What’s Your Hidden Agenda?

How many of these conversations have you had or heard at work?

“All my boss does is suck up to the CEO. I’m doing all his work for him. He doesn’t know what work is. I take care of all the project details. 

“When I do a job, it has to be right, perfect. They don’t appreciate how good I am.”  

Or maybe you’ve been to dinner with a couple and the guy sits up straight like he’s at a podium. The conversation turns to the economy, and he’s arguing that the Fed should lower rates. You bring up sports, and he expounds on how baseball is dying. Try to talk about your kids, and he’s droning on about the seven developmental stages. Everything’s a lecture.

We all know people like this, people who have hidden agendas. Maybe the real intent of their conversations are to prove they’re smart, blameless, or tough. 

Hidden agendas are defensive maneuvers we use when we don’t feel good about ourselves. 

We all have them. 

We all use them. 

When you employ a hidden agenda as a communication strategy, you put up smoke screens, carefully selected anecdotes, or calculated remarks, to prevent people from seeing the real you. 

Can you identify yours? 

According to McKay, Davis and Fanning, there are eight hidden agendas: 

1. I’m good, 

2. I’m good but you’re not,

3. You’re good but I’m not, 

4. I’m helpless, I suffer, 

5. I’m blameless, 

6. I’m fragile, 

7. I’m tough, 

8. I know it all.

There are two functions for hidden agendas: to build up and preserve our stance on the world, and promote ulterior motives. 

Helping understand your own hidden agendas will help you detect hidden agendas in others, and be more open and honest in your communication.

Here’s an exercise for today, to identify your hidden agendas. 

Write down the eight agendas above on a card and carry it around with you all day. Whenever you use a hidden agenda, write it down. At the end of the day, put the agendas into categories. Which did you use with your boss, co-workers, S.O., children, friends, strangers, dog, etc. 

If the agendas are a major influence on your interactions, keep track a second day, or longer.  If you’re noticing that agendas dominate your conversations, you may need to take additional action, which I will describe in tomorrow’s Daily Tip.