Is that a Fact or your Opinion?

Leaders create the conditions for execution. They nurture people and the environment to make it easier for them to perform. If you want to understand why someone is or isn’t performing, it often helps to look at the environment and ask the question, ‘is it easy or difficult to perform here?’

I believe that nearly everyone comes to work to do a good job. People want to feel like their work matters, they want to ‘win’ and see how their efforts create impact. Some environments make that easier than others.

One of the things I have learnt to pay more attention to is the language that people use in teams and organisations.

The language we use is meant to convey a sense of meaning about how we understand and interpret the world around us. Some of us do this better than others because it is a skill but like all skills, it can be developed.

I have been doing some work with the Sales Team of medium-large organisation. Together they generate a revenue of around £180m a year so they’re well established and doing a great job.

We are working together to improve the performance of the team by building a high performing culture. There are many aspects to this but one of the most useful has been getting them to refine their language to make it clearer and easier for others in the team to understand what they mean when discussing sales opportunities.

Specifically, we’re starting to hear more of them ask the question, ‘is that a fact or an opinion?’

A fact is something that is certain. In this instance, it might be that the client has told us this information and we can be confident that it is true.

An opinion or an assumption are views that we have. We make assumptions and opinions based on incomplete information and that is okay, we must do this to function in the world. Assumptions do not make an ass out of you and me!

Problems occur when we share opinions but state them in such a way that they’re interpreted as facts. This is a common mistake that leads to confusion and poor decision-making.

If someone makes a decision based on what they believe to be a fact but it’s actually an opinion, it creates a ‘feedback loop’ which leads them to trust that person’s word a little bit less. Trust is built on your ability to be credible and reliable. If you share opinions and allow people to perceive them as facts, you will undermine your credibility.

Language matters. The words we use convey meaning which help people to make decisions.

The Defence Intelligence Service (DIS) are experts at presenting information so that government ministers can make decisions. The quality of these decisions have significant impact to the UK so it’s important that the DIS presents information in a way so that ministers are clear what they mean. In the early 2000s, the DIS developed a language framework for communicating the probability of their intelligence assessments[1].

Intelligence assessments aim to explain what has happened (insight) and what might happen (foresight). Analysts share information to help develop an ‘intelligence picture’ much like building a jigsaw. They use a shared vocabulary to convey likelihood so that analysts and decision-makers can understand the probability of whether or not something might happen in the future.

The yardstick splits probability into seven distinct ranges with terms being assigned to each range. It was developed using academic research and corresponds to the average readers understanding of each term.

Leaders create the conditions for execution and the environment for people to be able to make good decisions and perform.

Sometimes it helps to look at other environments for tips on how to improve the way in which your team operates. The DIS have to present information based on imperfect and ambiguous information so ministers can make decisions.

The higher the ratio of good vs bad decisions a person, a team, an organisation or even a government makes – the better chance they have of success.

How clear is the language that people use in your team? Does it make it easier for people to perform because it is clear and unambiguous or do we occasionally share opinions as if they were facts?

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/defence-intelligence-communicating-probability