Today I want to talk to you about the truth, and our many blind spots associated with establishing it.
We are all convinced that we are right, but when we disagree then someone must be wrong.
Nobody has a monopoly on the truth.
If nothing else, in the interests of fairness, somebody has to be wrong.
Perhaps we should agree to take turns, which is democratic, right?
Joking aside, there is a more obvious solution: we use facts.
That is why objective facts matter so much: they offer arbitration when there is disagreement.
There is your version of the truth, my version of the truth, and then there is objective truth.
Objective truth does not care about feelings, it exists independent of those.
According to Wikipedia: "Something is objective if it can be confirmed independently of a mind. If a claim is true even when considering it outside the viewpoint of a sentient being, then it is labelled objectively true.". Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjectivity_and_objectivity_(philosophy)
In the purest sense, all decisions should be made based on objective truth. In reality, it is often hard to establish that in time.
As a leader, it is very important to be able to tell the difference between subjective and objective truth, and to maintain a strong bias for objectivity when making an important decision.
Equally one must not fall into the trap of assuming a fact becomes "more true" if more people believe in it: in fact a majority of people can be wrong objectively. It's rare, but it happens.
Put simply, we are all wrong sometimes but we don't always acknowledge it.
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