Kyle manages a group of estimators for a regional construction company. His team is responsible for estimating building projects such as large hospitals, sports stadiums, and multi-use downtown developments. His dozen or so team members are busy, busy, busy. They can also be sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. When they miss something, the company has to eat the costs. Last month one of the guys missed a $100,000 something. Ouch.

Kyle is frustrated because his team will not follow the standardized processes and checklists they’ve established to help ensure things don’t get missed. His comment in our recent coaching conversation was, “No matter how many times I explain it to them, they still don’t do it the right way.”

The situation Kyle’s facing is not uncommon. If you look at the problem logically, it seems pretty straightforward and simple: his team should just follow the mapped-out process. But they don’t follow the process. And their failure to do so indicates that what Kyle is facing is not a logical problem with a logical solution.

Sometimes I summarize this dynamic as “psychology vs. math.”

Kyle is approaching his issue as if it were a math problem and as if his team members were purely (or primarily) logical. Since his team members are humans, it’s safe to say they are not primarily logical.

Many issues seem simple and straightforward when psychology is not considered. What I mean by “psychology” are the aspects of human experience such as motivation, emotions, preference, intuition, and bias. Humans are not robots or from the planet Vulcan (that’s a Star Trek reference for all the non-nerds reading this post). We are influenced much more by the non-logical than we often think.

Jonathan Haidt explores the power of psychology over logic in his 2012 book The Righteous Mind. In the book, Haidt demonstrates that while people say they arrive at their political preferences based on facts, reason, and other rational factors, the truth is that our political preferences are much more innate and emotional and that we point to facts to justify what we believed to be true well before we looked at any facts.

Politics is just one example of the psychology over math principle, but it is a powerful one. If it’s not too painful, think about the recent presidential election in the United States and notice how so many people found it unfathomable that someone could vote for “that person.” No matter one’s candidate of choice, the prevailing sentiment was that my choice was based on “the facts” while people who made a different choice ignored the facts and voted based on some irrational (probably darker) reason. This is how we end up labeling others as “racist” or “communist.”

I hate to burst your bubble, but nobody decided to vote for a candidate based on “the facts.” The facts of a situation serve as cover for our true wants, beliefs, and motivations. We dress up our psychology with math to make it more presentable.

Let me share a less polarizing example that highlights the psychology vs. math dynamic. Many a coaching client has talked about improving his diet, exercising more, and losing weight. When approached from the math perspective, this is a simple issue with a straightforward solution. Pretty much anyone who is even halfway awake can formulate an eating and exercise plan that will result in improved health. The math is not the issue, the psychology is. Why will the client not follow the plan that is so obvious? Because beneath the calm surface waters flow deep and powerful currents of resistance, engrained patterns, motivations to eat that are not based on hunger, and so on. Anyone who thinks diet and exercise success comes down to issues of logic, reason, and such has it all wrong.

What do we coaches do with this psychology vs. math dynamic? Let me suggest four things.

First, don’t believe your client. A client is going to do the normal thing, which is to tell you the dressed-up version of what is going on. They are going to act as if they are considering only the facts and that they are acting based on facts, logic, and reality. While they believe this to be the case, it is not the case. If you fail to remain curious, you will retard their awareness and leave them in the semi-delusional space they were in when the coaching started.

Second, be patient with your client as you explore what is really going on. As coaches, we should assume that there is more to the story than what the client is sharing (because there is always much more to the story) and then we should patiently explore the more. Our patience can be powerfully fueled by humility and compassion. You and I know what it’s like to perceive an issue from the surface level, looking at the issue through our own distorted lenses of logic and reason. We know the psychology of the situation is less known, less comfortable, and less flattering than the rational version of the situation. This is normal and we know just how normal from our own firsthand account. Our own experience of how challenging it is to get beneath the surface should encourage us to be patient as our client explores the previously unexplored.

Third, kindly challenge your clients. Without letting go of patience, we must challenge our client to examine their motives and possibly to recalculate their situation based on the fuller awareness that comes from seeing the psychology side of things. This often takes more than just an invitation – it takes a challenge that must be done with kindness and in service to the client and the client’s agenda.
Fourth, invite your client to consider the three things I just mentioned when it comes to others. For example, I have a client who is frustrated with some of his employees who are not embracing change. When I asked him to imagine their reasons for resistance, he described them as illogical, unreasonable, and irrational (unlike himself!). And his description of their resistance came with a strong hint of judgment and frustration.

I invited him to embrace the truth that resistance is normal and to be expected, to be patient with the employees, to dig beneath the surface, and to challenge them while remaining kind. Of course, they are resisting. Of course, they are motivated by some self-serving, immature, and myopic perspectives. And of course, they will need some support to adjust, overcome their resistance, and embrace new realities – these are normal aspects of the change process. Once my client recognized the normalcy and legitimacy of the psychology side of their resistance, he was able to patiently do his part in helping lead his team to embrace change.

As you coach, pay attention to the math vs. psychology dynamic. Let this awareness prompt you to investigate deeper currents that are affecting your clients and to investigate underlying, less obvious factors. In a nutshell, aim to coach the person, not the problem.