The O’Toole Chronicles: Delusional Centrality

There is a condition that afflicts politics with remarkable frequency. It is not listed in the DSM, there is no prescription for it, and apparently no vaccine. I call it delusional centrality. What in the world is delusional centrality (DC)? It is the sincere belief that everything happening around you is somehow about you.

A meeting gets moved? It must be a message. Someone doesn’t return a phone call? Clearly, a conspiracy. Two people are talking quietly across the room? Obviously, they’re talking about you. Someone else gets invited to an event, appointed to a board, quoted in the newspaper, promoted, praised or even seated at a better table? There must be something going on.

Tip of the week: Usually, there isn’t.

Politics attracts people with healthy egos. Frankly, some ego is necessary. You must believe in yourself enough to put your name on a ballot, knock on strangers’ doors, and ask thousands of people to choose you over somebody else. But confidence and self-importance are very different things. The longer you spend around politics, business, or any organization populated by ambitious people, the more you realize a simple truth:

Most people aren’t thinking about you nearly as much as you think they are.

They’re thinking about themselves. That realization should be liberating.

I learned long ago that Rule No. 1 in politics — and probably in life — is to know your audience.

And the best way to know your audience is to stop talking. Watch the room and listen. People will tell you almost everything you need to know if you give them enough room to do it. What they want. What worries them. What motivates them. What makes them angry. What makes them feel important. Yet too many people enter a room determined to demonstrate how smart, successful, or important they are. They tell stories. Drop names. Recite accomplishments. Interrupt. Correct. One-up. Does any of this sound familiar?

Then they leave convinced they were the most interesting person in the room. They probably weren’t. Actually, “probably” isn’t accurate – they weren’t. The most effective political people I’ve known operated differently. They understood that when you walk into a room, the room isn’t about you.

It’s about the people in it. So what is a self-aware politician to do?

Ask questions. Remember names. Listen to the answers. Talk to the person standing alone. Spend as much time with the janitor as with the chairman. And never assume that someone’s title tells you their importance. Most importantly, let other people speak more than you do.

This is intelligence gathering. And we all know that you cannot read a room while you’re busy performing for it.

Delusional centrality prevents that, because it turns every interaction into a referendum on us. We begin interpreting ordinary events as slights, challenges or conspiracies. Then we react to things that were never happening in the first place. I’ve watched politicians create enemies who weren’t enemies because they convinced themselves someone was plotting against them. I’ve watched friendships end over perceived insults the other person never intended. I’ve watched successful people become miserable because somebody else received a little attention. What an exhausting way to live.

There is an old lesson in politics: Never attribute to conspiracy what can adequately be explained by somebody being busy, distracted or simply thinking about something other than you.

Sometimes the phone call wasn’t returned because the person forgot. Sometimes you weren’t invited because the room only held 50 people. Sometimes two people whispering really are discussing dinner. And sometimes — brace yourself — you weren’t even part of the conversation.

So what is the cure? Glad you asked. The cure for delusional centrality is humility. Try walking into every room assuming you have something to learn. Try asking more questions than you answer. Listen longer than feels comfortable. Give somebody else the credit. And understand that you do not have to be the center of every story to matter. In fact, some of the most powerful people I’ve met rarely needed anyone to know they were powerful. They listened. They watched. They understood the room. They knew their audience.

There is an irony here. The people desperately trying to make everything about themselves usually become less interesting. The people genuinely interested in everyone else become the people everyone wants to talk to. So the next time you become convinced that the meeting, the phone call, the whisper, the invitation, or the perceived slight is all about you, consider another possibility.

Maybe it isn’t.

And that may be one of the healthiest lessons in politics — and in life. Know your audience. Listen more than you speak. And never confuse being in the room with being the reason for the room.