Do you know the difference between a fact and an opinion? If so, you’re doing more homework than 45. 7 percent of Americans, according to a new study that raises serious questions about many people’s ability to make smart decisions.
This discovery would have surprised me even more if I hadn’t learned how blurred the lines between facts, opinions, and assumptions are for many people.
One of the main teams I teach leaders is called Assumption Challenge. It does what it promises: it helps other people identify and test their hypotheses so they can make better decisions and scale more powerful strategies.
When I started training Assumptions Challenge in 2015, I didn’t bother differentiating between facts and assumptions with my students because I thought it was obvious to anyone with knowledge. I temporarily learned that my speculation, which I had unfortunately not been able to verify, was false. Some of the students in my classes, as well as some who were high-ranking leaders, had difficulty distinguishing between facts, assumptions, and opinions.
That is a big problem for any decision-maker, because decision quality is dependent in large part on our ability to make choices that are informed by a critical analysis of facts and data.
What I learned the hard way was recently scientifically demonstrated by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who asked participants to classify 12 statements about existing occasions as facts or opinions. They found that 45. 7% can do it well, no more than part of the time.
“There are a lot of studies on misinformation. But what we found is that, even before we get to the level of calling something disinformation, other people find it difficult to differentiate between statements of fact and opinions,” said Jeffery J. Mondak, professor. of political science and co-author of the study published in the Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review.
“What we are showing here is that other people have difficulty distinguishing facts from opinions, and if we don’t have that common sense of reality, then popular journalistic verification of facts – which is more curative and only preventive – will not be effective. a productive way to discredit dissenting data,” he said, adding that it has worrying implications for the long term of American democracy. “The ability to differentiate between opinion and fact is important for citizens to manage the avalanche of political data they obtain every day. »
This also has troubling implications for planning and decision-making, which is why I now make sure my students understand the difference between facts, opinions, and assumptions before I teach them how to challenge their assumptions.
So what constitutes a fact, a hypothesis or an opinion?
If your company earned $3.6 billion last quarter, that is a fact (unless someone in your accounting department has been cooking the books). If your CFO projects that you will earn $3.6 billion next quarter, that is an assumption. If you think your company is doing great financially, that is an opinion.
If your marketing department says your new product tested well in focus groups, that is a fact. If your marketing department say your new product will be a hit with consumers, that is an assumption. If your head of marketing tells you this new product will cement your company’s reputation as a cutting-edge innovator, that is an opinion.
If your head of manufacturing says your factory has the capacity to produce 25,000 more widgets each month, that is a fact. If your head of manufacturing says your factory can easily accommodate demand for your new widgets, that is an assumption. If you think this vindicates your decision to build this new factory, that in an opinion.
Facts are essential to informed decision making.
Assumptions are obligatory evils: each and every strategy, each and every plan, each and every resolution is based on them. The challenge is to make the right assumptions, because the bigger your assumptions, the more potent your plan will be and the more likely it will be a success. The danger lies in making assumptions or, worse, not recognizing them as assumptions.
As for opinions, well, Clint Eastwood addressed them quite obviously in Dirty Harry.
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