Improving Understanding
The Challenge
Understanding our beliefs and the beliefs of others.
Key Take-Away
We all see the world differently.
Genuine curiosity to figure out the “who/what”, “how many”, “where”, “how” and “why” others are seeing, can accelerate adaptation and learning.
Supporting Information
Never Split the Difference — Hostage Negotiations
During hostage negotiations there is often conflicting, deliberately misleading, information.
In Never Split the Difference, Chris Voss explains how the FBI uses multiple listeners generating multiple possibilities to figure out what is really going on.
Having multiple listeners provides multiple perspectives on the information available.
Creativity, INC. — PIXAR — The Brain Trust
Ed Catmull describes a process used by PIXAR in Creativity, INC. The process used by PIXAR is called the Brain Trust and it’s meant to tease out unexpressed ideas in the head of the director during the making of a film.
The Culture Code — DEVGRU AARs
Daniel Coyle describes a process used by DEVGRU in The Culture Code. During after action reviews (AARs), team members go over what they did and why. The process has less to do with right and wrong and more to do with understanding what other members of the team are paying attention to and how they are using the information they are gathering.
The Tell-Tale Brain — Information Pathways
The Back of the Napkin — Information and Decisions
In The Tell-Tale Brain, V.S. Ramachandran talks about different information pathways.
In The Back of the Napkin, Dan Roam provides a similar description of information pathways and talks about how the way we process information through these pathways influences the way we make decisions.
One pathway is an emotional superhighway to quickly link danger signals to the fight or flight mechanism.
Three other pathways operate in parallel covering “who/what”, “how many” and “where”.
You can experience these pathways yourself.
Walking into a space there are different responses to who/what, how many and where.
You get a different emotional response from different people in your life.
You get a different emotional response from a party with a few people and a party with a lot of people.
You get a different emotional response from having a few people right next to you and a few people far away.
All three information pathways are operating at the same time. Snapshots of who/what, how many and where are strung together over time to determine how (cause & effect).
Filling in the gaps — Why and What’s Next
What isn’t as obvious, because it happens so often and automatically, is the way our brains inject events into the past which never happened.
Often, what we’re injecting into the story is “why” or intent. It’s often in the form of “so and so wants X, so they did this…”.
In the picture above, event “C” is injected into the story after event “B” happens based on a belief about intent. In the story we tell ourselves afterwards (and base our decisions on) “C” happened before “B” did.
In addition to injecting events into a story, we also predict future events.
Anticipating and preparing for the future is a good thing, the danger lies in how much our predictions can feel like reality. In the picture at the top, the future event “D” we’re predicting feels just as real as “A”, “B” (and the made-up event “C”).
So what? How can I use this information?
1) For yourself, ask “why”? The answer to each “why “ question uncovers a layer of belief. Sometimes it may require peeling back three, four or five layers of belief before uncovering a flaw in your line of reasoning. “Why” questions are especially good for examining what you’re paying attention to and where you’re expending effort.
2) For others, ask “what” and “how” questions. This is another recommendation from Chris Voss. “Why” questions can be easily misinterpreted as judgement, and few people enjoy being judged. Questions such as “what interests you in that subject?” Or “how does that apply?” Are, more often than not, appreciated. Attention is a valuable commodity, people will appreciate yours.
3) Be genuinely curious. Seek to understand, not to convert. The intent of the “what” and “how” questions is to understand how others see the world. We are all mostly blind, we only see a part of the world and depend quite a bit on others to understand the rest of it. Most people are sensitive to intent. Questions intended to expose flaws in beliefs are much different than questions seeking to understand beliefs.
4) Get comfortable with multiple possibilities. It is possible to accept the views of others as valid to them without endorsing their beliefs as yours. It is also possible (but uncomfortable) that they are right and you are wrong. More often than not, it’s possible to track multiple possibilities. We don’t always have to battle for a single right answer at this exact moment. We can learn a lot just by being aware that other people are exploring different possibilities and that they might find a piece of the puzzle we’re missing.
