5.3 Think about whether you are playing the role of a teacher, a student, or a peer and whether you should be teaching, asking questions, and debating.
Too often people flail in their disagreements because they either don’t know or don’t think about how they should engage effectively; they just blurt out whatever they think and argue. While everyone has the right and obligation to make sense of everything, basic rules for engagement should be followed. Those rules and how you should follow them depend on your relative believabilities. For example, it would not be effective for the person who knows less to tell the person who knows more how something should be done. It’s important to get the balance between your assertiveness and your open-mindedness right, based on your relative levels of understands of the subject.
Think about whether the person you’re disagreeing with is more or less believable than you. If you are less believable, you are more of a student and should be more open-minded, primarily asking questions in order to understand the logic of the person who probably knows more. If you’re more believable, your role is more of a teacher, primarily conveying your understanding and answering questions. And if you are approximate peers, you should have a thoughtful exchange as equals. When there is a disagreement about who is more believable, be reasonable and work it through. In cases when you can’t do this alone effectively, seek out the help of an agreed-upon third party.
In all cases, try to see things through the other person’s eyes so that you can obtain understanding. All parties should remember that the purpose of debate is to get at truth, not to prove that someone is right or wrong, and that each party should be willing to change their mind based on the logic and evidence.
a. It’s more important that the student understand the teacher than that the teach understand the student, though both are important.
I have often seen less believable people (students) insist that the more believable people (teachers) understand their thinking and prove why the teacher is wrong before listening to what the teacher (the more believable party) has to say. That’s backward. While untangling the student’s thinking can be helpful, it is typically difficult and time-consuming and puts the emphasis on what the student sees instead of on what the teacher wants to convey. For that reason, our protocol is for the student to be open-minded first. Once the student has taken in what the teacher has to offer, both student and teacher will be better prepared to untangle and explore the student’s perspective. It is also more time-efficient to get in sync this way, which leads to the next principle.
b. Recognize that while everyone has the right and responsibility to try to make sense of important things, they must do so with humility and radical open-mindedness.
When you are less believable, start by taking on the role of a student in a student-teacher relationship—with appropriate humility and open-mindedness. While it is not necessarily you who doesn’t understand, you must assume this until you have seen the issue through the other’s eyes. If the issue still doesn’t make sense to you and you think that your teacher just doesn’t get it, appeal to other believable people. If you still can’t reach an agreement, assume you are wrong. If, on the other hand, you are able to convince a number of believable people of your point of view, then you should make sure your thinking is heard and considered by the person deciding, probably with the help of the other believable parties. Remember that those who are higher in the reporting hierarchy have more people they are trying to sort through on an expected value basis to get the best thinking and more people who want to tell them what they think, so they are time-constrained and have to play the probabilities. If your thinking has been stress-tested by other believable people who support you, it has a greater probability of being heard. Conversely, those higher in the reporting hierarchy must strive to achieve the goal of getting in sync with those lower in the hierarchy about what makes sense. The more people get in sync about what makes sense, the more capable and committed people will be.
* Source: Principles by Ray Dalio