Overclaiming our role in projects is part of being human. Here is David in Germany with more.
This 40-foot bronze soldier is the largest war memorial in Germany. It’s a Soviet War Memorial, built here by the Soviets after World War II. And it commemorates the liberation of Berlin from the Nazis by the Red Army.
There’s an inscription that says: Thanks to the Soviet people, and on behalf of all mankind, we’ve added another great chapter to the history of humans, where the Soviet people have done this great thing.
There’s no mention of the Allies, of Lend-Lease, of anybody else. It’s an extreme case of what we would call “overclaiming.” But we all do it. Our brains are wired to think we contributed more to a shared task than we actually did.
So if you think you did 60% of a shared task, say, with one or two other people – cut it in half. And that will help mitigate the effects of this overclaiming. Overclaiming is bad for teams because it leads to bad feelings and feelings of ‘oh, I wasn’t properly recognized or compensated for what I did’ and feelings like ‘oh, other people aren’t doing it.’ But overclaiming is simply a part of the human condition.
I’m David Marquet. That’s your Leadership Nudge.
