Why you’re wrong, even when you’re right
The theme song for this blog is Millie Jackson’s ‘If loving you is wrong, I don’t want to be right’.
Ever since Sir Isaac Newton figured out why things fall down instead of up - humans have been really into what is called “the Newtonian scientific method’.
And with good reason!
This way of thinking is all about looking at a problem, breaking it down into single variables and studying them independently. Which was a groundbreaking idea and gave us heaps of cool things like the aeroplanes, chemotherapy and the Tamagotchi. At its core, the scientific method encourages us to experiment and observe until we hit on a single objective truth and it’s kinda the mental model most of us hold when we solve problems: what is the RIGHT answer to a problem.
It’s a really great system for understanding lots of things in the world and we at Playgrounded love it and thank it for its service
…BUT
There is a place where it causes us some problems. In fact, we are going to be bold and say, there is a spot where it just doesn’t work:
Human systems and how to lead and manage them. (And a business or organisation is a human system)
These two handy list attempt to show the ways these concepts don’t play well together 👇
The scientific method tells us to:
Reduce variables and study elements of a system independently
To maintain objectivity by maintaining a distance from the system
Make no impact as we study the system
As managers and leaders, when we try and figure out what is going on in our organisations, we need to:
Study how all the parts of the system are affecting each other
Be part of the system as we study them
Try things to help the system before we have all the data
Add to this the fact that when people in your organisation know you are looking at a particular problem, their behaviour changes and you have a good old fashioned pickle wrapped in another pickle 🥒+ 🥒 .
And it’s why, when one person (or when one group in an organisation) takes their subjective truth as THE truth, you often get even more problems from the solutions they propose.
It’s not that they are wrong, it’s more that their ‘right’ is just one ‘right’ in a whole bunch of other ‘rights’, and it’s why, when we consider a human system, you are wrong, even when you are right
So what is a cool, fashionable, witty leader like you 🫵 to do?
When faced with a problem in the organisation you are working in, searching for an intersubjective experience, rather than an objective truth is a super cool thing to do.
(NERD ALERT 🚨: Intersubjective experience is just a fancy way of saying - knowing your opinion and perspective, seeking out the opinions and perspectives of others and using the wonderful skill of empathy to come to an understanding greater than that based solely on your own experience).
An element of leadership, therefore, must be about seeking the input of others in the system; to create an intersubjective experience of the system, in order to impact others with different perspectives WHILE SIMULTANEOUSLY seeking out other perspectives and being influenced by those. Also, it actually helps figuring out what action to take that benefits the business.
If you or your system is having a hard time with this, we are going to give you some phrases that work to open up an ‘intersubjective conversation’ and then a little homework challenge should you feel like accepting:
Phrases that pay:
“In my role as (insert fancy title here), I’m noticing (insert observations). How about you?”
When you think about (insert important problem here), what are you noticing?
What you are describing (does/does not) match with what I’m seeing. What does that mean?
Challenge homework
Find another leader in your org who wants to think with you about a problem you are seeing in your organisation. Maybe even pick one who you know thinks differently to you. Hang out with them for 30 minutes and set the task as this: Lets share our perspective on the needs of the organisation and search for all the differences and similarities we can find.
May fortune be with you on your intersubjective adventure and we hope you enjoyed tasting our brain thoughts 🤤 🧠 💭
If you like this TBT…
These two papers hold some cool stuff about researching in organisational systems:
Long, S. (1998). ‘Action Research, Participative Action Research and Action Learning in Organisations’, Centre for Organisational and Strategic Studies, Management Paper Series, 1.
Ottosson, S. (2003). ‘Participation action research - A key to improved knowledge of management’, Technovation, (23), 87–94.
