Theories or Opinions

Which of them will better serve you?

Do you have “theories” or “opinions” about things?

It seems to me that having theories is more productive than having opinions.

When we form an opinion we are engaging our subconscious on a mission to protect our ego from ever finding out or feeling that our opinions are incorrect. Our brains do not want to be wrong and there are a great many logical fallacies and cognitive biases deployable to keep us “safely and securely deluded”.

On the other hand, when we form a theory about something we are in a curious and exploratory state of mind. When we have a theory we want to share it — and, whilst it will feel good to have others praise or agree with our theory, we’re not attaching our sense of identity and self-worth to it. We’re happy to throw it against the wall and see what sticks. We’re seeking opportunities to test and retest our theory so we can refine (or abandon) it.

We are more likely to get stuck on opinions because our opinions are part of our blueprint — they contribute to our decision-making and the lenses through which we view the world. Opinions are more likely to become “felt truths”. And felt truths are very difficult to alter.

We are driven to convince others of our opinions — or congregate with those that share the same opinions as we do, because it reinforces our sense of self-validity. And pumps our ego.

One of my personal leadership principles is “transparency, with context”. This leads me to sharing my opinions very often and very openly. I have often observed that, much to my dismay, this can create the undesirable scenarios of feeling a need to “win” when discussing differing opinions or, worse yet, generating a fear in others of disagreeing with me due to my position or perceived clout.

I am deeply introspective (almost certainly too much so!) about things and am very much out to explore ways in which my opinions could be refined or abandoned in light of new perspectives and information. Rather than try to convince everyone I am sharing with of this, I have a theory that shifting to having more “theories” and less “opinions” — and framing things that way when sharing — could serve to reduce the risks of undesirable scenarios and instead enrich the information I can gather to help improve my theories.

There may be a potential pitfall to this approach. Forming an opinion may be beneficial in getting to execution rather than spinning wheels in place while theorising about everything. Needing to prove a theory to be correct before executing would be detrimental to performance. When we have an opinion we are keen to execute on it because we “believe it to be correct”.

I think the idea here is to formulate a theory then rapidly get it out there as the best way of discovering its validity. It is the willingness — and the specific intention — to reflect on measurements and feedback after execution that makes the difference. And just generally remembering that the significance of whether these theories prove true or false will vary greatly in many different scenarios and contexts — so be discerning and do not obsess over everything.

Maybe this is merely semantics… to be taken with a grain of salt… but it’s just my opinion. Oops — I mean, it’s just a theory I have currently!

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