Ataraxy Friday: Why being wrong doesn’t feel wrong?

People don’t like being wrong.? Or so I’ve read. ??

In commercial and societal contexts, this trait comes at a significant cost.? We get stuck in a quagmire of obstinance, self-protection, or motivated reasoning just at the time we need to access diverse ideas and perspectives to drive innovation and improve problem-solving.

When something challenges our worldview, it is easy to dismiss, ignore, or argue with this challenge.

Sometimes, we suspect we might be wrong, at least to some extent, but prefer to remain wrong in some kind of militant stand against change or in defence of some larger principle.

Ask yourself honestly - how easily do you adjust your perspective on subjects that matter?

The simple truth:

- it is relatively easy to change your mind about facts (semantic declarative memories).??

- it can be much tougher to change your mind about felt experiences (non-declarative implicit memories - what ‘feels right’).

These ‘felt’ memories make it harder for us to change and easier to dismiss facts that don’t fit.?

We might read some evidence that suggests we are factually wrong about something, but it doesn’t feel like it.? Which incidentally is why (and this kills me to know) presenting someone with logic and evidence very rarely works in changing people's minds.??

Semantic facts are easy to change, but also easy to mentally dismiss.? Especially when I implicitly ‘want’ to see things the way I already do.? In a competition between “feelings” and “evidence”, unfortunately, for most people, “feelings” will win.

Presenting ‘facts’ will generally backfire as people will walk away from the discussion and set about bolstering their pre-existing views.

To influence people more effectively (including ourselves), we need to get more comfortable with feeling uncomfortable.? That is, feel the discomfort of maybe being wrong and embrace it as an opportunity to learn.? Turn the feeling of obstinance into curiosity.

If you were travelling, guided by? a map that you were familiar with, that feels good to use, and then discovered it was inaccurate in some important aspects, would you still use it???

The longer you travel using the wrong map, the more lost you are likely to become.

Would you want to be wrong about something any longer than necessary?? If something doesn’t feel right, be curious and if needed, update your maps.

Have an Ataraxic Weekend.

Nigel

PS Want your leaders to move from arguing and defensive to listening, resolving issues and making effective decisions, faster??

I’m running a how-to workshop later this month.

Interested? Click here for deets.??