Monday, April 07, 2008

Wrong and Right

What does it mean to be right? How do you know?

I guess if you are playing a trivia game or adding columns of numbers (unless you are a theoretical mathematician, then don’t ask…), it is as clear as black and white. Sometimes.

In our business? It’s a tough call. How often are you ready to throw yourself on a sword because you have the only right answer to a marketing problem; the sole solution for a promotion; the one and only resolution to an acquisition or retention need? Frankly, speaking personally, it’s not often that I would…

If you can’t be right, can you be wrong? Of course, you can - ask my daughters… But if you are intelligently wrong, if you are I took the risk wrong, you can get closer and closer to being right by listening and applying and learning and evolving.

I’d strongly argue the only way to being right—the path to accurate answers… the straight line to true understanding—is through trial and error, with failure leading to success.

Having said that, there is worse than wrong…listen:

This isn’t right. This isn’t even wrong.
~Wolfgang Pauli

See the point?

If you don’t listen, if you don’t learn, if you don’t apply best practices and best thinking, if all you do is think you are right, then you can get so far off base that wrong starts looking right. 

So, maybe it’s OK to be wrong as long as it’s for the right reasons!

Right?

Posted by David on 04/07 at 08:23 AM
(2) Comments • Permalink

  1. I think that quote makes a great point about mediocrity - the area between right and wrong, that gray area of good enough to not be wrong but not good enough to be right. It's often easier to have a mediocre idea approved by others (clients as well as an internal team) than the "right" idea, the one that is really progressive.

    Posted by Amanda Wolfman  on  2008-04-07 17:49:33

  2. Pauli's "not even wrong" was about a conclusion that was (probably) well reasoned, but it started from rubbish, so was a waste of time. Telling right from wrong? [Correct from incorrect]. By testing of course, but testing needs questions to be well posed, and capable of being answered. Well posed means the situations under test are well understood (and already known), but they still have uncertainty. Another way (common path) is to learn from experience (without deliberate testing). This path has a dangerous bias, because it's based on where people were prepared to go (which sometimes worked out well, and sometimes didn't). The right answer may depend on seldom asked questions. Without testing, you can't bust myths... Tom.

    Posted by Tom Osborn  on  2008-04-10 00:22:13

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