2-3-4 Friday: Why we hate being wrong
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1 thought
Singapore’s previous Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, was widely acknowledged to be someone who was cerebral, smart, and in his early days, unemotional.
But recently I heard an anecdote of him. It was a closed
door consultation with other colleagues. He held a point of view that was different. Instead of insisting on his way, he listened, bowed his head, leaned in, and said,
okay, tell me what I’m missing.
His ability to learn from different points of view, and to adjust his actions, has been one of the reasons why Singapore continued to achieve after Singapore’s founding father (and also his father, Lee Kuan Yew) stepped down.
There
are many schools of thought around Lee Hsien Loong’s legacy, and some say he was the one who brought about deeper inequalities in Singapore’s push to become a wealth and tech hub.
But no one can fault him for making major policy shifts during his time to accommodate the growing unhappiness against his party.
This ability to learn, and change one’s point of view, and subsequent actions, is one that I’ve come to see is difficult for many. I will be the first
to confess that I struggle.
In my first job, I struggled to see a colleague’s point of view in doing a programme in a certain way. I dug my heels in, and stopped talking to the colleague for the next 1.5 years of my time in the office. I would think of him as stupid, and unworthy of any conversation with me.
I know, it sounds horrible. I was pretty horrid.
But it is a natural human instinct. To want to be right.
How do
we change that?
1 talk
Often when I am with my wife, and I’m all riled up, and ready for a fight, I start picking out the mistakes and pointing out her wrongs.
Just then, she would say, “You know, you might be right.”
What do I say?
Anonymous
1 tip
“You know, you might be right.”
How often are we willing to see the validity of someone else’s
view?
In his book, The Undoing Project, Michael Lewis observed the friendship between Kahneman and Tversky and noted that one of Kahneman’s biggest skills was not asking “is this true”, but “what is this true of”?
This is a deep mindset shift that we often struggle to have. Rather than seeing the validity of someone else’s approach, we choose to dig in, and insist we are right. And often the advice is, “seek first to understand.” That often isn’t useful,
particularly when we are dealing with a primal brain like ours, that has to make judgments quickly, and save itself from threat.
And being wrong, is a deep-seated threat.
I can’t tell you how to get past it, except to tell you that the only way I’ve gotten past it is to start first by saying sorry to the person who’s arguing with you (or telling you a better idea.) Often, a sorry helps me to soften my view towards the other person, and realise that, hey,
we’re all working towards the same thing here. A better project, team, business.
I tell myself, okay, it’s not that I’m wrong, but this particular action might not work. Let’s try what he says.
Ultimately, it’s eating humble pie.
How willing are you to be humble? Or would you rather be right 40% of the time, and stay angry the other 60%, insisting that your way is the right way?
P.S Our fourth book is out! - What
does it take to really run a company?
We followed Nicholas, the owner of shipping company Mac-Nels for 1.5 years, going in his car, his conference, and having late chats in his home, to ghostwrite his memoir.
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