The Bradley Effect and Why it Effects Every Organization, Team, Department and Company

This morning I was enjoying my morning ritual of coffee and reading news when I came across an article on Cnn.com about Barack Obama and the Bradley effect. This phenomenon also called the Wilder effect refers to closet racism, the idea being that when polled people claim that they'll vote for Obama, but behind the closed curtain of a voting booth people free their inner racist and vote for the not-black candidate.

Reading the article made me think of how often the Bradley effect takes place in organizations in a non-racial way.

The idea that we say something for politically correct reasons and then in private reveal how we really feel isn't new to the workplace. A challenge that effects many organizations believe it or not is too little conflict. People, by nature love to please and avoid conflict. So when we don't agree with an idea our boss suggest we often go along with it simply to avoid the conflict. After all we wouldn't want to be argumentative. And we want our boss to like us.

Then we go back to our office and or send a message to someone else a coworker/friend/spouse about how stupid our boss is but how we didn't want to make waves so we just went along with it. In the end we find ourselves executing a bad idea, an idea we don't believe in simply because it was easier than having positive conflict about how to make it better. This is one reason why organizations end up with average or failed product launches, average or failed events and so on.

Now I'm not saying that Obama is a bad idea, I love the guy I plan to make a little dot next to his name in November. Also I don't mean to belittle a giant societal issue like racism by comparing it to something like the marketing strategy for a new line of baked catfish nuggets but I believe the underlying challenge is the same. It is that we've created a culture that makes certain discussions off limits whether it be in our society at large or in our teams, departments or organizations culture. Our society can't talk about Obama's race the same way you can't challenge your boss on strategy because of the culture that has been created. It is a culture that fears conflict. In the larger culture it might be because if someone finds out how you really feel you might be labeled a racist and in the organization's culture you can't talk about how you really feel because you might be labeled an "idea killer" or the guy with the bad attitude.

Getting the whole world to have a meaningful conversation about race is a challenge I can't begin to comprehend but everyone can go back to their departments, teams and organizations and create the foundations for a culture that allows nurtures positive conflict.