In Decision-Making III, we looked at the elements of ’seeing’. The best way of defining ’seeing’ is to adopt Ayn Rand’s definition of the virtue of honesty: to never consciously fake reality (“honesty is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake existence“). So, before we examine the elements suggested by Scharmer, we need to adopt an attitude that consciously accepts information even though it may conflict with a prior mindset.
The word ‘consciously’ is important. Given human nature, George Soros is right: there is always a discrepancy between perception and reality - anything else would not accord with the way we are. However, by accepting that proposition does not mean there is not a world of difference between consciously distorting our interpretation of reality and making a mistake: there is a distinct difference between buying in a downtrend because we have made an incorrect assessment of a change in trend and consciously taking a contra-trend trade against our own rules - for example, because ‘the market has gone too far down’. In the former case we make a mistake; in the latter we are being dishonest.
Once we have adopted an honest mindset, the next question is how best to keep an open mind. The Psychology of Intelligence Analysis suggests we need to be careful about the language we use because on a firm conclusion made, we need more information to change it than we need to form the original conclusion. Hence in our analysis, it is better to say: “The trend is probably down” than to say “the trend is down”.
The first formulation allows us to ask: “what has to happen for me to change my mind about the probability”? The second formulation makes us less likely to ask the question because of the way the comment is framed. The reframe may seem to be only semantics but believe me it is important. An assessment of the reason why is beyond the scope of this blog but if you are interested (and it is an important enquiry), you will find material in the works of Richard Bandler and John Grindler.
Tomorrow we shall look at the importance of the four elements in Scharmer’s list.
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