"It ain't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so"
At today’s pace of change, it’s obvious that the ability to learn is a critical life skill. What may not be so obvious is that the ability to unlearn is at least as important.
When things are stable, it is a virtue to learn something once and for all. A skill that becomes routine saves time and effort, freeing our mind for other things. Fundamental “truths” become a deeply ingrained part of who we are, providing a stable and dependable foundation for choices and decisions. And experts develop excellent intuition through the ability to unconsciously recognize patterns, which is why they can make swift, effective choices when needed.
But when that routine or that knowledge no longer fits the facts, predictions and choices can go awry. I saw a vivid and important demonstration of this in the late 80s, when I was studying for a graduate degree in Soviet Studies. When Mikhail Gorbachev came on the scene, with his ideas of glasnost and perestroika, the Soviet experts who were my professors were confused about how to interpret his words and actions. Drawing on their 40+ years of study, they interpreted Gorbachev through the lens of what they had seen before: it was another underhanded Soviet ploy to trick the West, or to make Reagan look bad. When the Soviets unilaterally declared that they would withdraw 500,000 troops from Eastern Europe, one of my professors declared that this would only make them more dangerous adversaries, because it would allow them to concentrate on quality.
In medicine, Australian doctor Barry Marshall, who won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 2005, was literally laughed at and booed by audiences of doctors when he presented his theory that ulcers were caused by bacteria. He finally had to resort to causing his own ulcer by drinking a culture of the bacteria, and then curing himself.
I had to unlearn something myself in writing this post. I was going to cite the example of Ken Olsen, CEO of Digital Equipment Corporation, who famously said in 1977 that there was no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home. Fortunately, I checked the statement before publishing, and discovered that the quote, while accurate, was taken out of context. Olsen was actually referring to a central computer that would control everything from lights, to doors, to preparing meals.
Sometimes the vividness of a lesson causes you to overlearn it, making it nearly impossible to unlearn. Military planners are famous for preparing for the last war, and I suspect that the billions of dollars spent on airport security since 2001 are a symptom of this. (Which reminds me of Mark Twain’s observation that, “the cat, having sat upon a hot stove lid, will not sit upon a hot stove lid again. But he won’t sit upon a cold stove lid, either.”)
Been there, done that—maybe not!
Faced with a situation, we match it to a similar experience, and do what worked then. Learning from experience is a form of reasoning by analogy, but in important situations you should examine the analogy you’re using.
- Try to list the differences between this situation and the one in your mind.
- Get a devil’s advocate, or become your own.
- Look for disconfirming evidence. As uncomfortable as it may be, read something occasionally that you don’t agree with. When observed facts don’t match your assumptions, don’t automatically assume the facts are wrong.
Expertise is a wonderful asset, except when things are in flux. Then, knowledge and experience can be dangerous. When what you know blocks learning, you must unlearn it. What have you unlearned today?
Daniel Willingham wrote When Can You Trust the Experts: How to Tell Good Science from Bad in Education
The ability to discern good science from bad is important if you are making important corporate decisions. If you’re a buyer, you like to complete as much research as possible before talking to salespeople. We’ve been told that buyers are much better informed than in the past, but are you better informed, or simply more informed?
If you’re reading this, you’re one of the elite who likes to keep up with the latest ideas, but how do you know which ones are likely to be true? When top experts offer conflicting advice, how do you evaluate their respective claims? It’s even critical in our personal lives. What diet should we follow? How do we know?
My own field of sales and communications training is full of “experts” peddling myths, sometimes unknowingly, such as learning styles and the often-quoted statistic that 93% of communication is non-verbal. (Full disclosure: I once had both of those ideas in my training material.)
Willingham tells us that we can learn to think more like scientists. He does not claim that we can be as good as a trained scientist with a background in the particular field, because their practices and habits of mind take years to develop, and background knowledge is essential in evaluating many claims. But, we can do much better at it than we are now.
Four steps for more informed decisions:
Step 1: Strip it and Flip It
Strip it means taking out all the hyped-up, vague or emotional language that expert persuaders wrap around it to make it go down smoothly. Simply try to write the following sentence:
If I do X, there is a Y percent chance that Z will happen.
By boiling it down to those stark terms you gain clarity on what the person is trying to say, so that you can test it. If the claim can’t be expressed clearly, then that’s a red flag right there.
Flipping it means expressing its reverse corollary. For example, when hamburger is advertised as 85% lean, it also means it’s 15% fat, which doesn’t sound near as appetizing. You can also flip the action: what happens if you don’t do what they recommend?
Step 2: Trace It
If they have the credentials, many experts will simply say, “Trust me, I’m an expert.” If they don’t, they will say, “Trust me, because I have expert sources.” There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, because life would be impossible if we had to research everything ourselves. But for important decisions, a little digging under the surface can make a big difference, and it’s so easy to do on the internet. One of the problems is that the claim may be based on a kernel of truth from a valid study, but the expert may overstate the claim (as in the 93% myth mentioned above). Go to the original source when you can.
Step 3: Analyze It
Willingham takes the reader on a tour of some basic analysis and critical thinking skills, including sample size and statistical significance. Moderately sophisticated readers won’t learn much here. I do like one important point he makes, though: “If a claim sounds like a breakthrough, it’s probably a sham, because unheralded breakthroughs in science are exceedingly rare.”
Step 4: Should I Do it?
Finally, you have to decide whether to implement the change, buy the product, etc. This chapter takes you through two comprehensive checklists. If you follow these, you may not be guaranteed a good decision, but you’ll certainly have a defensible one if it doesn’t pan out!
Will this book help you?
Before I make my closing observation, let me first say that I think When Can You Trust the Experts? is a good book, and explains a useful (albeit basic) approach that can help make you a better consumer of information and improve your decision making. BUT…there is a lot of sound advice that is worth taking that does not meet the stringent standards outlined in the book. The irony is that the book itself offers a prime example. Let’s just apply Step 1 to the book. What is Willingham’s claim?
The cover flap states:
“When Can You Trust the Experts? offers parents, teachers, administrators, and policymakers the tools they need to ask tougher questions, think more logically about why an intervention might or might not work, and ultimately make more informed decisions.”
If we strip this claim (including evidence cited in the book itself), we get,
“If you follow the prescriptions in this book…
…there is a ____% chance…
…that you will make more informed decisions.”
This brings up a few questions:
- Do I have to follow all the prescriptions? (Let’s use the 16 questions on pages 208-209 as a template?)
- How will I know if I have followed them? (Some of the questions are hard to answer in a binary fashion.)
- What is the % chance? (I did not see any specific quantified claims in the book.)
- How will you know your decisions are more informed?
- How much more?
- Will more informed mean better outcomes from the decisions?
So, as you can see, it’s pretty tough to get good decision-making down to a specific methodology, but I do believe this book makes a strong case that some methodology is better than none at all.
In Scotland, courts have three possible verdicts available to them: guilty, not guilty, or not proven. The latter two are good enough to acquit the defendant, but “not proven” is definitely not as strong as not guilty. “Not proven” is the verdict that should be rendered on so many business books written today.
In yesterday’s book review of Sales Growth, I made the comment that their research methods fell short of the gold standard for research methods, and I would like to elaborate on that comment a bit. They typical business “how-to” book follows the same underlying formula:
- We studied X number of companies and found the same common characteristics. The top companies all did _____.
- Therefore, if you do ____, you too will succeed.
- Here’s how to do it.
There are plenty of possible holes in #1: Just for starters,
Don’t put those away just yet
My daughter graduated last week from Wake Forest University, and even though no one asked me to give a commencement speech, here’s a message I would like to send to her and all the other 1.8 million students who have reached that proud milestone this year.
It’s just one simple message: don’t get out of the learning habit.
After four years of hard work and intensive study, it can be very tempting to put the books and tests away for good, kick back and decompress a little, and focus on the mechanics of your job (assuming you’re one of the fortunate ones who has one). But that would be a mistake.
Right now your capacity for learning is as high as it’s ever been, but that is an asset that can quickly be wasted. You have developed the habit of learning from your four years in school, and that’s a habit you don’t want to break. It’s kind of like physical conditioning; you know how hard it can be to get back into shape after you’ve let yourself go. It’s the same with learning. You know from experience that after summer vacation you need to kick-start your brain a little to get into peak mental condition for learning.
You and I both know people who brag that they never read books. Your own commencement speaker cited the statistic that 42% of college graduates never read a book after they get their diploma .As Mark Twain said, “the man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.”
What was important in Twain’s time is exponentially more important today. You need that capacity to learn because the reality is that you will probably work for a significant portion of your life in a profession that doesn’t even exist yet, probably in competition with smart people from countries whose names you would barely recognize.
Knowledge snowballs. There is a compounding effect to knowledge—the more you know, the easier it is to learn more, because you have a much more extensive network of ideas and associations that incoming information can stick to. That’s why time works in your favor; the more you learn at an early age, the faster you will learn and the more you will know as time goes on.
One of the world’s top experts on experts, K. Anders Ericcson, tells us that the majority of people in any occupation or professional field quickly reach a level of competence and then stop. Only a small percentage continue to keep learning year after year, and those gradually open a significant gap between themselves and others. Be one of those people. Never stop learning; never stop reading.
To keep the habit, set aside some time for reading and for study. Get interested in the world and read the paper. But don’t forget that you can also learn a lot from your work and daily life: pay attention, don’t be afraid to ask stupid questions, listen more than you talk, and don’t try to be the smartest person in the room. Keep a journal.
Besides the practical considerations, the drive to learn, to understand and to master, can be one of your greatest sources of satisfaction and personal motivation in the years to come. It will keep you young: Henry Ford said, “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty.” Stay curious; don’t let what you know stand in the way of all there is to learn and appreciate.
