
When discussions expose different positions and viewpoints, facts and truths can help to resolve those differences. But facts and truths can be helpful only when the parties to the discussion can accept facts as facts and truths as truths. Discussions that heretofore had focused on the issues at hand can become entangled in debates about facts and truths that aren't really debatable.
Barriers to accepting truth are many. Familiarity with the catalog of these barriers can help groups clear them more quickly when clearing them is possible using the tools of discussion and rational argument. As we'll see, some barriers can't be cleared using rational argument alone, and some cannot be cleared at all. Below are two examples of barriers to accepting truth.
- Newtonian worldview
- One of the more subtle barriers is a Newtonian worldview. I've provided two examples in recent weeks. One is in "Newtonian Blind Alleys: I," Point Lookout for May 22, 2019. Briefly, the Newtonian worldview includes the belief that a mechanistic model of classical mechanics applies more broadly in the world of ideas. Its consequences include the idea that a single concept or agent can explain whatever phenomenon is at issue; that a single counterexample can invalidate a hypothesis as an explanation for a given phenomenon; that an individual who provides heroic contributions in one field of knowledge cannot do so in other disparate fields; that someone who has performed brilliantly in the past in a given situation will inevitably do so in future similar situations; and that credentials are equivalent to capabilities.
- Many who Many who are adhering to false
beliefs are unaware that they are.
To them, their beliefs seem axiomatic.adhere to these beliefs are unaware that they do. To them, these beliefs seem axiomatic. Others can experience a sense of relief when these beliefs are questioned, because they do present a heavy intellectual burden, constraining severely the set of possible solutions to problems. People who hold these beliefs very strongly are unlikely to adopt alternative views as a result of a short discussion. - Ignorance
- In informal conversation, to be ignorant is to be rude, discourteous, or unsophisticated. And certainly those attributes can be barriers to accepting truth. But ignorance in another sense can be more problematic. To be ignorant in that sense is to be unaware, uneducated, or unschooled in the matter at hand, and in some cases even more broadly. To engage with people who are ignorant in the sense of unawareness about the truths of matters unfamiliar does present difficulties. It might be necessary to educate them about related matters before they can understand the points you're trying to make.
- And that necessity creates two classes of issues that might be difficult or impossible to address. First, unless the person seeks your assistance in completing his or her education, when you attempt to help with that project you might seem to them to be haughty, conceited, presumptuous, condescending, or worse. Offending the person is likely. Second, we humans have a way of filling the voids in our knowledge with imagination, rumor, or some other form of manufactured "facts." When we do, we rarely keep track of where we obtained which bits of data. It all goes into the hopper labeled "What I Believe to Be True," in a jumbled mass along with what-I-wish-were-true. And when someone comes along and claims that some of this stuff isn't true, we tend to resist. Dissuading people of something they believe — and who don't remember why they believe it — can be difficult indeed.
These two barriers to accepting truth are examples of the more benign kinds of barriers. Next time we'll examine some members of a less benign class of barriers. Next issue in this series
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Related articles
More articles on Effective Communication at Work:
When Naming Hurts
- One of our great strengths as Humans is our ability to name things. Naming empowers us by helping us
think about and communicate complex ideas. But naming has a dark side, too. We use naming to oversimplify,
to denigrate, to disempower, and even to dehumanize. When we abuse this tool, we hurt our companies,
our colleagues, and ourselves.
When You Aren't Supposed to Say: I
- Most of us have information that's "company confidential," or possibly even more sensitive
than that. When we encounter individuals who try to extract that information, we're better able to protect
it if we know their techniques.
Cognitive Biases and Influence: I
- The techniques of influence include inadvertent — and not-so-inadvertent — uses of cognitive
biases. They are one way we lead each other to accept or decide things that rationality cannot support.
When Retrospectives Turn into Blamefests: II
- Retrospectives are widely recognized as reliable tools for fostering organizational learning, though
in some organizations, they can degenerate into blamefests. Here are four measures that can reduce the
chances of trouble in a coming retrospective.
When Retrospectives Turn into Blamefests: III
- Although retrospectives do foster organizational learning, they come with a risk of degeneration into
blame and retaliation. One source of this risk is how we responded to issues uncovered in prior retrospectives.
See also Effective Communication at Work for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
Coming September 3: Contributions in Team Meetings: Advocating
- An agenda in the form of an ordered list of topics might not provide an appropriate framework for a given meeting. For example, if A depends on B, and B depends on A, we must find a way to discuss A and B together in some orderly fashion. Here are some alternatives to linear, ordered agendas. Available here and by RSS on September 3.
And on September 10: Contributions in Team Meetings: Scoping
- Some meetings focus on solving specific problems. We call them "working sessions." More often, we delegate problem solving to task teams, while meetings wrestle with the difficult task of identifying or "scoping" problems rather than solving them. Scoping discussions can be perilous. Available here and by RSS on September 10.
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