Agenda
Truth is an accurate explanation of a subject as it really is.
Truth is the only meaningful foundation upon which people can make informed and rational decisions. Therefore, truth is the expert’s currency. The more truth an expert possesses the more influence she can exert, and the longer lasting her influence and appeal.
Truth is stubborn and stable. It is blind, fearless and timeless. Truth does not care about emotions or opinions. It does not bend to political power, societal norms, cultural preferences, or social whims. Truth just is.
Truth is the expert’s primary source of lasting power, authority, weight, and control. Without truth they have only theatrical performance or a cardboard façade.
Truth is falling out of fashion. Despite the universal influence of truth and the dogged persistence of it, truth is now losing popularity. It is no longer cool. Truth is old school.
Can anyone know the truth? Some of the greatest minds that have ever lived have tried to answer that question. The elusive subject of truth has been a favorite theme of history’s great poets and storytellers. Shakespeare seemed especially intrigued with it. Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, and Romeo and Juliet are just a few of Shakespeare's tragedies whose plots turn on the misunderstanding of an important truth.
Now, more than ever in human history, we have easy access to endless information—some of it true, some of it false, and much of it partially true. Consequently, never in the history of the world has it been more important to learn how to correctly discern between truth and error.
Experts have an important responsibility to carry the truth for others. They should do so with poise and dignity.
There are many ways to lift people with truth, more than we could possibly count, but here are just three simple ideas you might consider.
First, experts should be glad about the truth they bear. Your audience has access to an ample supply of pessimists. Hopelessness and dread do not need or deserve your reinforcement. Leave the gloomy to somebody else. You have studied and worked for years or decades. You have discovered precious gems of wisdom and insight. The truth you offer probably includes a measure of liberty, freedom, and expansion. So, when you are called upon to share the gems you know do so with delight. It is an honor to be consulted. It is a joy to be heard. The path ahead is bright. Be glad.
Second, be compassionate. If experts treat people in their audience as if they are undergoing a major personal crisis, they will be correct more than half the time. Assume your audience has just lost a loved one, is facing a financial crisis, or is battling a life-threatening illness. The truths you share, as important as they may be, are probably of secondary concern to your audience. If the truths you put forward are not directly relieving the crisis in their life then they should at least be empathetic to it. No matter how technical, no matter how complicated your subject may be there is always space for compassion.
And third, be patient. It took you a long time to master your subject. Your audience will not understand your recommendations immediately. Nuances that are obvious to you may not be so obvious to others. If your audience does not understand then maybe you’re not doing a great job explaining. Assume it is your responsibility to be understood rather than assuming it is your audience’s responsibility to understand. Be patient and meet people where they are.
I once heard a young adult ask a college professor of history a preposterous question. After the professor made a passing comment about America’s first president the youngster asked with a little too much seriousness, “How do you know that? Have you ever met George Washington?” This would have been the perfect time for bold forceful beatdown with a club called truth. But this fine professor thought otherwise.
There is a good chance the young person knew he had just made a public blunder. He might have been embarrassed before the professor started a response. If so, further public humiliation would not have helped him. Instead of humiliating the young person, the professor lifted him, and everyone else in the room. He said, “No, unfortunately, I have not met George Washington, nor has anyone now living, but I think the core question you are asking is a good one. It is something we should all consider, exactly who were George Washington’s contemporaries and what did they say about him?”
What a merciful reframing of an embarrassing question. What a graceful rescue. What a powerful manifestation of kindness and trustworthiness. This professor did not bash the student with a club called truth. Instead he gracefully let the student off the hook, avoided embarrassment and even gave the student credit for an important insight.
Our beliefs are hard wired into our identify. What we believe, in large part, defines who we are. What we believe also influences the value we place on our very existence. People hate being wrong because, among other things, it brings into question their identify and their self-worth.
Freud said that our refusal to recognize unwelcomed facts is a defense mechanism we unconsciously employ to protect ourselves from anxiety or distress.
In 1969, Swiss psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross outlined the stages of grief. She said that when faced with the trauma of terminal illness, people go through five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Since the list was created, the stages are now accepted as normal responses to any trauma and applicable to most unwelcome shock.
Denial is a strong reaction to unwanted information. So strong in fact that 20% of seriously ill people who are told they are near death actually forget the news within a few days.
In these cases we often look upon these deniers with compassion and empathy. Experts do well when they apply similar compassion to anyone who is jarred by the experience of being wrong.
Taken from Being Wrong, by Kathryn Schulz
Taken from Being Wrong, by Kathryn Schulz
In 1972, journalist Ross Gelbspan covered a press conference about a new book The Limits to Growth, a study of the impact of economic development and population pressures on natural resources. The book made headlines all over the world and is still the best selling environmental book of all time.
The press conference was about how factors of economic development (increasing population, increasing pollution, and diminishing resources) were going to hit a point of exponential take-off.
One of the speakers at the press conference was Donella Meadows, a coauthor of the book and a pioneering environmental scientist. Sitting in the audience during her presentation, Gelbspan was struck by the contrast between the grim predictions she was describing and the fact that she was pregnant--that, as he put it, "she had somehow found personal hopefulness in the midst of this really massive gloom and doom." He saw it as a small grace note, a reminder about the possibilities of optimism and renewal in even the hardest of times, and he used it as a kicker to his story. The Voice printed the article on the front page. That would have been nice for Gelbspan--except that Donella Meadows wasn't pregnant.
Of the experience Gelbspan said, "I was mortified. I mean mortified, mortified. I was not a rookie. I cannot begin to describe the embarrassment. Truth is, I'm still mortified when I talk about it today (40 years later)."
The book's predictions proved to be mostly inaccurate. Donella Meadows died in 2001. The publisher is defunct. But the embarrassment of the error lives on in Gelbspan's life. The embarrassment of being wrong has outlived all else.
The 2016 Oxford Dictionary's word of the year was "post-truth." Many argue that we now live in a post-truth era: a time when objective facts are less influential in shaping opinion and public policy than appeals to emotion and personal belief.
The appeal of emotion over fact is hardly new. Marketing professionals have known for a very long time that emotions sell products much more quickly than facts. But in our ultra connected world, more and more messages want to be heard. The way these messages become heard is through heightened emotion. Emotion is pushing truth further and further aside.
This trend away from truth and toward the outrageous and extreme is having an impact on SMEs. They no longer have the luxury of depending on truth alone. The truths that might have won an argument in yesteryear may no longer be enough to win the argument today. Of course, truth still matters—it always will—but SMEs now need more than just truth to maintain relevance.
In a post-truth era, SMEs need charisma and presence to maximize their impact. Of course, they still need the skills that other people do not have, but they also need the professional appeal that other people admire. The best experts can wrap truth in an attractive package, top it off with a bow, and deliver it in digestible portions.
In April 1966, Time Magazine published a highly controversial iconic cover. Blazoned in bright red font, was the gut punching three word question, “Is God Dead?” Some critics dubbed this choice by Time editors as one of the most effective magazine covers ever. Other people called it blasphemous. Still others responded, “God is not dead but Time certainly is.”
The question for many people in America in 1966 was a real one. John F Kennedy was dead. Martin Luther King was dead. Auschwitz was not so distant. Vietnam was raging. It is no wonder the cover caught so much attention. In the decades that followed the cover would be discussed and challenged, honored and denounced, repeatedly.
More than fifty years later, in 2017, Time Magazine resurrected the old cover and brought it back to life. Many things, however, have changed in 50 years. The question itself is a little bit old. Now the question is less about God and more about one of God’s primary attributes. This time Time asked, “Is Truth Dead?”
And if sun comes
How shall we greet him?
Shall we not dread him,
Shall we not fear him
After so lengthy a
Session with shade?
Though we have wept for him,
Though we have prayed
All through the night-years—
What if we wake one shimmering morning to
Hear the fierce hammering
Of his firm knuckles
Hard on the door?
Shall we not shudder?—
Shall we not flee
Into the shelter, the dear thick shelter
Of the familiar
Propitious haze?
Sweet is it, sweet is it
To sleep in the coolness
Of snug unawareness.
The dark hangs heavily
Over the eyes.
Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —
