Hidden Preferences
People rarely tell you what they really want.
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It’s a mistake to think you know what the people around you really want. Most people keep their preferences, or intentions, a secret for good reasons. Sometimes they don’t want to lose leverage (a job applicant who desperately needs the job), sometimes they are embarrassed (an employee that applied for another job and didn’t get it) and sometimes it’s none of your business.
In fact, I would guess you have some preferences that you haven’t shared with your team, investors, partners or customers. We all have secrets!
It is challenging to navigate your business relationships among these hidden preferences. Like piloting a ship at sea, you want to avoid rocks hidden below the surface. It would be useful to know if your employees are all looking for other jobs, or if your key customers are planning to churn. Unfortunately, they won’t tell you!
You could ask them directly, of course, but that doesn’t increase the chances they will tell you. It does establish that you want to know, which can be helpful, but you’re unlikely to get a direct answer. The other person has little or no reason to tell you.
You can try to infer their preferences from what you can observe. For example…
An employee who puts in extra time, goes above and beyond while looking for new responsibilities clearly wants to get promoted.
An investor who stops responding to your emails and shows up late for board meetings (unprepared) clearly has written off your company.
A customer that stops using your product and won’t respond to emails or meeting requests is clearly planning to churn.
These are obvious examples, and most cases won’t be so obvious. If you try to guess someone’s preference and you are wrong, you can make things much worse instead of better. Even worse, if you spend your time watching everyone trying to guess their intentions you aren’t focusing on building your business.
So, instead of trying to guess hidden preferences you should work to influence them. Instead of wondering if your team wants to find another job, give them reasons to stay! What is it about working at your company that is so amazing they can’t find it somewhere else? How can you make it an easy decision for them to ignore recruiter emails? Spend your time making your team happy and motivated and you won’t have to wonder about their preferences.
This is easier said than done. For example, the best way to keep your investors engaged is to produce amazing results every quarter. But, that’s often not in your control! What you can do is always have a plan, be honest about mistakes and take on your problems directly. You can give investors hope.
Creating these incentives and motivations doesn’t guarantee everyone’s preference will be clear. But, you also can’t make everyone happy. The best you can do is to put them in an environment conducive to happiness and let them make the choice. More often than not, your incentives will work and your teams’ hidden preferences will follow.
Sometimes I have leaders push back on this way of thinking as “playing mind games” with your team. That would be true if you keep it all a secret! But why would you? There is no reason to keep it a secret that you want to make your company the best place to work. You should be transparent with your investors about your plans and goals. All of this can happen out in the open, and it should!
Hidden preferences make all relationships hard, not just in business. The good news is that, in business, we can control more of the factors and create these environments to encourage the preferences we need.
If you don’t work hard to create the right incentives, I can guarantee that the hidden preferences that surround you will be a minefield. The best way to avoid those mines is to be proactive, and take steps today. If you do, those hidden preferences won’t be so hidden for long.
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