In problem-solving, we learn to make assumptions. We need to make assumptions in order to employ cause-and-
effect rationality -- the process by which we analyze problems or issues, draw conclusions concerning their nature, and
hopefully arrive at solutions. Without insightful judgments concerning the assumptions we can afford to make, the
most rational of problem-solving thinking is likely only to mislead. As problem-solvers, therefore, we learn to make
temporary assumptions by the application of research and intuitional judgment, and to visit our assumptions again as
we become aware of more data or an actual change in our environment. Our working lives as leaders depend upon
the quality of judgment we bring to the making of assumptions concerning the problems we have been mandated to
solve or the goals we have agreed to realize. We naturally take pride in our accomplishments, and ascribe much of
our success to the skills in judging that we have developed.
In teamwork, we discover that judgments, while necessary at certain times, can all too easily sow dissension and
distrust. In particular, Jill’s judgment of another person, Jack, incurs twin risks: the risk of Jack feeling misunderstood
and discounted and the risk of Jill’s thinking about all the situations of which she visualizes Jack a part being falsely
coloured by the particular hue of her judgment of Jack. Equally, Jack’s judgment of Jill risks sowing and reaping the
seeds of similar distrust and dissension. Of course the same is true of Jack's judgments of John, or Jill's of Jane, but
what is not often recognized is that, unless we are watchful, we allow inferences concerning others' judgments of
ourselves to affect our self-image in ways that lead us to unwittingly biased perceptions.
As supervisors, leaders, and family members, we must solve problems as members of teams that must be productive
in a larger setting. How can we refine the quality of judging skills we have honed to solve problems so that, rather
than sowing dissension and distrust in our team, we arrive at working assumptions that facilitate co-operation in the
growth of team insight and productivity?
Part of the answer to this conundrum can be found by distinguishing accurately between a datum and a fact. A datum
is something that is a “given”. We can do nothing about a datum except accept it. The inevitability of death is a
datum and, although all living creatures try to avoid dying, we would be insane if we did not in due course accept that
one day we will die. Knowing a datum, such as the inevitability of death, can be useful in that we have some idea in
mind upon which we can “count” (even if we don’t want to think much about a datum such as the inevitability of
death!). For present intents and purposes a datum is simply true. Our assumptions should therefore be tied as much
as possible to at least one datum if not many data. But not all assumptions turn out to be reliable. If we discover an
assumption not to be reliable, we have learned that it no longer is a datum – even if once we believed it was. We
then must change all the assumptions or beliefs upon which we have been relying that sprang from our having once
believed them to be data. This takes time, sometimes a long time; but until we have completed the process of revising
our assumptions and beliefs so that they accord with data, we are prone to feeling out of balance and even upset.
Although a fact is not a datum, it is often taken for one. A fact is very often an interpretation that someone, perhaps
you or I, has presented as a datum -- possibly in a report, or a paper such as this one, or a newspaper article, a
documentary, an editorial, or a speech, or a web posting, an email, or even in an advertisement. Hopefully, the
presentation is for purposes of basing collective problem-solving on "firm ground", but perhaps not. The Bush-Blair
presentation of the "fact" that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction was presented as if it were a datum.
But it since has been found not to be, although many people cited Bush's State of the Nation assertion thereon as if it
were a datum; and there has ever since been sharp interest in, or suspicion as to, how that presentation came to be
made. From this widely reported episode of high-level decision-making, we can learn that a so-called "fact" is always
an assumption -- even when the reporter of it as a fact may be unaware, or want others to be unaware, that the
"fact" was only an assumption. This reality becomes clear to a person only when she or he has regained balance after
having lost it through reliance upon an assumption that has turned out to be painfully untrue. At that point we begin
to make use, with zeal, of the language distinction between a fact and a datum.
There is, at least conceptually, some choice in the facts we choose to make into a temporary datum for the purposes
of practical problem-solving. But let us be clear that we would not know this choice existed for us if we did not know
the difference between a fact and a datum. However this might have been in the past for any particular one of us,
henceforth you and I do know this difference -- although we may be forgiven if we sometimes neglect it.
Consider now a hypothetical judgment that Jack makes of Jill, and also one that Jill makes of Jack. Suppose that Jack
judges Jill “to be emotional”, and that Jill judges Jack “to be insensitive”. Are these reliable judgments? Are either
based on data? Or are they only inferences from facts of some convenience to the point a judger desires be accepted
as true? Just as important, can Jack and Jill rise above any negative implications in the other's judgments of him/her
to treat such observations as potentially helpful feedback, rather than as causes for taking offence?
In most teams, either an informal election is held to resolve these kinds of questions or communications are inhibited
by distrust and dissension festering beneath the surface of conversation. But in a high-performance team we have
course directions to set, performance goals to negotiate, strategies to devise to get there, obstacles to be scaled or
removed along the chosen way, urgent “fires to put out”, and, let us not forget, people to love at home.
Communications must therefore be as efficient as possible without feeling judging to others. Experience in high-
performance teams reveals to us that when we take the trouble to free our judgments of the hasty temptation to
assume a fact to be a datum, we make our communications significantly more efficient and less judging -- even if we
may temporarily feel as if we are not making much progress.
So far, most of humanity has been using informal politics to make judgments convenient to the judger. Is that what
happens in your organization? Would a colourfully appropriate allusion to that be: “The Seas of Judgment have strong
winds, mountainous swells, and mysterious currents?” If so, how can we, when we need to, “navigate safely yet
purposefully and efficiently the turbulent, treacherous Seas of Judgment”? Following are some suggestions:
Henry Ford is famous for having said and also, I understand, having lived, the adage "Never complain, never explain".
Ford lived about 3 generations ago. So it is relevant to ask today: Are the ways of thinking about the world that were
successful when that dictum of Ford's was popular, which was contemporary with WWI and the Bolshevik Revolution and
whose wisdom only played itself out with the end of the Cold War, likely to be vitalizing today?
Sooner or later, after we experience a larger world than the one we were accustomed to experience in our family of
origin, we discover that simplicity, desirable as it is, is almost not to be found except at the expense of judging almost
everyone else's thinking as too complex.
Simplicity is not the same as order. There is order in this universe, as is evidenced by the existence of scientific laws
that we find usefully reliable in predicting and manipulating its inanimate elements for our survival or our prosperity. If
we want to be able to use scientific laws, we have to learn either what the ones accepted as true today are; or refine
them or propose/prove new ones; or learn to apply the latest ones of which we are aware; or do a combination of two
or more of these activities.
Likewise, there is order in the histories and narratives (and hopes and fears) of creatures, persons, families,
organizations, and communities, and we can find the order in these animate entities if we study them without
prejudice. Then, when we have studied them and believe we have seen an order that strikes us as worth noting, to
what purpose do we put what we have found? Well, to justify our existence, must we not communicate with each
other so that we can share what we have learned (or produced) of the various orders we have individually, as an
outcome of our different life experiences, studied or applied or passed on to other?
Yet, what if we do not distinguish carefully between our need for order (predictability) and our desires for simplicity
(freedom from mental burden or shortage of time)? Well, in youth we make judgments, and as we age, we learn to
temper our judgments so that they do as little violence as possible to the capacities for affiliation and self-
development of people, and yet are as precise as possible about things. If we grow up being especially habituated to
judging others by virtue of the habits that our families, schools, professions and job entrained in us, then our task in
learning to minimize the negative effects of our judgments of both others and ourselves is commensurately greater.
Toronto, October 071204-080805, excerpted from "Empathic Authenticity", to be published in 2008
effect rationality -- the process by which we analyze problems or issues, draw conclusions concerning their nature, and
hopefully arrive at solutions. Without insightful judgments concerning the assumptions we can afford to make, the
most rational of problem-solving thinking is likely only to mislead. As problem-solvers, therefore, we learn to make
temporary assumptions by the application of research and intuitional judgment, and to visit our assumptions again as
we become aware of more data or an actual change in our environment. Our working lives as leaders depend upon
the quality of judgment we bring to the making of assumptions concerning the problems we have been mandated to
solve or the goals we have agreed to realize. We naturally take pride in our accomplishments, and ascribe much of
our success to the skills in judging that we have developed.
In teamwork, we discover that judgments, while necessary at certain times, can all too easily sow dissension and
distrust. In particular, Jill’s judgment of another person, Jack, incurs twin risks: the risk of Jack feeling misunderstood
and discounted and the risk of Jill’s thinking about all the situations of which she visualizes Jack a part being falsely
coloured by the particular hue of her judgment of Jack. Equally, Jack’s judgment of Jill risks sowing and reaping the
seeds of similar distrust and dissension. Of course the same is true of Jack's judgments of John, or Jill's of Jane, but
what is not often recognized is that, unless we are watchful, we allow inferences concerning others' judgments of
ourselves to affect our self-image in ways that lead us to unwittingly biased perceptions.
As supervisors, leaders, and family members, we must solve problems as members of teams that must be productive
in a larger setting. How can we refine the quality of judging skills we have honed to solve problems so that, rather
than sowing dissension and distrust in our team, we arrive at working assumptions that facilitate co-operation in the
growth of team insight and productivity?
Part of the answer to this conundrum can be found by distinguishing accurately between a datum and a fact. A datum
is something that is a “given”. We can do nothing about a datum except accept it. The inevitability of death is a
datum and, although all living creatures try to avoid dying, we would be insane if we did not in due course accept that
one day we will die. Knowing a datum, such as the inevitability of death, can be useful in that we have some idea in
mind upon which we can “count” (even if we don’t want to think much about a datum such as the inevitability of
death!). For present intents and purposes a datum is simply true. Our assumptions should therefore be tied as much
as possible to at least one datum if not many data. But not all assumptions turn out to be reliable. If we discover an
assumption not to be reliable, we have learned that it no longer is a datum – even if once we believed it was. We
then must change all the assumptions or beliefs upon which we have been relying that sprang from our having once
believed them to be data. This takes time, sometimes a long time; but until we have completed the process of revising
our assumptions and beliefs so that they accord with data, we are prone to feeling out of balance and even upset.
Although a fact is not a datum, it is often taken for one. A fact is very often an interpretation that someone, perhaps
you or I, has presented as a datum -- possibly in a report, or a paper such as this one, or a newspaper article, a
documentary, an editorial, or a speech, or a web posting, an email, or even in an advertisement. Hopefully, the
presentation is for purposes of basing collective problem-solving on "firm ground", but perhaps not. The Bush-Blair
presentation of the "fact" that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction was presented as if it were a datum.
But it since has been found not to be, although many people cited Bush's State of the Nation assertion thereon as if it
were a datum; and there has ever since been sharp interest in, or suspicion as to, how that presentation came to be
made. From this widely reported episode of high-level decision-making, we can learn that a so-called "fact" is always
an assumption -- even when the reporter of it as a fact may be unaware, or want others to be unaware, that the
"fact" was only an assumption. This reality becomes clear to a person only when she or he has regained balance after
having lost it through reliance upon an assumption that has turned out to be painfully untrue. At that point we begin
to make use, with zeal, of the language distinction between a fact and a datum.
There is, at least conceptually, some choice in the facts we choose to make into a temporary datum for the purposes
of practical problem-solving. But let us be clear that we would not know this choice existed for us if we did not know
the difference between a fact and a datum. However this might have been in the past for any particular one of us,
henceforth you and I do know this difference -- although we may be forgiven if we sometimes neglect it.
Consider now a hypothetical judgment that Jack makes of Jill, and also one that Jill makes of Jack. Suppose that Jack
judges Jill “to be emotional”, and that Jill judges Jack “to be insensitive”. Are these reliable judgments? Are either
based on data? Or are they only inferences from facts of some convenience to the point a judger desires be accepted
as true? Just as important, can Jack and Jill rise above any negative implications in the other's judgments of him/her
to treat such observations as potentially helpful feedback, rather than as causes for taking offence?
In most teams, either an informal election is held to resolve these kinds of questions or communications are inhibited
by distrust and dissension festering beneath the surface of conversation. But in a high-performance team we have
course directions to set, performance goals to negotiate, strategies to devise to get there, obstacles to be scaled or
removed along the chosen way, urgent “fires to put out”, and, let us not forget, people to love at home.
Communications must therefore be as efficient as possible without feeling judging to others. Experience in high-
performance teams reveals to us that when we take the trouble to free our judgments of the hasty temptation to
assume a fact to be a datum, we make our communications significantly more efficient and less judging -- even if we
may temporarily feel as if we are not making much progress.
So far, most of humanity has been using informal politics to make judgments convenient to the judger. Is that what
happens in your organization? Would a colourfully appropriate allusion to that be: “The Seas of Judgment have strong
winds, mountainous swells, and mysterious currents?” If so, how can we, when we need to, “navigate safely yet
purposefully and efficiently the turbulent, treacherous Seas of Judgment”? Following are some suggestions:
- First, we can lessen judging, especially in the case of people, where judgments very often sow unnecessary
dissension and frequently (but not always) inhibit the flow of energy in productive directions. We can do this by
practising differentiation between facts and data, which requires that we develop our powers of focused
curiosity (see "Essay on Curiosity") - Second, we can bring into the present the clarities that begin to emerge when we watch for, and let go of,
"normal" habits of speech and writing by which we absent-mindedly presume unverified facts - Third, we can set out to master, not just know about, the process of practical differentiation of datum from fact
- Fourth, we can arrange for suitable venues in which the currents of emotion and mood upon which our own
particular "ship of mind is running" can become conscious, a process that helps us become more aware of vital
distinctions between datum and fact; and - Fifth, we can -- once we have become truly proficient in the first four self-disciplines, gently help others to gain in
proficiency to "Navigate the Seas of Judgment" too.
Henry Ford is famous for having said and also, I understand, having lived, the adage "Never complain, never explain".
Ford lived about 3 generations ago. So it is relevant to ask today: Are the ways of thinking about the world that were
successful when that dictum of Ford's was popular, which was contemporary with WWI and the Bolshevik Revolution and
whose wisdom only played itself out with the end of the Cold War, likely to be vitalizing today?
Sooner or later, after we experience a larger world than the one we were accustomed to experience in our family of
origin, we discover that simplicity, desirable as it is, is almost not to be found except at the expense of judging almost
everyone else's thinking as too complex.
Simplicity is not the same as order. There is order in this universe, as is evidenced by the existence of scientific laws
that we find usefully reliable in predicting and manipulating its inanimate elements for our survival or our prosperity. If
we want to be able to use scientific laws, we have to learn either what the ones accepted as true today are; or refine
them or propose/prove new ones; or learn to apply the latest ones of which we are aware; or do a combination of two
or more of these activities.
Likewise, there is order in the histories and narratives (and hopes and fears) of creatures, persons, families,
organizations, and communities, and we can find the order in these animate entities if we study them without
prejudice. Then, when we have studied them and believe we have seen an order that strikes us as worth noting, to
what purpose do we put what we have found? Well, to justify our existence, must we not communicate with each
other so that we can share what we have learned (or produced) of the various orders we have individually, as an
outcome of our different life experiences, studied or applied or passed on to other?
Yet, what if we do not distinguish carefully between our need for order (predictability) and our desires for simplicity
(freedom from mental burden or shortage of time)? Well, in youth we make judgments, and as we age, we learn to
temper our judgments so that they do as little violence as possible to the capacities for affiliation and self-
development of people, and yet are as precise as possible about things. If we grow up being especially habituated to
judging others by virtue of the habits that our families, schools, professions and job entrained in us, then our task in
learning to minimize the negative effects of our judgments of both others and ourselves is commensurately greater.
Toronto, October 071204-080805, excerpted from "Empathic Authenticity", to be published in 2008
Reading Material Sample
Services to Leaders
Coaching Essay: Refining Judgments
Coaching Essay: Refining Judgments
| Navigating the Seas of Judgment: Damned if you judge, or damned if you don’t? (c) 2007-8 by Angus Cunningham President, Authentix Coaches angusc@authentixcoaches.com |
When we make a judgment, we are hopefully reaching for a solution either to something
that is problematic for our organization or to something that is bothering us personally.
Sometimes, however, what appears to be a judgment to others is more accurately described
as a reaction, a behaviour that occurs so quickly that it occurred virtually without deliberation.
Sometimes, such behaviours are extremely productive. Malcolm Gladwell's book "Blink!"
describes how we often find that our first impressions prove later to be extraordinarily
insightful, and this phenomenon, when we later reflect on a happy occurrence of it,
encourages us to trust our "gut instincts". But judgments based on first impressions do not
always lead to productive outcomes. Have you noticed that judgments on the part of others
can sometimes appear to be insane? If so, is it not likely that a few at least of your
judgments will have appeared insane to others?
One of life’s most painful experiences is to be caught having made a snap judgment that one
thought arose from an instance of superb insight, only later to have events reveal that one's
judgment had been very unwise. In my case I can think of quite a few judgments I made
and acted proudly upon that at least one of my parents warned me against. In such a
moment of judging, I certainly had some notion that my judgment was sound at the time.
Yet in retrospect it might better be described as only vague, forlorn, illogical, unreasonable,
irrational, or downright insane.
that is problematic for our organization or to something that is bothering us personally.
Sometimes, however, what appears to be a judgment to others is more accurately described
as a reaction, a behaviour that occurs so quickly that it occurred virtually without deliberation.
Sometimes, such behaviours are extremely productive. Malcolm Gladwell's book "Blink!"
describes how we often find that our first impressions prove later to be extraordinarily
insightful, and this phenomenon, when we later reflect on a happy occurrence of it,
encourages us to trust our "gut instincts". But judgments based on first impressions do not
always lead to productive outcomes. Have you noticed that judgments on the part of others
can sometimes appear to be insane? If so, is it not likely that a few at least of your
judgments will have appeared insane to others?
One of life’s most painful experiences is to be caught having made a snap judgment that one
thought arose from an instance of superb insight, only later to have events reveal that one's
judgment had been very unwise. In my case I can think of quite a few judgments I made
and acted proudly upon that at least one of my parents warned me against. In such a
moment of judging, I certainly had some notion that my judgment was sound at the time.
Yet in retrospect it might better be described as only vague, forlorn, illogical, unreasonable,
irrational, or downright insane.
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