A-Line-Ment

As part of a psychological experiment, seven people were seated in a room where four lines were drawn on a board. Three of the lines, labeled A, B and C, where grouped closely together, with A clearly longer than B which was clearly longer than C. Off to the right was line D, which clearly was the same length as the middle line B. The trick was, six of the seven people were in on the experiment, and only one was the test subject. The other six were asked which line they thought matched line D first, and they all said A. And in no less than 40% of the cases, the no doubt mystified test subject agreed with them.

1. Situations arise where our confidence, weighed against overwhelming opinion, is checked. We question ourselves as to whether we're overlooking something obvious, or maybe stopped listening long enough to slightly mishear the directions.

2. At the same time, conflict is productive if exercised right. It's a true form of "diversity" that is so popular in CEO memos but so tough to live in practice. Though I'm no master in it, my theory is that the key is to present it as an alternative view intended to draw out reality and help the team succeed, rather than as some great idea that I came up with. Successful people don't come up with great ideas; like Thomas Edison, they simply unearth useful thoughts.

Test subject #7 could've said "I think it's most similar to line B." Had his teammates not been in on the fix, but genuinely believed that line A was correct, they might have gone on the defensive against this subjective comment so blatantly in the minority. Or he could have said "It looks to me as if there's a small dot on the whiteboard between the two groups of lines and it's near the top of lines B and D." The example's far-fetched, but it lays out whatever facts support the conclusion, and also replaces "I think" (i.e. here's how good my brain is to come up with the right answer) with "It looks to me" (i.e. my brain's interpreting the facts like this, but there may be more to the story). Leaders have to stand boldly behind their convictions once they arrive at them; personally, I know I'm imperfect enough that the right answer is an analyzed combination of my thoughts and others. So one of my convictions is that the best teamwork emerges by gathering input with fascination, and then sifting through it for gold nuggets of success.