You May Be Right...Or Not

It's a conversation I've had many times as a consultant.  "But I'm right!" the conflictor protests.  "Doesn't that count for anything?"  Difficult Conversations tackles this issue up front.  

"The point is this: difficult conversations are almost never about getting the facts right.  They are about conflicting perceptions, interpretations and values.  They are not about what a contact states, they are about what a contract means...They are not about what is true, they are about what is important."

What are the realities that lead us to this "truth assumption," as Stone, Patton et al refer to it?

One reality is the "self-justification bias."  Self-justification "allows people to convince themselves that what they did was the best thing they could have done," write Caroll Tavris and Elliot Aronson in Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me).  They continue the description, "In fact, come to think of it, it was the right thing."  We often make decisions and choices in the heat of the moment.  We then seek out reasons to justify our choices after the fact.  Then we use the malleability of our memory to convince ourselves that we relied on those reasons from the beginning.  Thus, of course, we were right all along!

A second reality is the "confirmation bias."  This arises out of the self-justification bias.  This bias is an error in sorting information.  We will seek out and accept evidence that supports the position we have already adopted.  We will regard that evidence as obvious and authoritative.  We will reject evidence that contradicts or challenges the position we have adopted.  We will regard that evidence as foolish and suspect.  So we will build, at least in our minds, a stronger and stronger case for the proposition, "I'm right and you're wrong."

A third reality is the "endowment effect." This effect is the result of claiming anything--a car, a house, a spouse or an idea--as our own.  When I regard anything as mine, it immediately increases in value to me.  My house is always worth more to me than it can be worth to anyone seeking to buy it--unless I exercise tremendous mental discipline to see it otherwise.  Once I adopt an idea as my own, I am highly resistant to surrendering any part of that idea.

We experience reality from inside our own perceptions.  We cannot do otherwise.  We are incapable of seeing any idea or situation from "outside" as an "objective" observer.  The best we can do is seek to minimize the impact of our biased perceptions.  Tavris and Aronson write it this way.  

 "Self-justification not only minimizes our mistakes and bad decisions; it is also the reason that everyone can see a hypocrite in action except the hypocrite.  It allows us to create a distinction between our moral lapses and someone else's and to blur the discrepancy between our actions and our moral convictions."

In Difficult Conversations, Stone, Patton, et al suggest that we must move away from the "truth assumption."  This move "frees us to shift our purpose from proving we are right to understanding the perceptions, interpretations, and values of both sides."  Only rarely, however, are we able to make that perceptual move on our own.  Usually what is required is the outside perspective of a disinterested party to help us see our own part in the conflict.  This is the real role of a mediator, a conflict coach or other third party resource.

Billy Joel says it well: "You may be right; I may be crazy.  But it just may be a lunatic you're looking for..." Or perhaps you are looking for someone to help you move beyond the truth assumption and deal with the issues.