Flip-Floppin’ Ain’t Easy

Everyone, please pick a side: Maryanne or Ginger? Democrat or Republican? Mets or Yankees? Sammy Hagar or David Lee Roth? Now, please plant your flag firmly and stay comfortably in that box. Please, hurry along, because we have social media, 24-hour news, and an instant gratification culture to satisfy. Also, please don’t reconsider your position. That would mean you lack conviction, are weak, or are (gasp) a “flip-flopper”. Plus, you can’t switch sides in the middle of a fight. And these days, it seems, everything is a fight. Pick a hill to die on.

Why??? Is this severe, binary construct really necessary? Surely not. But, for one, conflict sells. It’s why we have talking head television shows with people shouting over one another, arguing about politics or sports. It's why national news leads with sound bites of the the combative, back-and-forth barbs from last night's political debate instead of the nuanced, moderate defense of a particular candidate's platform. We like to fight. We like to feel part of a team. We love to commiserate with those who think like us and debate with those that don’t, so conflict is inevitable. We are so reliably drawn to conflict that marketers even base entire campaigns on it, real or contrived: Tastes Great or Less Filling? Chic Fil-A chicken sandwich or Popeye's? Left Twix or Right Twix? (spoiler alert: they’re the same and both delicious).

Yes, there are occasions that do require definitive, binary, don't-look-back action. If we’re commanding troops in the midst of a military conflict, circumstances may dictate a split-second decision and we better do so quickly and decisively. But what does the military do after a conflict? After Action Reviews (AARs). AARs are an opportunity to debrief, to analyze an event and see how and if something could have been done better. Those involved reconsider the facts with the benefit of hindsight. That way, the next time they are confronted with a similar circumstance, they will be better equipped to make the right decision, whether or not it is consistent with their previous one. If they had the option of having the luxury of time to thoroughly digest all this information BEFORE acting instead of as an after-the-fact review, which do you think they would prefer, with fellow soldiers’ lives on the line? 

More often than not, in our everyday lives, we have this luxury. Perhaps not always before we make an initial judgment, but usually, somewhere along the line, we have a chance to reconsider. To change our mind. Yet, for some reason, we tend to avoid doing that. We pick a path and stay on it whenever possible. Why? We’re told to trust our instinct, to thin slice and go with our gut. True, this can often serve us well, as Malcom Gladwell details in his book Blink. But in addition to the gut instinct, we also don’t like to contradict ourselves. We like to think that we have things pretty well figured out, and that our behaviors are consistent with our beliefs. So if we commit to something, we want to remain loyal to that ideal. That’s why salesmen are trained to get a small commitment out of us (“You can appreciate a good deal, can’t you?”). Once we make that commitment on a small ask, it becomes easier to get subsequent yeses out of us on bigger asks (“Well in that case, you better act fast because this is a limited time offer!”). It might sound like a transparent and heavy-handed sales tactic, but research has shown it works. We value consistency, in ourselves and in others. So when our words or actions contradict an earlier established position, we interpret that as inconsistency, even if the ultimate action is the appropriate one (“Yes, I love a good deal, but what am I going to do with a solar powered unicycle?”). Strong beliefs, consistency, and passion are a good thing. But so are humility and reason.

Flip-flopping is often a death knell for politicians. Ask John Kerry. Candidates must choose a definitive position on an issue and stick with it. If not, they risk being viewed as weak, indecisive, or pandering. Sure, one would hope that someone running for public office, in the process of formulating a platform on a substantive issue, would be diligent and deliberate in weighing all the factors and be well-educated on the subject. But what if new information comes to light? What if their assumptions are proven wrong? Isn’t changing their position the right thing to do at that point? Or should they dig in further and defend a stance they now know is inadequate?

A cardinal rule of innovators and entrepreneurs, from Thomas Edison to Steve Jobs, is “fail fast”. The notion being that if you’re going to fail, it is better do so early in the process, rather than down the road after more time, energy and money has been poured into the project. Failing fast allows you to cut your losses, learn from mistakes, and redirect that new knowledge into a different, potentially successful endeavor. If an entrepreneur knows his current venture isn’t going to work, he would be a fool to continue, no matter how grand the idea was at the outset.

Similarly, a scientist goes into an experiment with a hypothesis. If I do X, I suspect Y may happen. What if Z happens instead? Does the scientist stand firm with her initial belief and perpetuate that position, despite what the data tells her? No, she is going to re-test, and then if the same holds true, ultimately conclude that her hypothesis was wrong. She is seeking truth, not confirmation bias. 

In my current line of work, I can think of two scenarios where our collective rush to judgment and affinity for conviction are most evident: post-trade analysis and draft room discussions. I always chuckle at the knee-jerk, immediate reaction of “who won the trade?” I’ve been part of a rebuilding effort, involved in making trades with an eye toward the future. Sure, declare a “winner” the day after a Major League veteran is traded for a couple of minor league kids ten years his junior, who won’t reach the big leagues for several years. Then call me back in 8 years and we can see how close that analysis was. Everyone who follows baseball closely knows this type of analysis is inherently flawed, yet we still feel obligated to pick a side immediately.

The other example falls during one of my favorite times of the baseball calendar—draft meetings. Scouting departments spend weeks on end gathered to discuss college and high school players in preparation for the amateur draft. Each scout is responsible for a specific territory of the country. He presents his assessment of the players in his area for the rest of the group—strengths, weaknesses, future value to the organization, etc. The scout is the subject matter expert on these players, and is often the most invested in a particular player because of proximity, history, and personal relationship. Comparative discussions about specific players can occasionally get heated because of the passion of the scouts (a good thing). Because they can become so invested in their players, it’s the job of leadership to steer the conversation back toward selecting the best player for the organization, not the best player from a particular scout’s territory. As such, a good scout can go into draft meetings convinced he has the top player in the country, and leave those meetings after hearing his colleagues talk about other players he’s never seen, knowing he doesn’t.

There is a conviction culture in the scouting community. By that I mean that scouts take pride in their assessments of players and are reluctant to back down from that opinion. They have conviction in their evaluation. This isn’t inherently a bad thing. There are so many variables that go into predicting 10 years into the future of a 17 yr old kid, that having strong, divergent opinions can (ideally) lead to productive dialogue and a sound decision-making process. So, conviction can be good. But at what point do we see diminishing returns? Because these scouts make a living predicting the future, they accept the fact that they will be wrong, often. Yet, there’s no quicker way to lose the respect of fellow scouts in the room than by “riding the fence”, or demonstrating a lack of conviction. You’re expected to have an opinion and be able to justify it with some combination of instinct, data, and observational awareness. So, what happens? The scout plants his flag in the debate. If he later reverses field and changes his opinion, he runs the risk of being viewed as indecisive or a flip-flopper. So, scouts passionately lobby for “their” player, act as an advocate, and stump for their team to select him when it is their time to make a selection. Because of this conviction culture, there are times where it’s neither the best evaluator nor the sharpest thinker that “gets the player”. Rather, it’s the scout who can most convincingly argue his position to his boss, aka sell his player. (For those die-hard baseball fans who follow their team’s draft selections every year, if you notice one particular scout that seems to always get a good number of players selected from his territory each year, odds are he a) is scouting a talent-rich area b) has the trust of his supervisors by demonstrating his ability and judgment over the years and/or c) is a very good salesman). If the scout is focused more on winning the debate and lobbying for his player than he is in objectively evaluating the decision, he's doing a disservice to his organization. It can be hard to strike this balance between passion, conviction, and clear-headed rationality, particularly when emotion and personal investment runs high. But to get where we need to go, it's critical.

Our last presidential election was one of the most polarizing in recent history, and our next one may be even worse. Many consider politics zero-sum. One party wins, the other loses. But life isn’t binary. We need to allow room for nuanced, open-minded discussion. Instead of viewing a debate (not in the political sense) as an opportunity to convince the other side of our viewpoint, what if we looked at it instead as an opportunity to learn and broaden our own perspective? 

In Dan Epstein’s book Range, in which he extols the advantages of being a generalist in today’s hyper-specialized world, he relays an anecdote which I really like. Frances Hesselbein, former CEO of Girl Scouts of the USA and president/CEO of the Frances Hesselbein Leadership Institute, was attending a training seminar. One colleague was complaining about not getting anything out of it and the experience being a waste of time, to which another colleague responded, “You have to carry a big basket to bring something home.” The idea being that if your keep an open mind, you have an opportunity to learn from every experience. If you learn something new that subsequently changes your opinion, that doesn’t make you indecisive or weak. It makes you someone who is open-minded, rational, confident, and humble. It requires humility to admit that you were wrong, and it shows that you care more about the issue at hand than you do your own ego or reputation. After all, shouldn’t the aim be to get it right, rather than be right? So go ahead, wear those flip-flops. After all, it is summertime.