People are rational, they can choose and think in a reasonable way. It’s either having fair, sensible or sound judgment or as much as possible appropriate. People knows what is right and wrong, they have the intellectual capacity to make the right decisions based on facts and applied rules unlike animals.
Have you ever wonder why hamburger is hamburger without ham on it, pineapple is called pineapple but its not pine nor apple, there is no egg in eggplant, dragonfly is not a dragon that fly but it is called a dragonfly. Rationality is just like those words, it has different meaning as you say it. The logic is, every words or phrases that you are going to say will have other meaning to others or vice versa. Those kind of words is full of interesting quirks, but this is different at the workplace because our behavioral quirks maybe misunderstood by some most of the time.
I remember before when I am working in a company, one employee approached me and ask for a sickleave. He told me to sign and give him a sickleave beacuse he is not feeling well and he’s experiencing LBM. As a nurse I assessed him, took his vital signs and provide some nursing interventions. I asked him to stay in the clinic and give him medicine to take as doctor’s prescription. I asked him to take one in feont of me and stay in the clinic for few minutes but he is in a hurry and insisting to give him the sick leave urgently. He argued with me and I told him directly “you are not sick but you want a sickleave, are you going somewhere? Is it very important that you will pretend to be sick?” He just continue and I never forget his angry face. He walked out and I never give him anything because if I did, I will not be rational on my decision. Few months later, this person message me and say if I still remember him, of course who will never forget that angry face, pretending in front of me. He then told me and say sorry on that day he is quite rude because he needs to go to his agency urgently for his application abroad. I told him that if he just told me without lying then maybe I can do something.
The lesson here is when you make decision stay as is and stand out on what you think is right. People at work may become irrational in different ways, whether they are ahead of you or your subordinates. You must know what your job is all about and how to manage such things that may arise in front of you with affirmation. Lying is natural because we are human, but as rational being we know what is right and wrong and we can avoid such, though we know white lies do exists. “Honesty is the best policy” if you are honest then you will gain trust and this is priceless. Irrational people don’t listen and they only focused on how to fulfill their needs they are unpredictable or sometimes even.
People become irrational at work due to some reasons:
- Human decisions vs emotions. Amygdala is the center of emotional processing that receives input to the brain. Once damage you cannot literally made a good decisions. Human decision making is not more than beeing rational it also requires emotions. Be considerate to others, be aware of every decisions you will make at work because it may cause negative impact to others.
- Illogical reasoning. Most of the time people thinks they are logical but this is just being pretentious (nobody is perfect). People who thinks they knew it all, the outcome will be nonsense. They just become judmental in some ways that contributes to bad decision making.
- Embarassment and shamed preventions. Its always happening at the workplace, most people become irrational because they want to recover on their own mistakes. This is where lies will start just to cover up the embarrassment. In reality it is easy to say a word but its hard to implement or do it in actions. It is very easy to say “policy” but to understand or implement it rationally is doubtful.
- Invicible reactions. Sometime people decides non sense because they have a piece of information or data that others doesn’t know about and reacting to that. In short it just an assumption that made them decide irrationally and employees get affected.
- Lack of skills. There’s a saying “if the only tool you have is hammer, every problem is a nail”. Sometimes bad decision is because of limitted capability. You have enough knowledge but you don’t have the capability to apply it in action which is very important in making decisions at work. It is very difficult to admit that you have deficient ability rather than admitting that you do not know something. Competency is a must.
- Disagreement between two parties. In a workplace we work as a team but most often it happens that there is a very important information I know but you don’t accept my information rather you decides on what you want and what you only knew. This is selfishness rather and closed mindedness. A person doesn’t want to listen on other’s opinion because she doesn’t like her or maybe there’s an issue with her that bits your ego. Conflict may arise and it becomes irrational.
- Communication barrier. Some people in the workplace cannot communicate with regards to their decisions or rather opinions or suggestions. It’s either they do not understand such things or they are quite ashamed to speak up. Clarification or expressing oneself is very important especially at work. If you know something try to open it up or if you have questions etc. don’t just keep it within yourself, instead voice it out as long as you don’t do any harm to others. The core reason of being rational comes out one way or another.
Remember nobody in this world is created perfectly, every person has their own flaws. Being an effective leaders or colleagues, one must accept the fact of being irrational and knows how to deal with those. It’s just a matter of right approach in managing those tricky situations to learn better who we are working with, mentor them and even learning about ourselves as well.
