Tag Archives: fact

Focusing arguments upon sound knowledge: common fallacies of logic and rhetoric

September 8, 2014 Simon Black Leave a comment

Dealing with change usually involves debate: what to change, why, where, when, how and who?

There is often the danger that skeptical inquiry can creep towards defensiveness and cynicism. Here are some things to challenge when these attributes appear in negative arguments presented by others (adapted from Paine 2013):

POOR responses in discussions include:

Attacking the person not the argument, or stereotyping a position to make attacks easier.
Relying on ‘authority’. Hierarchy should make no difference, one person’s opinion should be no weightier than another’s (both are, after all, just opinions) – what are the facts?
Observational selection (counting positives and forgetting the negatives, or vice versa).
● Statistics of small numbers
(such as drawing conclusions from inadequate sample sizes)
● the ‘sample of one’: using a single case which could be an extreme outlier rather than the norm
‘conveniently’ considering only two extremes to make the opposing view look worse:
● Excluding the middle options in a range of possibilities
● Short-term v long-term: “why pursue research when we have so huge a budget deficit?”.
● Slippery slope – unwarranted extrapolation “give an inch and they will take a mile” – would they…always?
Misunderstanding the nature of statistics
Confuse correlation & causation (cause & effect):
‘it happened after so it was caused by’ – is this really justified?
Appeal to ignorance
(but – absence of evidence is not evidence of absence).

To address these arguments ask: what is the purpose of the discussion? what do we know? what are the facts? what are we assuming? what knowledge can we reasonably base our decision making upon? how can we examine, predict and monitor outcomes?

As Deming says, most of what is important is unknown or unknowable, but we don’t assume that it doesn’t exist.

Bring the skeptics into the argument, involve their questions in the testing and development of ideas. Make resistance useful.

Further reading:

Deming W.E. (1982) Out of the Crisis, MIT CAES, Cambridge MA.

Deming W.E. (1993) The New Economics, MIT CAES, Cambridge MA.

Herrero, L. (2006) Viral Change, meetingminds, UK.

Paine M. (2013) Baloney Detection Kit prepared excerpt from The Planetary Society Australian Volunteer Coordinators http://www.carlsagan.com/index_ideascontent.htm#baloney

Change Principles, Culture, Excellence, Leadership, Service, Trust

Should we say it again? People are not the problem.

June 6, 2014 Simon Black Leave a comment

Deming famously stated “I should estimate that in my experience most troubles and most possibilities for improvement add up to the proportions something like this: 94% belongs to the system (responsibility of management), 6% special.“. In other words people-related ‘fault’ will be part of the minority 6%.

This statement tends to set people into a degree of hand-wringing ifs and buts: ‘surely he meant this only in a manufacturing system’, ‘ what about the difficult people?’, ‘ what if they are incompetent?’, ‘I am sure folks are the problem 40% of the time’ etc…

Chip and Dan Heath share a trivial, but insightful example in their book ‘Switch’. They discuss a situation (part of a research exercise) where moviegoers eat significantly more popcorn if they are given large buckets, than if they are given small buckets. To the outsider it looks like the people are ‘Popcorn Gorging Gluttons’ and we may feel that we should judge them as so. In reality, their behaviour (eating excessive amounts of popcorn) is driven by the system – the size of bucket they have been given. Change the bucket for a small one and their behaviour changes – they seem like moderate consumers. The system is the problem (large buckets), not the people.

“But aha – surely it’s their fault that they choose to scoff down the popcorn!”. True, we are sentient beings and can make choices (for example, I would hope that people who are aware of supermarket sales floor design are less likely to buy excessive amounts of fresh baked goods, fresh fruit and ‘buy-one-get-one-free’ items). I am not suggesting that we should excuse everyone of their behaviour 95% of the time. There are other things to consider – for example do we run on autopilot too often (Do we let the chimp drive the car? More for a later blog I think…)?

However as a start we need to be honest enough to examine our own assumptions as placed upon others and how we judge their behaviour. As the Heath brothers suggest, to do this we need to encounter a deep-rooted phenomenon identified in psychology.

Kendra Cherry explains -“When it comes to other people, we tend to attribute causes to internal factors such as personality characteristics and ignore or minimize external variables. This phenomenon tends to be very widespread, particularly among individualistic cultures.“

In Psychology this is known as the fundamental attribution error – we automatically assume that the person’s internal characteristics are the cause of behaviour even when other possible influencing factors are present in the situation.

So let’s pull away from assumption and open our minds to what is really happening with people.

Further Reading:

Deming W.E. (1982) Out of the Crisis (p315), MIT CAES, Cambridge MA.

Heath C., and Heath, D. (2010) Switch: when change is hard, New York: Random House

Peters S. (2012) The Chimp Paradox: The Mind Management Programme to Help You Achieve Success, Confidence and Happiness. Vermillion, London.

Other links:

Cherry, K. (2014) Attribution: How we explain behaviour. http://psychology.about.com/od/socialpsychology/a/attribution.htm

Change Principles, Excellence, Myths

Change and the knowledge iceberg

April 30, 2012 Simon Black 5 Comments

So, is management by fact a bit simplistic? What about the emotional aspects of work; trust, appreciation, excitement, fear, worry, concern? How can these things be properly addressed. A lot of these things will be more or less important depending on how we see the world. And most people see the world differently to everyone else!

If we want to improve anything it is best to make those improvements from a perspective of understanding – using knowledge. Unfortunately we live in a world of incomplete knowledge and, dare I say it, differing perceptions (we all see things differently). Deming suggests that we work on the basis of a decent theory of knowledge – but what does he mean? I use the iceberg analogy:

* A start point is to understand that there are things that most of us know – obvious, like the peak of an iceberg.

*Next there are the flatter ice floes, which a good ‘spotter’ on a ship might notice bobbing in the waterline. It is important that we know about these and we should get better at spotting them.

* However there is also sub-surface ice (in this analogy) – things not visible to anyone but which we need to delve into or at least give consideration (we have a decent hunch – or ‘belief’ – or ‘theory’ – or experience – that they will be there). Effort is needed either to seek them out or at least think properly about how we might have to deal with them. If we blindly sail through areas were sub-surface ice may be lurking, on the assumption that what we don’t know will not hurt us, we would be a little foolish.

* There is also stuff that we don’t know … and need never know… it is out of our sphere of influence and we cannot do much to manage it – so don’t worry.

* Deepest of all is the ‘unknown’ – we will never know about it – (so again don’t worry)

In summary we should seek reasonable knowledge when we make decisions; we should not ignore things which are too difficult to understand and we should be honest when we are making assumptions. If we do this, then the outcomes of change, whether good or bad, will be better understood and will help to inform us in the future. If we need to broach sensitive subjects: trust, appreciation, excitement, fear, worry, concern, then a conversation is a good start point.

Is it an egg?

April 2, 2012 Simon Black Leave a comment

One item is ovoid, solid, brown, less than 10cms tall; another is about the same size and shape but a striking blue. Here are the two items; similar, but different. Lets take the one on the right – is it an egg? Yes it looks like an egg, but what about the second – is it an egg? Probably? Possibly? But what about that colour? Maybe the shape is not quite right too.

A perceptive person may seek out other information:

• is each item heavy or light? – actually they both weigh the same, about 60 grammes;

• are they rough or smooth? – generally smooth, but both are slightly matt to the touch;

• cold or hot ? – both are cold, but warm up easily enough in your hands

Who cares?

When my 12-year-old son is feeling cheeky, and thinks that he can catch me unawares, he will secretly pick up one of these, suddenly shout ‘hey Dad!’ and throw it at me to test my reflexes. He knows that he will get a reaction – I might laugh, get cross, duck, catch it, jump out the way or use any combination of these behaviours.

And what happens if it hits me or I drop it? With the brown one – well, nothing ; no mess at all because despite being the right shape, colour, weight and texture of a chicken egg it is rubber. Until it bounces off the floor you would never really know, even if you look at it closely. However, the strange blue egg will make a terrible mess. It is of course a duck egg. Thankfully my son has never tried to throw one of the blue eggs at me!

When we say we ‘manage by fact‘ what do we really mean? The facts are obvious aren’t they? Like the eggs, facts are probably not obvious – we usually work on the basis of our best ‘knowledge’ and that knowledge can be very variable. Knowledge ranges from pure facts to pure guesses; from fixed perceptions and preconceptions to a broad balance of possibilities; from empirical evidence to ‘belief’. The most surprising thing is that, to some degree or another, none of these things are necessarily ‘better’ or ‘worse’; ‘right’ or ‘wrong’.

A belief might be well founded, based on experience or relate to something that is essentially unmeasurable or unknowable – we have to go with a reasoned belief. The problems arise when people use beliefs (and I am not talking about religious beliefs) in the face of contradictory, reliable evidence.

For example, if a manager believes people are motivated solely by money, that manager does not have helpful knowledge of motivation and will therefore end up working with people in unhelpful ways (for them and, ultimately, for the manager too). The evidence concerning what motivates people at work is out there and should be sought by that manager, be understood and applied.

In another case a person may believe that female workers are more efficient than male workers, so that person’s behaviour towards workers of different genders may end up being distorted and again will ultimately be unhelpful.

At the other end of the scale we have facts; and ‘knowledge of facts’ can equally be an area of difficulty. Surely, if sales this month are up 10% on the same month last year, that’s a fact – but what does the 10% difference really mean (and I am not getting philosophical here)? Look at the diagram here – one person might see the last data point circled in red for February as great performance compared to Feburary in the previous year; others might be less sure.

As for the rubber egg – seeing that as a real egg is surely wrong (other than for use as a ball to bounce at your Dad perhaps)? Well not exactly. If you want to collect eggs from a broody hen, it is important that you replace her freshly laid egg with a replica that is such a good copy that she is convinced that it is a real egg. Now what does that mean for management by facts?

Management by fact or management WITH facts?

March 26, 2012 Simon Black 5 Comments

In a recent discussion with colleagues, we considered the management approach taken by a progressive university in the US to enable change and improvement. One element of this change was a philosophy of ‘management by fact’. This particular university had found this approach to be helpful and made a difference to the way they made decisions and identified improvements. What had made a difference was not only that they used facts, but that they looked at those facts and considered them in a sensible (and helpful) manner.

But what are facts and why are they useful?

“The sky is not less blue because the blind man does not see it.” (Danish proverb)

“Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please” (Mark Twain)

“It is not the facts which guide the conduct of men, but their opinions about facts; which may be entirely wrong. We can only make them right by discussion” (Sir Norman Angell)

Of course any person works and makes decisions using facts – don’t they? In reality people can use, ignore, interpret or distort facts. An emphasis of ‘facts’ can sometimes actually disguise a lack of understanding or can be merely a knee-jerk demonstration of what a person sees as ‘effective’ management. In these cases the shortcomings are inevitable:

‘paralysis by analysis’: an inability to consider options or initiatives if there are not facts to back-up the case. Analysis continues to be pursued ad infinitum (many organisations have missed major opportunities as a result).

‘deferred decision-making’: a continuation of paralysis by analysis. Decisions are only made when there is enough data to support them, so consequently no decision is EVER made.

‘If we can’t measure it we can’t manage it’: a mentality which although apparently plausible is simply not true; it just gives an excuse for not attempting to manage difficult things like behaviour, culture, trust, respect, potential, commitment, opinion, loyalty and reputation: ‘the sky is not less blue….’

‘Management by numbers’: a command-and-control approach that expects people to jump through hoops to reach their targets. This only drives behaviour to get the numbers, but if those numbers measure the wrong things…

‘Game playing’ (or at least one variant): distorting numbers to make an argument (see Mark Twain’s quote); this can be creatively negative or positive, but both risk giving a warped sense of reality, and is an approach which is often fairly annoying for other people and undermines trust and collaboration.

For the university in the case study (and it is a real institution), successful management-by-fact required a fundamental foundation of shared values & mutual trust between colleagues. Trust is important – it helps to avoid playing games with numbers or using numbers as sticks to beat over the heads of other people. Trust enables us to look at the facts together and have a discussion (see Angell’s suggestion above). We should use what we know and be ready to discuss the issues; as the case study university itself prefers to describe it; management with facts.

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