Our skills at onboarding and offboarding information determine the quality of our opinions
By March Twisdale
Hundreds of books are written, lectures are given, and manuals are printed every year, educating businesses on “How to Onboard and Offboard Employees.”
This is because bringing in new individuals, and shedding those who are problematic or no longer necessary, can make or break a company’s culture and success in the marketplace.
People, as it turns out, do the same thing.
Every day, we bring in new information while shedding some of the old, creating our worldview in the process. Unfortunately, few give our “onboarding and offboarding” of mission-critical information adequate attention. Which is concerning, because our opinions drive our lives.
Two major stumbling blocks are our tendency to form unshakable first impressions and cognitive bias.
Researchers at Harvard found that “Humans are generally quick to form opinions, often based on limited information or initial impressions, due to cognitive biases and our natural tendency to make rapid judgments in social situations; this means people can form an opinion about something or someone very quickly, sometimes even within seconds.”
In other words, a combination of preexisting beliefs (cognitive bias) and “first impressions” can contribute to seemingly unshakable and often flawed opinions. Keith M. Bellizzi, Professor of Human Development and Family Sciences at the University of Connecticut, explains it this way: “For many people, a challenge to their worldview feels like an attack on their personal identity and can cause them to harden their position.”
This is where our skills and habits of onboarding and offboarding information come into play.
The human “story” is constantly happening, with new and old information coming into conflict on a consistent basis. This is not a new concept. This interplay between past known facts and newly discovered facts is foundational to the scientific method.
But, what works in theory can fail in practice, and frequently does when humans are involved. We are, after all, the fly in the ointment. The flaw in the system. The cause of the error. The scientific method would come close to perfection, if it were not for the humans messing it up.
As Dr. Bellizzi puts it, “Facts First is the tagline of a CNN branding campaign which contends that, ‘once facts are established, opinions can be formed.’ The problem is that, while it sounds logical, this appealing assertion is a fallacy not supported by research.” In fact (pun intended): “Cognitive psychology and neuroscience studies have found that the exact opposite is often true when it comes to politics: People form opinions based on emotions, such as fear, contempt and anger, rather than relying on facts. New facts often do not change people’s minds.”
Which brings us again to the all-important concepts of “onboarding and offboarding.”
We have a responsibility to do our absolute best to form opinions and viewpoints that do more than make us feel good. They need to be defensible. We need to know why we have this or that opinion, and if we don’t? That’s a red flag.
I’m not saying we have an obligation to explain ourselves to others, but rather to ourselves. If we don’t know why we believe something, then what business do we have believing it? How does it serve us? And, should we be advocating an opinion we are incapable of defending?
A huge percentage of people walk through life, being pushed this way and that, by forces and manipulative actors using their human instincts against them. The goal is to “not” be that person.
When it comes to the explosion of algorithms and the monetization of our personal information by so-called “free” social media platforms, people get it. We are the commodity. The same is true for political forces seeking to control Earth’s resources by controlling people, via quickly adopted opinions, which then drive their actions.
You can give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Or you can teach him to fish, and he eats for life. Similarly, you can buy a man’s vote, and he votes your way once. Or you can sway his opinions, and he votes your way for life. The goal is to control minds.
This is where “onboarding and offboarding” become our super powers! Our ultimate armor against the worst and most sophisticated manipulators in all of human history. How do we do this? Continuous learning.
We need to be flexible and skilled at our management of information, easily and willingly exploring old and new ideas while employing careful analysis and skeptical evaluation. If we are successful, it will become obvious what information should be “offboarded” and which deserves to be “onboarded.” And, we will find ourselves continually updating our opinions based upon the best information available.
Who thinks COVID-related information onboarded in 2020-2021 comes close to the quality, depth, caliber and accuracy of information available today? Who doesn’t think we ought to be “offboarding” the best guesses of the past, to allow for the “onboarding” of newer, updated, and evidentially based information?
We must form our opinions intentionally and wisely, because what we think informs what we do, which becomes the world we co-create.
