Nature or Nurture:
A False Dichotomy

by Rodger Dean Duncan  

Business people frequently ask about the origin of effective behavior. Is it primarily the result of a person’s background and even genetic pool, or it is more the result of training and conditioning?

In other words, is it nature or nurture?

I tell them the question is a false dichotomy. Effective behavior is primarily the result of choice.

In this age of victim talk, that doesn’t set well with some folks. They would rather provide a litany of reasons they behave in a certain way than take personal accountability for their actions.

It reminds me of comedian Flip Wilson’s old line, “The devil made me do it.” Only in real life it’s not funny.

The excuses many reactive people give for their behavior seem designed, consciously or not, to absolve them of responsibility. It’s as though they really have no choice.

These Darwin-like “theories of determinism” come in basically three shades:

• Genetic determinism – traits we inherited
   
• Psychic determinism – our upbringing
   
• Environmental – our surroundings

To demonstrate how these “theories” come into play, let’s take a simple (?) issue like maintaining physical fitness. Let’s say that since high school you’ve gained forty pounds and you can’t seem to get it off.

If your reactive script follows the genetic determinism mode, you likely find yourself saying things like, “My grandparents were farm people. They ate like horses because they burned a zillion calories a day with all that hard labor. My eating habits are simply part of my genetic make-up. My metabolism can’t really be adjusted because it’s just part of who I am.”

If your reactive script follows the psychic determinism theory, you probably say things like, “My parents always made me clean my plate. They told stories about all the starving children in Bangladesh. I felt guilty if I didn’t eat everything put in front of me. That same pattern haunts me to this day, and the result is my big waistline.”

And if environmental determinism is your preferred rationale, your reactive script may sound like this: “Hey, I travel all the time. Many of my meals are on the run. And I never get a chance to exercise. With my schedule there’s not a thing I can do about all that physical stuff.”

You get it? It’s just another version of “The devil made me do it.”

High performing people don’t fall for the determinism trap. Rather than being reactive, they are proactive. Reactive people respond to circumstances on the basis of their emotions. Proactive people respond to circumstances on the basis on their values.

Another simple example: Let’s say you have a big day ahead of you. Important meetings, important issues and important people are on your schedule. You want to look, feel and perform your best. You open your front door and discover that it’s raining buckets. You have at least two choices – you can curse the heavens (I definitely don’t recommend this reactive response), or you can go back inside and get your umbrella (a proactive response that will help keep you both dry and calm).

The reactive response is borne of your emotions – you feel rushed and perhaps a bit apprehensive about the day and the last thing you want is to get rained on. The proactive response is borne of your values – staying calm, looking good, feeling good, and staying focused on the opportunities of the day.

In an average 24-hour period you make thousands of decisions. Most of them are somewhat unconscious, like pressing the “shift” key when you want to type a capital letter. Others are more mindful, like the way you respond to someone’s comment, the way you handle an interruption or disappointment, the way you interact with a colleague, your spouse or a child.

And in not a single instance can you legitimately say “The devil made me do it.”

I know people who suffered abuse in their childhood and who use that terrible experience as an excuse for being overly strict, or unkind or worse with their own children. I know others who suffered childhood abuse and who not only have forgiven the abuser but who themselves are among the most kind and “balanced” people you could ever meet.

With every response to every circumstance, choice is king. We can talk a good game about nature (what’s in our gene pool). We can tell ourselves good stories about nurture (our upbringing and early experiences). But none of it is as powerful as personal choice.

Much of my work involves helping organizations create and maintain high performance cultures. Thirty years ago I thought organizational culture took decades to change. After all, I reasoned, it evolved over many years, so significant change would also require years of evolution.

I’ve since learned differently. Organizational cultures are simply the aggregate of individual behavior. If they choose to, individuals can change virtually immediately.

To use the earlier analogy – if you genuinely want to improve your physical conditioning, you can make deliberate choices that will lead you there. You can choose to eat the foods that result in energy and lean body tissue rather that those that lead to fat and lethargy. You can choose to take healthful snacks with you on airplane trips. You can choose to stay at hotels with exercise facilities, and you can choose to use those facilities. The possibilities are limited only by your imagination.

If your history includes being the recipient or perpetrator of dysfunctional behavior, you can choose to be a transition person. That is, you can deliberately make the transition from one kind of behavior set to another.

This ability to make “the mighty change” is not just some sort of psycho-babble theory. It’s a critical component of the human spirit. My spirit. Your spirit. And the spirit of every other human on earth.

Proactive people (those whose behavior is fueled by their values rather than by their emotions) learn to exercise four endowments that are available to all of us. These four endowments are:

• Self-awareness. This involves honestly examining your thoughts, moods and behaviors.
   
• Imagination. With imagination you create something new. You visualize beyond your past or current experience and look into the possibilities of the future.
   
• Conscience. You understand the difference between right and wrong, and you follow your compass of personal integrity.
   
• Independent will. You act independently of external influences.

Not one of these endowments in sufficient in and of itself. For balance, we need to use all four.

And we should bear in mind that imagination is a much more powerful force than memory. Even though most of your past (memory) may be positive, what’s in your future (imagination) is limitless.

As for making the great things in your imagination come true, you are the biggest determinant.

It’s a matter of choice.