Stepping Back When Everyone Else Leans in Too Hard

A room full of smart people can still shrink in perspective when biases take the wheel.

Quite recently, I have had the pleasure (sarcasm intended) of witnessing colleagues with strong personalities clashing, each response doubling down with their side of the story.

One thing that I did notice is that on each response, their vision seemed to narrow down greatly, which can be dangerous when trying to reach a consensus. However, being the observer at this moment reminded me about the advantages of listening on both sides, helping me out see the bigger picture as more often than not, they would focus on selling their side of the story, and raising the gaps that they see on the opposing side. Taking note of these would actually help the onlookers see sides that they would have otherwise overlooked, and be able to “rank” them accordingly.

One must be careful though, as we do have the tendencies to rank arguments that resonate with our own biases as of higher importance than it might have actually been, thus a quick check on my own personal biases help keep things in check.

Apart from the observations I got related to the topic that was being discussed, the exchange and aftermath helped me formulate my own insights on human behavior and my supposed thoughts on how to better communicate ideas. I would like to dig into this a bit further in the future, but I’ll just share my raw thoughts here as it goes.

I. Do not make first, second, or whatever impressions last

Sure, you might have differing perspectives, and that is to be expected as your perspective right now is the product of your experiences, knowledge, and biases. Their perspective is formulated by the same variables, just with a different path.

Does that make their ideas immediately stupid?

What makes you confident that your thoughts and ideas are the right one?

When we seek to discover the best in others, we somehow bring out the best in ourselves - William Arthur Ward

At the end of the day, by immediately branding someone who has a different perspective as yourself is a disservice to yourself. You are closing yourself off to the possibility of learning something new.

II. Always understand the context first

Sharing ideas right off the bat is fine, and sometimes great when it somehow fits the current context.

However, strongly advocating for your ideas without understanding the context first can lead to miscommunication, and to put it bluntly, unnecessary noise.

Share your ideas, listen for feedback. If no feedback was given, try to look into the context a bit further and double-check if your idea is aligned to the context of the problem at hand.

Once you can back up your idea without making varying assumptions, then you can start advocating for it.

III. Never expect things would change on a whim

Even leaders with strong personalities need to accept that change is a process, and not an event.

When you are advocating for your ideas, be patient. Change does not happen overnight, and expecting it to do so would only lead to frustration for both you and the team.

There are moments when change must happen immediately—something I’ll admit I’m not great at. I saw this firsthand back in Inspectorio. Before major changes rolled out, our CEO took time to explain the “why,” even drawing distinctions between a family and a team to clarify expectations. And even then, some people weren’t fully on board. That was expected. But the rollout had to proceed.

If you’re not in upper leadership, it’s wiser to take the diplomatic route rather than the authoritative one. Be patient. Let change take its course. Convince key people who can support you, and let them help advocate for the shift.

IV. Always, always, never assume you know best

Show respect to your colleagues. They were hired for a reason, and that reason is because they have something to contribute.

This is especially true when you are working with people who have more experience than you do. They might come from a different industry, but that makes them all the more important to listen to as their ideas were not formed in a vacuum. They have seen things that you have not, and their ideas might be the solution to the problem that the organization is trying to solve.

I recently watched a really good Veritasium video about The Most Dangerous Cognitive Bias, and I got a really good quote:

If we wanna become more accurate, we should capitalize on the wisdom of the crowd, by listening more to others. In particular, we should listen to people who disagrees with us. Understanding the best arguments of your critics, understanding what information those who disagree with you have that you lack is very helpful for making better decisions. - Don A. Moore

The best calibrated people aren’t the people who know most, but It’s those who know what they don’t know. True wisdom lies not in being certain, but in knowing the limits of your own certainty

V. Conclusion

This is just a journal entry, writing down my raw thoughts as it goes, right after getting to watch a video that resonated really well due to some entertaining interactions I had the pleasure to witness on the past week.

Some very raw takeaways are:

• Never assume you know best. Don’t be afraid to share your thoughts and perspective, just that you shouldn’t treat them as absolute truth.
• Learn from others by listening and genuinely giving their thoughts a serious thought. Never listen just to pick out the flaws and disregarding the rest of the ideas as a stupid idea.
• Always make an effort to understand the context if you intend to make meaningful contributions.