version of me that is able to identify beliefs quicker and more accurately, but I feel like I’m still weeks away from that.

[Author]

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