In our bedroom, the cat was playing with the cord dangling from our window blinds. I shooed her away by spraying her with a water bottle. She bolted out of the room, down the hall, past the bathroom where my son, at the very moment the cat passed, turned on the faucet.
“Wow!” He exclaimed. “That was crazy! As soon as I turned the water on the cat came running!”
To be fair, he was correct in one sense: the cat was on the move because of water. But she was running from not towards. The origin of the water was not him but me.
My understanding of causality is highly dependent upon my location. My position. My perspective. From where I stand, I think something happened because of A, when in fact it was F. Or something didn’t happen that I really hoped would not because of Q, but because of T.
This is a core challenge of leadership.
It’s best to not jump to conclusions about causalities.