How to Have an Honest Data-Driven Debate

by Michael Schrage  |   12:00 PM April 17, 2014

Malcolm Gladwell of bestselling Tipping Point and Outliers fame proposed a delightfully provocative way to begin his onstage debate with Sports Gene author David Epstein about whether practice or genetics is the better guarantor of professional success. But instead of launching directly into argument, said Gladwell, they’d start by summarizing their opponent’s best arguments. The exceedingly careful, precise and thoughtful characterizations of each other’s position that followed proved remarkably entertaining and informative. More importantly, it facilitated one of the best-reviewed and most absorbing panels at MIT Sloan’s highly-regarded Sports Analytics Conference.

Gladwell’s gimmick of forcing people to fairly communicate their rival’s case is rhetorical old hat. But the rise of Big Data and analytics concomitantly demand its operational resurrection and revival. The need is urgent and global. If there’s a single pathological behavior I consistently see undermining the real and potential value of data and analytics, it’s the rampant intellectual dishonestly and argument I hear in project reviews and board rooms worldwide. Deliberate misrepresentations, mischaracterizations and ad absurdum distortions of fact and interpretation are more common than rare.  Passion and commitment are “go-to” executive excuses for grotesque exaggeration and dishonest summary of inter-organizational opposition. Powerpoint presentations become poisonous invitations to quantitative brawls. The dominant metric of analytic effectiveness is “winning the argument” rather than creating any kind of meaningful or measurable insight.  Does this represent a serious failure of leadership? You bet. But that’s numeracy’s new normal. It’s why Gladwell’s gimmick so successfully stimulated the MIT sports crowd of geeks, nerds and quants.

The cure is simple and compelling: Managers and executives confronting serious strategic, operational or cultural disagreements on issues that matter should insist that their people be able to convincingly make their opponents’ case. This is not a joke, a gimmick or an intellectual exercise. It’s a public declaration of integrity: Fairly presenting a 360-degree view — both sides of a polarizing argument or wedge issue — is essential to honest and honorable discussion. The best and only way you can be confident your evidence and arguments are understood is by hearing them fairly and accurately made by the very people who disagree with them. That doesn’t mean that they’re persuaded or convinced by them. But it typically guarantees that there’s been a serious investment made in grasping them. Conversely, the best and surest way to demonstrate your own command of the debate is by offering a synthesis and summary of your rival’s case in a manner that leaves them nodding in agreement. There is no shortcut or substitute for that mutual recognition.

I’ve pushed for this in many organizations and unhesitatingly observe that it radically and dramatically elevates the quality of discussion and debate. Intriguingly, the greatest resistance to this comes from managers and executives reflexively dedicated to concepts of authenticity:

“Oh, no!” they piously declare, “It would be dishonest for us—or our colleagues—to have to make an argument we don’t believe in. We won’t do it!” To the contrary, they insist, their passion and dedication are every bit as important as the facts in evidence as to why their position deserves to win. You will not be surprised to learn that these tend to be organizations where politics and power play bigger roles than either analytic rigor or data-driven insight in determining what decisions get made. Confirmation Bias uber alles.

Dan Ariely, the Duke behavioral economist who authored Predictably Irrational, recently addressed this in his Wall Street Journal letters column in a radically different context: “A large body of research on cognitive dissonance has shown that people who are forced to argue for an opinion opposite to their actual one feel so uncomfortable with the conflict that they’re likely to change their original opinion.” I can’t and won’t say that research is consistent with my own empirically anecdotal experience — although I emphatically agree that the overwhelming majority of managers and analysts I’ve worked with are, indeed, uncomfortable arguing against their declared beliefs. I’ve rarely witnessed such contrarian conversions. That said, however, I have seen greater reluctance to characterize enterprise rivals as “morons,” “idiots who don’t know what they’re talking about” and “jerks who don’t really understand the business.” The discipline of being forced to argue the other side doesn’t necessarily create empathy or sympathy but it does — more often than not — create recognition that there are real reasons for disagreement. My experiences suggest that these recognitions lead to greater mutual respect and healthier outcomes than fratricidal debates where dismissing and/or demonizing rivals is culturally accepted and encouraged.

If your organization is having an important argument that gets everybody hot and bothered, don’t encourage compromise or collaboration. Insist that the most passionate and articulate advocates from each side make the other’s case. Force the best and the brightest to publicly demonstrate just how well they understand the other. You — and they — will be amazed at what you’ll learn. If they can’t — or won’t — do it, you’ll be amazed at how irrelevant even the best data and analytics ultimately prove to be.