opinions

It’s ok to say, “I don’t know”

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If you were asked direction to a location you didn’t recognise, what would you do? You might get out your phone and go to a source of information – a mapping app – and see if that might provide the data you need. You might suggestion the person speak to someone with more knowledge of the local area. Or you might simply say, “I’m sorry, I don’t know”.

But what if you were asked your opinion? Well you’d have to have the answer, right? Because we all have an opinion on everything. But should we?

Anyone who has known me for a period of time will know that, in the past, I’ve not been short of an opinion or twelve. Whether it is age, fatigue or, (with a more generous filter) the advent of wisdom, I’ve found myself expressing fewer and fewer (in fact that’s one of the reasons I haven’t written on here for over a year). Perhaps needing to express fewer opinions is a more accurate description and yet it comes at a time when the world seems to be going the other way – particularly on social issues.

We are losing the art of intentionally not knowing and replacing it with mass produced “oven ready” positions shared by both social and traditional media. Not only does this place at risk one of the fundamental drivers of progress, human curiosity, but it also significantly impedes our ability to actually identify the root cause of issues or challenges that we are trying to solve and replaces them with a dumbed down artificial, and often polarised, “solutions”.

You can apply this to so many of the key challenges we have – immigration, housing, economic growth, creating fairer workplaces, even conflict. Deeply complex and complicated issues that are beyond the proper comprehension of most of us are reduced to soundbites as we seek not to understand but instead to apportion blame. And in a world where “cut through” is king, this feeds the approach that our politicians and the media take, creating a vicious cycle that gives a sense of action without going anywhere.

Another option is to take the same approach to our opinions on topics we don’t understand as to being asked for directions. We could seek out sources of information, we could seek out people with more knowledge of the topic, or we could simply say, “I don’t know”.

It’s probably more complicated than that

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My mum used to have a t-shirt that read, “it’s probably more complicated than that”. As a guiding mantra when entering into a debate on anything in life we could all do worse than adopt this, yet at the same time there is an alluring pressure to make things simple. Above my desk, as I write this, I have a schematic of the cognitive bias codex as a reminder to myself of the complexity of the human brain. Of course it doesn’t stop me from falling into the traps, it just reminds me that I probably have.

We know that in times of stress and pressure we can rely more on our unconscious brain and that it can also be the place where some of the biases are held, to help make sense of information quickly and simply. And of course, most of us have lived through a period of sustained stress and pressure, so it is perhaps unexpected when we are so tired, so consumed with the pressures of life, so run down as a society that we want to make other things simpler.

Right. Wrong.

Good. Bad.

With. Against.

Fair. Unfair.

Politicians, media and campaigners understand this well. They’ve learnt the tricks of manipulation and use them freely. We call them out on it when they are suggesting something we disagree with, yet we lap it up when used on something that we agree with – the bandwagon effect. And at the same time our confirmation bias allows us to label “facts” as misinformation when they disagree with our argument, but accept “misinformation” as facts when they prove our case. And the funny thing is that most of us, if we take a little time to reflect, know this and can probably recognise when we have done this.

There was a lovely example of this recently with the launch of Threads in the battle between Facebook and Twitter. I watched as people moved across to the new platform and proclaimed how wonderful it was to find a platform where there was none of the hate or noise, a pure place like back in the early days. And then I watched as the same people, started to exhibit the same behaviours as they denounced on Twitter, sharing misinformation and biased political commentary. Of course, it isn’t the platform that makes the culture it is the people, what they were celebrating was the temporary loss of “the other lot”.

So what do we take from this? I don’t know. People are tired, we’ve been through (and are going through) a really difficult period in society. We all have a need to make things easier for ourselves and that might mean more judgment and less curiosity. We can’t stop that in society, but we can observe it in ourselves and our behaviour. And at the end of the day, it probably is more complicated than that – so maybe we don’t have to have an opinion right now or at all. Maybe that’s a start.

Nobody needs another opinion

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Just before Christmas a colleague asked me why I hadn’t written anything on here for a while. Whilst I was obviously aware that I hadn’t, I was surprised when I looked back and saw that it had been around three months. As someone who had previously written once a week, my writing during the pandemic had started to slow and then eventually, and intentionally stopped.

When people are dying, people are losing their businesses, families are being kept apart, writing about the importance of strong cultures or leadership felt…well a bit glib. And then all the space for debate in the workplace was filled with vacuous debates around hybrid working which, any objective view would tell you, is the least pressing issue for anyone running an organisation.

Frankly, I came to the conclusion that the last thing I or anyone else needed was another opinion.

A bit of time and space and I can’t help thinking that I was entirely wrong, we have never needed a diversity of opinion more. The problem is our ability to convey opinions sensibly and our reluctance to listen to and consider those that are different or challenge our perspective. Immediately jumping into criticism and critique, rather than embracing curiosity and asking questions. I know I am, and I think others are are, prone to falling into that trap.

Our thinking, decision making our choices and our ideas can only be improved by taking into account the widest range of perspectives. Whether that is in our teams, in our businesses, around board tables or in broader societal debates. Listening to different views or perspectives that are held sincerely and expressed respectfully is an undeniable strength, particularly when they challenge our beliefs or long held perspectives. The moment we think, “well they would say that”, we’ve shelved our curiosity.

But in order to consider the widest range of perspectives, we need people to feel confident they can express freely and openly those opinions. We need to value independence and creativity and avoid the trap of slipping into group think and soundbites. We need to be careful in the language that we use ourselves and to others and when we do come across something we find uncomfortable, we need to be willing to ask more and assert less.

Add to this the inevitable social media pile on when someone tries to outline a different opinion particularly about any of the “golden topics” – flexibility, diversity, executive pay, working practices, trust, employee responsibilities to name but a few – and you end up with the type of anodyne debate that serves no-one well and leaves many silently frustrated. And what is perhaps worse, is we give those that shout the loudest the false impression that everyone thinks the same, encouraging them to raise their voices even further.

So as my little self coaching session concludes; I need to take more time to listen to genuinely held and respectfully made views that challenge me, likewise I need to have the courage to express views responsibly that might challenge others and I need to silence the noise of those that don’t want to enter into a genuine conversation but instead want to simply point score.

Let’s see how we go.

An HR home truth

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It is pretty tough to tell a new entrant to the profession this, but a little advice can go a long way,

Chances are that most managers you meet are going to think you’re an idiot.

You then have the choice whether you are going to confirm that view for them or shatter their preconceptions. And in essence that differentiates a good HR pro from a bad one.

Is this a harsh view? I think we need to accept that most people in the workplace have a pretty dim view of HR.  I was having dinner with friends a few weeks back and we were talking about the Easter holidays, I explained that I didn’t have any time off because “the HR Director is an idiot”. Someone who didn’t know what I did replied, “well aren’t they all?”  And then just last week I was asked to look at an HR related work document for someone.  When I explained that the tone of it was a little “aggressive” the response I got was, “well that seems to be the way with every HR person that we deal with”.

We can try to explain this away, to pretend that this is “them” not “us” and that somehow the public perception is based on these rogue practitioners that appear at night, do bad stuff and then leave us to clear it all up.  Or we can do one of our very favourite things and blame our underperformance on line manager incompetence.

But in essence, the perceptions of the profession will only be changed by a thousand small actions each and every day. Actions that delight, surprise and add tangible value to each and every manager that we meet. They will only be changed if WE change our mindset and approach and decide that we need to do things a different way.

Start off by remembering that most people will think you’re an idiot when you first meet them.  If you can change their view by the time you meet them again…..you’re getting somewhere.