You sit in a meeting. A heated discussion is going one - Should the team proceed with plan A or plan B?
Luckily, you expected this to happen. You came prepared - you have data supporting the choice. This will be a huge time saver.
“Let’s cut this discussion short”, you start, “I have checked how our users behaved in the past under the given circumstances. As you can see, plan B would lead to significant drop off for metric X. On the other hand, we had a product similar to plan A a few months back and it was a success. It only makes sense to proceed with plan A.”
Now is the time to get praised for saving everybody time and avoiding a bad decision. But your boss says: “I don’t believe that’s what will happen. We go with plan B.”
What?! Have they sniffed liquid glue before the meeting? The data is clearly telling a different story, why would anyone go against it?
The whole group agrees on plan B and you leave the meeting with one clear thought: “WHAT - THE - FUCK”
The next-level problems
Congratulations, you just left the space of technical problems and ventured into the domain of human problems. This domain cares a lot less about what the best solution is and more about “What is the best solution right now?”.
Sounds confusing? It is, especially because you will clash with people more often. Here are two things you should know:
- Data matters less, because more and more decisions are about an unpredictable future.
- Opinions matter more. Somebody must make a decision and usually it will be the person with the highest rank following what they believe is right
The biggest issue is that most often you are right and the others are wrong but they don’t realize it. Infuriating!
What must be true…?
The question that helps me most to understand my counterpart and engage in better discussions is: What must be true for this to make sense?
Always assuming the others are arguing in good faith, there must be something they assume to be true which isn’t true from your perspective. If you can, try to uncover it by asking why, but sometimes you don’t have the option to ask. And then it makes for a very entertaining thought experiment.
A few examples:
- “You can only build a great team by hiring the best people.” - Assuming that people are not able to grow beyond their current capabilities
- “All the muscular people in my gym are on steroids.” - This makes sense, if muscle growth beyond a certain point isn’t possible without enhancements.
- “AI Agents will never replace engineers” - LLMs are incapable of connecting different contexts and making decisons
- “I am not a funny person” - Plausible, if you believe humor is a trait and not a skill
For none of these it matters whether the assumptions are true or not - You probably have your own view on them and THAT is exactly the point!
This is important for two reasons:
- It helps you understand their point of view, potentially finding a solution for both sides
- If you truly need to change their mind, it will be easier to win them over if you can change their belief
If you now ask yourself what you can truly do with this new superpower - Probably not much. This probably feels a bit disappointing, why go through all the hassle if it does not allow you to change anything?
Because it will make it a lot easier to accept certain things. Especially things you cannot change. Being more empathetic also helps having less heated arguments, which may not change the outcome but can do wonders for your mental health.