Author: Don McMinn

In religious art, saints are often portrayed with halos, and the devil and demons have horns. Through the years, these contrived images have worked: when we see a halo, bathed in heavenly light, we think that the figure is good and pious; horns suggest the opposite. 

Psychologists use these two symbols to illustrate an interesting phenomenon we often fall prey too. The halo and horn effects are cognitive biases that cause us to allow one trait, either good (halo) or bad (horn), to overshadow other traits, behaviors, actions, or beliefs.

We tend to create an overall impression of someone or something based on one, unrelated trait. This bias can cause us to think too highly of someone or something (halo effect) and cause us to think poorly of someone or something (horn effect) because of a single characteristic or trait.

The halo and horn effects bias our assessment of people.

• We may assume (wrongly) that physically attractive people are more informed, intelligent, or competent. 
• We may think someone who is disheveled and untidy is struggling in life and lacks acumen.
• We may think someone with a complicated-sounding name—Stephan Lewandowski—is more debonair than someone named John Smith. 
• Someone who is winsome and engaging may be thought to be insightful or competent. 
• One research study found that jurors were less likely to believe that attractive people were guilty of criminal behavior. 

The halo and horn effects will prejudice our thinking in other areas of life.

• A car dealer will place its fanciest car in the middle of the showroom (fully realizing that the average buyer cannot afford it) because it enhances what customers think of the other models.
• A restaurant will list a $900 bottle of 2014 Penfolds Grange wine on their menu, (knowing that no one will probably buy it) because having it on the list makes customers think more highly of the entire restaurant. (I often wonder, do they even have a bottle of that wine? Perhaps they did, and sold it, but continue to list it.) 
• A law firm will maintain high-dollar offices to perpetuate the appearance of success and expertise. (I wonder who is paying for those fancy offices. Hint: you, the client.) I thought we paid attorneys for their wisdom and experience, so why be swayed by mahogany desks on the 20th floor of a downtown office building? 
• When consumers have an unfavorable experience, they may allow that one negative experience to influence what they think of the entire brand. (When eating at a restaurant, if the bathroom needs servicing, I may unfairly dismiss the entire restaurant even though all other factors are good.)

How can we guard against these unproductive and misleading tendencies?

1. Think holistically. A comprehensive approach recognizes that there are many parts to a whole entity and that the whole should not be judged on one part. One characteristic cannot adequately or fairly define an entire entity. 
2. Be skeptical of advertising and marketing because they often intentionally use the halo effect to promote a product and the horn effect to demean the competition.  

Action item — Identify situations in which you have been tricked by the halo and horn effects.

Discussion question — How can we develop an immunity to these two biases?

I have a friend who thinks clearly and is very organized, competent, and productive. Amazingly so. These are commendable strengths; but sometimes these strengths cause stress in his relationships. His view of the world is so tight that he’s often impatient with people and vague processes. He’ll comment on the tiniest departure from his ideal. Mistakes are unacceptable. At home and work, perfection is the standard. While his strengths are notable, they come with drawbacks.

The principle I want to discuss is: Strengths often have an inherent downside; the advantage they bring is accompanied by a disadvantage. Most strengths have a corresponding weakness.  

A similar challenge exists with virtues. Every virtue must be balanced by another, different virtue or it can get out of balance. The Stoic philosophers had a term for this—anacoluthia—the mutual entailment of the virtues; no virtue is a virtue by itself. For instance, notice how each of these virtues needs to be balanced by another virtue: confidence/humility, caution/boldness, patience/urgency, passion/detachment, openness/discretion, generosity/thriftiness, self-control/spontaneity. 

Perhaps you are:

• Confident but lack humility.
• Generous, to a fault. 
• Cautious, but stymied by passivity.
• Logical but often emotionally insensitive.

Sometimes we have difficulty seeing where we’re out of balance. Ask your spouse or friends to list your strengths and corresponding weaknesses. 

Here are some practical applications of this discussion:

1. While functioning in your strength, be careful to avoid the corresponding weakness.
2. Affirm other people’s strengths and extend grace to them relative to their weaknesses. 
3. I’m not suggesting that you disavow your strengths or sideline your strengths until you  eliminate the corresponding weaknesses. Just being aware of the weaknesses will be helpful. 
4. Affirm other people’s strengths and, when appropriate, rely on them to compensate for your weaknesses.

Action item — List your strengths. Then write down weaknesses that may be inexorably linked to those strengths.

Discussion question — Can a weakness that accompanies a strength be totally eliminated or just tempered?

The December 8, 2020 edition of The New York Times included this article:

Blunders Eroded U.S. Confidence in Early Vaccine Front-Runner — The Oxford-AstraZeneca effort held great promise to help arrest the pandemic. But a series of miscues caused it to fall behind in the U.S.

“On the afternoon of September 8, AstraZeneca officials had a conference call with the Food and Drug Administration. The discussion covered important ground: What would AstraZeneca need to do to win the F.D.A.’s blessing for the coronavirus vaccine it was developing with the University of Oxford?

“But the AstraZeneca representatives neglected to mention a crucial development: Two days earlier, the company had quietly halted trials of its vaccine around the world, including a late-stage study in the United States. It acted after a participant in Britain fell ill.

“A few hours after the conference call, the story broke about the halted trials. That was how key F.D.A. officials heard the news, according to people with knowledge of the discussions.

“The F.D.A.’s commissioner, Dr. Stephen Hahn, was stunned by AstraZeneca’s failure to disclose the halt to regulators, one of the people said. The U.S. government had pledged more than $1 billion to AstraZeneca to finance the development and manufacturing of its vaccine and to supply the United States with 300 million doses if it proved effective. F.D.A. regulators expected to be kept in the loop.”

 [Click here to read the entire article.]

AstraZeneca’s lack of transparency impeded its effort to get FDA approval of their vaccine. The company had anticipated providing 60 percent of the vaccines in the U.S. It was a costly mistake. Why were they not forthcoming about the problem in their research? Did they think they could get away with it?

The term “full disclosure” is primarily used in the area of finance. It is an accounting principle that requires management to report all relevant information about the company’s operations to creditors and investors in its financial statements. It ensures that the readers and users of a company’s financial information are not mislead by lack of information.

The term can be used more broadly to include the importance of fully disclosing all relevant facts to any individual or group making a decision.

On a personal level, we should be thoroughly honest and transparent in our relationships and business dealings.

• I once counseled a recently married couple. The husband had not told his wife that he was bringing $50,000 of credit card debt into the marriage.  
• When applying for a job, an applicant intentionally omitted pertinent information on her resume.
• An individual sold his car to another person, intentionally hiding the fact that the car had major mechanical problems.

Full disclosure should be our default setting.

Of course, there’s a balance to achieve. There’s no need to bother people with irrelevant information, and discretion should inform how much information is shared. But be transparent and thorough in sharing all relevant and necessary information.

Action item — Evaluate your personal level of disclosure. Do you tend to be too selective in what you share, or do you practice appropriate disclosure? Also evaluate your organization. 

Discussion question — Is there ever a time when full acknowledgment is inappropriate? 

Casting vision is an important part of a leader’s job. Without vision, you can manage an organization, but without fresh vision it will eventually stall.

Vision is a picture of the future that is better than the present. It envisions an improvement, an upgrade, over the current status. So vision requires change, and most people resist change. When you cast vision for your organization, it will create pressure and tension. You’ll feel it yourself and you’ll sense it in others. This is normal. Take a deep breath and carry on.

Here’s an object lesson that illustrates the tension and strain that vision creates. Hold a rubber band between your two index fingers. Consider your right finger as your organization’s status quo, your left finger as the future of your organization, and the rubber band as the tension that exists between the present and the future. Keeping your right hand stationary, move your left hand farther away; the tension in the rubber band increases as more pressure is produced with more distance. Similarly, vision creates tension in organizations.

I’m the executive director of a small non-profit organization. Years ago, I led the organization to purchase four acres adjacent to DFW Airport and we remodeled an existing building for our headquarters. It was a major financial commitment. I used my personal financial assets as collateral on the loan.

The morning after closing on the property, I woke up in a cold sweat, thinking, What have I done? My team and supporters were kind and helpful, but at times I could sense them wondering, Is this going to work?  

It did work, and when the vision became reality it was a wonderful result.

I’m not suggesting that leaders be impulsive, reckless, or make unilateral decisions. I’ve written often about the advantages of collaborative, careful leadership.

I’m simply saying that leading aggressively through bold vision comes with a price: risk, tension, pressure, the possibility of failure…and that these factors should be anticipated and negotiated.

Bold leadership is not for the faint of heart.

Action item — Leaders, evaluate your vision-casting. Do you have fresh vision for your organization?

Discussion question — Share a time in your life when, as an individual or the leader of an organization, you felt the pressure that accompanies bold vision

Also: Isadore Singer, one of the most important mathematicians of our age, created a bridge between two seemingly unrelated areas of mathematics and then used it to build a further bridge, into theoretical physics. In this video, observe the humble nature of this beautiful mind. Let’s imitate his unceasing curiosity about life and learning.