F*** the Problem........................Fix the People

Why Affinity Bias Can Make or Break Delivery             

It’s who you are, and how you do it!.........not what you do or what you’ve done!                                                                                            

When things go wrong, it is stressful for everyone involved. It can also be a lonely and disempowering experience for those who depend on a resolution but cannot contribute to it. Buyers and customers often have no choice but to sit and wait.

Delivering an excellent fix rarely restores harmony on its own. The unspoken frustration remains: "it should not have gone wrong in the first place".

 

An old mentor of mine used to say, “Fix the people, not the problem,” (or less polite words to that effect) a sentiment that remains as relevant today as it was decades ago.

The relationship between individuals, and how they perceive one another, has a profound impact on the outcome of any interaction. A simple illustration makes the point clear.

The Power of Affinity Bias

Imagine two people buying identical bouquets of flowers for the same recipient.

  • The first gift is rejected, thrown on the floor and stamped on.
  • The second is warmly received, placed in a vase and proudly displayed.

The gifts were identical. The intentions were identical. The only difference was that the recipient liked one giver and disliked the other.

This is affinity bias in its purest form. It is present in every walk of commercial life. It demonstrates that doing a good job is not enough. People must also like and trust you.

Rather than resisting affinity bias, it is far more effective to understand it and use it constructively.

A Lesson from Technical Support

When I managed a technical support team, I attended monthly service delivery meetings with major clients. For my team, these meetings were generally cordial. For several of my peers, they were brutal. Their teams were challenged aggressively, scrutinised heavily and often criticised in public.

What made this disparity so striking was that our performance was rarely significantly better than theirs, and occasionally worse. The difference lay elsewhere.

My team was consistently honest. We did not “greenwash” our statistics. We admitted mistakes immediately rather than waiting for them to be discovered or burying them in the small print of a monthly report. As a last‑line support team, we dealt with complex, high‑impact incidents. Judgement calls were inevitable. Sometimes they worked. Sometimes they did not.

We followed two simple rules:

  1. Before making a fifty‑fifty decision, we consulted the customer, explained the options, risks and potential outcomes, and obtained their approval.
  2. If a decision went wrong, we informed the customer immediately and worked with them to minimise the impact.

As a result, complaints were rare. Customers respected the team’s professionalism and integrity. Meetings were smooth, with few surprises. Difficult conversations happened at the time of the incident, not weeks later.

Many of my peers believed that technical fixes spoke for themselves. They did not. Their equivalent performance was subjected to far greater scrutiny and far harder‑won approval.

We fixed the people first. They fixed only the faults.

Affinity Bias in Projects and Programmes

Affinity bias, or the absence of it, can derail a project. Every project is a chain of binary approvals, each one a potential veto point:

  • Do we need it?
  • Can we start it?
  • Have we finished it?
  • Can we have more time or budget?

The larger the project, the more decision points exist. Many are informal, covert or made outside the formal governance structure. Some are made by individuals with little knowledge of the project. Others are made by people with competing priorities, conflicting interests or personal biases.

These individuals are not always obvious. They may include auditors, users, customers, departments whose influence is threatened, people whose roles may become redundant, those offended on behalf of others, or those with unrelated causes. Their interference may distract key resources or stop progress entirely.

Veto by Proxy

Some individuals with approval authority, or influence over those who hold it, use veto by proxy tactics They never explicitly say no. Instead, they make progress so difficult that the project fails, while they remain blameless.

These are the stakeholders who need attention. In formal terms, this is stakeholder management. In practical terms, it is fixing the people.

How to Fix Stakeholders

It is impossible to keep everyone happy. Focus on those with the greatest potential to veto or obstruct. The goal is to build affinity bias in your favour. Four steps make this achievable: assimilate, empathise, educate and communicate.

Assimilate

Take time to get to know stakeholders and allow them to know you. The aim is to shift their perception from “one of them” to “one of us”.

Empathise

Demonstrate that you understand their perspective, not just the project’s. Shared understanding makes compromise easier.

Educate

Provide clear information about the project, emphasising common ground and being honest about areas of potential conflict.

Communicate

Maintain continuous dialogue. Share progress, changes, issues and delays with as much transparency as is appropriate. Avoid any perception of secrecy or concealment.

In Summary

Help people understand and like both you and the project. Provide information early so they can prepare for the impact of change. Never leave them to guess. In the absence of knowledge, people will rely on assumption, gossip and rumour. They will get it wrong and may veto the project for entirely spurious reasons.

The more stakeholders like and accept the project, the smoother the path to delivery will be.

 

DO NOT LEAVE IT UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE TO ENGAGE!

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