Why Being Wrong is a Good Thing

April 22, 2011 by Bryce Christiansen in Blog, Emotional Intelligence, Personal Growth, Professional Development

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Kathryn Schulz: On Being Wrong

Yesterday I finally caught up on watching a video everyone around the office was talking about.  I’ve posted it above for you to see as well.

Kathryn is an expert on being wrong, a topic I thought would be boring and instill awful feelings about myself.  I was wrong.

The video is absolutely fascinating.  I wanted to highlight some of her thoughts as well as the implications it has in the business world.

How Does it Feel to Be Wrong?

When you hear this question what feelings come to your mind?  Embarrassment, dread, stupidity, funny?

What if I told you that’s not quite true, what you are feeling is an answer to another question?  What does it feel like to realize you are wrong?

Kathryn explains this with a unique analogy.

Error Blindness

Remember the old Looney Tunes cartoon with the coyote and roadrunner?  Every episode would inevitably lead to a scene where the bird ran right off a cliff with the coyote close behind.

We know the bird will be fine, they can fly after all.  However the coyote is fine as well.  That is, until he notices he has lost the ground beneath him.

It works the same way with our errors.  Being wrong does feel like something.  It feels like being right.  It’s not until we notice our grounding and evidence of our “being right” is missing that we go “Oh no!”

Why Do We Hate Being Wrong?

We are trained to hate being wrong as children.  We take tests, answer questions, and share our ideas.  What happens if we don’t get it right?  We are laughed at, told to try again, and embarrassed in front of others.

We learn that in order to be successful in life, we need to never make mistakes.  That if we get something wrong, there must be something wrong with us.

The Danger of Neglecting Our Ability to Be Wrong

Kathryn Shulz also shares a dangerous story about what happens when we feel we are always right.

She mentions a well renowned hospital had a patient come in for a complicated surgery on her leg.  When she awoke from the anesthetics, she immediately wondered why the stitches were on the other leg. The hospital reported, that the surgeon had felt he was on the right side when he did the surgery.

When we stop entertaining the idea that we might be wrong, that’s when danger becomes a major risk.

Let me demonstrate it with another story.  Remember the Ford Pinto, the car that exploded at the hint of a rear ending?  Turns out Ford knew about the problem but decided it would be cheaper to pay for damages then to admit they were wrong and correct the problem.

Ford engineers discovered in pre-production crash tests that rear-end collisions would rupture the Pinto’s fuel system extremely easily.  Because assembly-line machinery was already tooled when engineers found this defect, top Ford officials decided to manufacture the car anyway—exploding gas tank and all—even though Ford owned the patent on a much safer gas tank. It wasn’t until dozens died from this defect that Ford finally made the recall decision.

It becomes quite clear that holding on to the idea we can’t be wrong is a very dangerous strategy.

How We React to Those Who Are Wrong

One of my favorite parts was Kathryn’s analysis of how we react when we disagree.

First, we assume they are ignorant. That they just don’t know any better and can’t possibly be correct for that reason.

Second, we assume they are an idiot. That they have all the information but are too stupid to come to the same conclusion we did.

Third, we assume that they are evil. That they know the truth, but are just distorting the facts for their own vicious purposes.

Think about the environment where you work.  Is there conflict, listening, open dialog, creative energy?  Can you see how our inner desire to not be wrong can affect this?

Knowing this, try to avoid these assumptions the next time someone tells you you’re wrong.  Entertain the possibility that they might just be right, and if that’s completely not the case, avoid the urge to fall into the traps above.

Why Being Wrong is a Good Thing

Lastly, we secretly do enjoy being wrong at certain times.  Have you ever watched a movie, and come away hating it because it was too predictable or easy to call?  Kathryn says;

We eat up plot twists, red herrings, and mystery.  When it comes to stories we love being wrong.  But our stories are like this because our lives are like this.  We think this one thing is going to happen, and then something else happens instead.  George Bush thought he was going to invade Iraq, find weapons of mass destruction, liberate the people and bring democracy to the middle east, then something else happened instead.  Hosni Mubarak thought he was going to be ruler and dictator of Egypt for the rest of his life, until he got old and sick and could pass on his title to his son, but something else happened instead.

I thought I was going to be work for a well recognized company right out of college, have kids, and a nice house, but something else happened instead.

Our capacity to screw up and be wrong is not a fallacy of the human race, it’s who we are.  So don’t be afraid to remove yourself from being right all the time, it’s okay to wonder, “I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong.”