In a threatening situation when feeling exposed, individuals or groups respond in terms of survival. The survival instinct rarely focuses on the “right” thing to do. Why do we run from bears, pull back on the stick creating a greater stall in a stalling airplane, or accidentally yank a horse over backwards to stop it from running away: all bad decisions, but natural in the moment.

You may be confounded by the bad choices people make, but when you are in the Game, “How do I best get through this moment?” is often the relevant question. Good people, ethical people, become expedient as they quickly react to unfolding threats. The future and the potential penalties are simply not yet here. Expedience becomes habit and values are something to be examined at leisure.

There is LOGIC to ethics. The ethical path may be the harder path to follow in the moment, but it is almost always the path to the best outcome. The student pilot learns that the instinct to pull back on the stick when the plane is stalling will cause the plane to stall further. He or she learns through repetitive practice to short circuit instinct and push forward, increasing the speed even though the plane is now moving faster toward the ground. We have learned that running from the bear is the wrong thing to do, although any sane person would have that instinct when confronted. A trained woodsman knows better.

In other words, we must teach a way of thinking that makes the right things easy to do and the wrong things difficult. We must get comfortable with the sensation of speeding toward the ground when our plane is stalling because we know that is our ultimate safety net. Ethical people know there are no other options. They cannot think of running from the bear because they are so aware that to do so increases the danger. They are willing to take the short term hit of the loss of a job, or the disfavor of the power structure because it is easier than the long term impact of going to jail or facing the disappointment of their followers .

The training starts on simple things like confronting bullies or bosses who are short sighted. That training involves two elements. First, the examples of what can go wrong if your instincts take over must be emphasized. Secondly, and more importantly, we have to identify and teach the correct responses for crisis. We have to teach people how to push forward on the stick when they want to pull back. And we have to teach it until it becomes second nature.

Make the “Wrong Things Difficult” is the fun part. If you are confronted with someone who has a tendency to follow that path of least resistance, your job is to make it harder for them to do so. How? By stating the obvious, out loud.

Why? Imagine what would have occurred if someone had said to one of the driving forces behind Enron, out loud and in public, “If you do that you must understand that you are making a decision to put the company and all of its employees at enormous risk?” Had someone been brave enough to voice such a thought, the executive in question would have had to proceed with everyone knowing that he was choosing a decision which he had been warned was very bad for the company. Bad guys like to be invisible. By saying it out loud, it became more difficult for him to do the wrong thing.

Toni Lynn Chinoy has written multiple texts on leadership, bullies, power games and more. She is the founder of Harlan-Evans, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in effective organizational change and coaches senior leaders on how to respond to crisis. Her book, Handling Critical Moments with Grace which takes the reader through many examples of how to handle critical, life defining moments with GRACE, can be found, along with her other books on the Harlan-Evans, Inc. web site leadership books.

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