How Do We Separate Opinions From Facts?

Remember the scene in the movie Zero Dark Thirty before the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan? C.I.A. Director Leon Panetta, played by the late, great James Gandolfini, goes around the room asking analysts to tell him if Bin Laden is, in fact, inside the compound. No one gives a yes or no answer, which frustrates Panetta. They all give percentages because they want to quantify their responses. Only the woman who had been studying Bin Laden the past seven years says 100%. She then changes to 95%, only because “I know certainty freaks you guys out.” It’s a powerful scene with a great portrait into finding the truth.

We are all staying home, hopefully reading more than ever and monitoring the news for any updates on the pandemic. We all have our favorite news outlet, one we depend on for giving us current and updated information. No matter whom we choose to deliver daily details, interpreting and processing the truth is critical.

Because there are so many hours to fill on the television air, the circle of competence is shrinking. The total number of real experts on the crisis is shrinking. Therefore, we are reacting to information that may or may not be completely accurate. We need to separate opinion from fact. Our world today is dealing with half-truths and even partial truths. A half-truth is a deceptive statement that includes some element of truth and spreads like wildfire.

As leaders, we must understand that the information that comes to us is not always 100 percent accurate. Sometimes it’s only half right. As consumers of news, we need to take the same view. This is not to imply people are intentionally misleading us with their work. Often people will stop short when they believe they uncovered the truth.

Arthur Schopenhauer was a German Philosopher during the 1800s and was best known for his book “The World as Will and Representation.” He shed some light on how we as leaders can come as close to the truth as possible. He felt the truth needed to pass through 3 stages:

1. It must be ridiculed from start to finish.

2. It must be opposed.

3. It then becomes regarded as self-evident.

What Schopenhauer is asking us to do is to vet opinion from fact. Try and separate someone's opinion, as opposed to facts. What do they know, and what do they believe? If we don't work diligently in this area, we will then make decisions on opinions, which could create problems.

Colin Powell is right. Only after you tell me what you don't know, can you tell me what you think.

P.S. If you are in search of a book recommendation, our team at The Daily Coach highly recommends Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain. In Quiet, Cain argues that we dramatically undervalue introverts and shows how much we lose in doing so. She charts the rise of the Extrovert Ideal throughout the twentieth century and explores how deeply it has come to permeate our culture. Passionately argued, superbly researched, and filled with indelible stories of real people, Quiet has the power to permanently change how we see introverts and, equally important, how they see themselves.

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