Defense Mechanisms

Years ago I learned that people resort to a number of strategies to “defend” themselves from findings they do not want to hear.  This phenomenon is especially true when the findings are “hot” or extremely threatening.   As a consultant, I encountered this issue often when I had to present findings to clients that were negative, unflattering, and contrary to preconceived notions. 

Experience has taught me that hot data is akin to a hot potato.  Nobody wants to handle it, preferring to flip it to someone else, or just to let it plop to the ground.   Soon I learned that it was a waste of time as well as a risky undertaking to present controversial (hot) findings to an audience unwilling to hear it, let alone act on it.   My late friend and colleague Pat Williams, a highly respected professor and consultant, mentored me through this conundrum.

If your data were hot, he would say, you must cool them down so that people do not burn their proverbial hands.  Conversely, if the data were cold, you need to warm them up to prevent boring your audience.  How to accomplish this is a subject for another time, and perhaps another blog.   This advice and the skill set to carry it out served me well throughout my long career as a consultant and executive. 

The recent Mid-Term Elections reminded me that this notion of defensiveness is very much in play in politics as well.  

I love watching, listening, and observing the post election behavior of both winners and losers.  They give us critical incidents from which we can draw important teaching moments. 

Observing Winners

There is little that we can learn from the speeches that winners make.  They are in a celebratory mood and they want to show us how magnanimous they are in victory.  They say flattering things about their opponent, whom the day before they vilified as either incompetent, crooked, in the pockets of special interests, extremist, mean spirited, or dirty tricks artist.  They say things that they know people want to hear.  They tell jokes, thank everyone, raise their fingers in victory, and try to project their affable side.

Observing Losers

That is another story.  Their behavior is uncommonly defensive.  For some, so much so that they employ all the defense mechanisms that group dynamics theory teaches us.

Let me share some examples of those behaviors that illustrate the degree and type of defensiveness I saw.  I have seen it after other elections.  

1.    Attack the data.   If losers do not like the election results, then they minimize their validity.  Some losers did just that by pointing out that it reflected the vote of only 1/3 of the electorate, and that 2/3 had not voted this session.  Meaning?  The data do not really reflect how the electorate feels about the issues.  Never mind that not voting is also a vote, in the sense that people show their displeasure by withholding it or by throwing it away.  This defense mechanism is intended to impeach the hard fact that the election was lost.

2.    Attack the opponent.  If losers cannot accept losing to particular adversaries, by all means, they attack their unethical campaign.  They will point out that some unscrupulous billionaire bankrolled them, that they resorted to mud slinging and distortions, that they had made egregious gaffes, or that they had unfair advantages.  Never mind that the losers engaged in the same scandalous behaviors for which they now accuse their opponents.  This defense mechanism is intended to impeach the worthiness of the victor.

3.    Rationalize the results.  If losers find the results unappetizing, they will enumerate all the reasons why the deck was stocked to begin with, that they did not have a chance to win, anyway, and that it was what to be expected from a particular State (blue, red or purple).  In other words, the loss was outside a person or party’s control.   They turn to pundits and so-called political strategists to wrap logic around it by  impeaching the election process.

4.    Feel sorry for yourself.  Losers often minimize the importance of the loss.  They spin it in a way that moves fault elsewhere.  They promise to learn from it and to not repeat the same mistakes, that they will get them next time, and that all is not lost.  They say that misery loves company, and sure enough many will join the circle to share tears about an unfair world.  This defense mechanism serves the need to be consoled and to feel loved and appreciated.

5.    Slicing and dicing the results.   This is a usual strategy to find the culprit.  Who is to be blamed for the vote?  Here losers will point out that one group or another is responsible.  The usual suspects? Old versus young.  Women versus men.  Black or brown versus white.  Urban versus suburban or rural.  Red versus blue or purple.  Gay versus straight.  Rich versus poor. And so on.  This mechanism isolates the usual suspects to whom one can attach blame.

People of all different political persuasions use defense mechanisms.  They illustrate that the stakes are high and our ego so fragile that we are unwilling to admit our mistakes, incapable to accept responsibility, and unable to move rapidly toward the problem solving phase.

Your thoughts?