Opinion or Fact; Are You Making Good Decisions

Request and review fact-based process knowledge from others.

Practitioners: tactical, integrative, and strategic

We all have our own ideas about why and how things work. From incomplete information and the opinions of others, we weave together a story that fits with our view of the world. Our experiences with similar situations even with the same work in previous times, will paint a picture for us that we could not conceive of being errant. That is why this concept is so critical. There is nothing wrong with having an opinion, as long as we understand it is an opinion. Until it is validated with fact-based information, and validated as an appropriate translation, it might still be just an opinion. Begin with a simple question, “Is this opinion or fact?”

This idea might be most important to the strategic practitioner, who, after many years away from the line activities, might not even recognize the line as it is operating today. New faces, new equipment, new processes, new leadership, all have an impact on the daily changes that cause significant drift over time. I can recall returning to a previous operation after only a year to find significant enough change to challenge my own experience and knowledge of the time I spent there. Things change.

Opinion or Fact

Even the line supervisor can be surprised by the way team members understand the work being conducted either upstream or downstream from their workstations. We don’t always understand the work that our team members do until we do it ourselves. A project leader that relies on their own experience to solve a problem will find themselves woefully inadequate when they encounter a new industry or a new process.

The greatest learning experience I encountered came when I was emersed in a new industry. I was fortunate to be naturally curious about how things worked, and I asked many questions. My questions, meant purely to seek understanding, often perplexed the experts by challenging their notions of why and how things were completed. These questions were often enough to surface the real problems that went unnoticed because they were hidden by assumptions and acceptance of ‘how things are done around here’.

The only way to break free of these mental models is to ask the simple and sometimes ‘stupid’ questions. The wisdom of ‘there is no stupid question’ takes on a new perspective when we consider our pursuit of understanding. We can only understand by seeking fact-based knowledge and common understanding. No opinions here, thank you.