There Can Be More Than You See
Harsh judgments are too often based on incomplete information
“We fall prey to what Daniel Kahneman has termed ‘What You See Is All There Is.’ The idea is that we make decisions based on what is currently visible, not considering that there is information we are not seeing. We consider the known knowns, but not the known unknowns.” (Excerpt from Rob Henderson's Newsletter)
When I read this, I connected it to people’s negative judgments and the effects of them on their decision-making and how those emotions, conclusions and actions adversely impact people’s reputations and lives and the lives of those around them.
Now, that’s not what Kahneman was talking about yet what I just mentioned holds true nonetheless: People succumb to assuming, passing judgment and making decisions only on what they see and not all that is actually there.
They are content going off the “known knowns” and dismissing the possibility and importance of the “known unknowns.”
That leads to mistaken assumptions, emotional reasoning and poor — and at times — egregiously bad decision-making that hurts other people. This is always going to happen in life so it’s important to realize that we can be guilty of it, so to speak, just as other people could, can and have done it to us.
If only we might question our thinking, perceptions and conclusions. If only we might consider changing our decision-making that is making life unjustly hard on others who didn’t do and aren’t doing what we believe them to be committing that is distasteful and objectionable to us.
So what’s the solution? Increasing our humility and curiosity and decreasing our overconfidence from incomplete information or emotions and bias. It’s possible. It’s important. It’s what smarter, better people do.
Just as there is more to learn when the appearances, facts and evidence are that people are conducting themselves in unethical, illegal and immoral ways, there is more to learn when people are conducting themselves in a manner that is better, maybe far better, than people are perceiving and believing.
Michael Toebe is a reputation consultant, advisor and communications specialist at Reputation Quality, assisting individuals and organizations with further building reputation as an asset or ethically protecting, restoring or reconstructing it.
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