Introduction
“Get the facts!” “I’m not interested in your opinion. Just gimme the facts!” How often have you been told that? How often have you said these words or similar to your staff?
Facts And Opinions
Back in 1971 I was a young training officer in a company in a remote mining community. We designed our own training courses and materials. I was preparing a program on problem solving for supervisors. My boss looked at my notes and said, “Never forget: the opinions that people hold are facts to them”. He might have added that opinions, not facts, drive people’s actions. Our opinions may or may not have any basis in reality. But to ignore them is to ignore a most powerful pressure on both performance and behaviour.
“Getting” Or “Getting To” The Facts?
If you’re genuinely interested in “the facts” recognize this. You’ll need to acknowledge others’ opinions to reach “the facts”. It’s difficult to distinguish “fact” from “opinion”: especially when someone holds and expresses an opinion very forcefully. Only by acknowledging an opinion can you discover facts.
Arguments, Opinions And Facts
Business is not a debating club or animated barroom banter. Anyone can win an argument. You merely have to talk longer and louder than anyone else. Or you just need to pull rank” because you’re the boss. You’ll win the argument. You may not have the facts.
Drucker, Fact And Opinion
The above sentences aren’t merely more “Noone Musing on Management”. Peter Drucker has been described as “perhaps the greatest management scholar of the last Century”. In 1973 he wrote, “Executives who make effective decisions know that one does not start with facts. One starts with opinions …… the right decision grows out of the clash and conflict of divergent opinions and out of serious consideration of competing alternatives”.
Mark Twain And Facts
Mark Twain was no management scholar. He too knew the danger of confusing fact with opinion. “It’s not what you don’t know that gets you into trouble.” He wrote. “It’s what you know for certain that just ain’t so.”
Using Opinion To Reach Fact
It’s not rocket science. Use these straightforward techniques
- Always accept that you might be wrong; not with intent but merely because your information is inadequate or incomplete.
- Remember what my boss told me in 1971.
- Encourage staff to express opinions. If they’re unwilling to express them, you won’t discover what you need to know to make a better decision.
- Accept that decisions are judgements based on information. The more information you have the more it can be examined for relevance and reality and used or disregarded. But if you lack sufficient information because you stifle opinion …..!
- Be cautious when someone starts to express their view with assertions like “everybody knows ….” Or “it’s a fact that ,,,,” or “I know for certain that ….” Or similar statements. What follows is unlikely to be as cut and dried as the speaker would like you to believe.
- Learn to question assertions firmly but politely. “What makes you think…”, “what happened to lead you to that opinion?” “How did you reach that conclusion?”
- Paraphrase frequently by repeating others’ statements in your own words. “Are you say ….?” “Do you mean ….?” This ensures that you understand and that the speaker has the opportunity to clarify statements not clearly expressed.
- Be careful about making decisions too quickly about important issue. Fast decisions may be right or wrong. But whatever they are or not they usually do no more than reflect time pressures.
Conclusion
Dr Tom Gilbert was another famous management scholar of the last Century. Tom once told me, “We don’t live in the Information Age. We live in the Data Age. Information is data you can use.” Examining opinions is a great way to distinguish between data and information.
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Busy blog you got here. I liked your post, but I have to say the entire blog doesn’t seem to display properly on my iPhone. Other then that, keep it up!