Confirmation Bias, Courtesy Bias, and the 10th Man Rule

What Happens When You Step Outside Your Bubble? When You're Too Nice? And When You Assume You're Gonna Be Right?

In the simplest terms, we’re all biased. But whether your biases are warranted or not might have a little something to do with your brain.

We’re going to focus on two biases: one called “Confirmation Bias,” which you can learn about in this 11 YEAR-OLD article, and another less-common one called “Courtesy Bias,” which might take a little more explaining.

Then, we’ll introduce you to a concept you may not have heard about — one that could be called “Devil’s Advocate on Steroids” — and give you some advice for best getting your message across.

Let’s begin.

Confirmation Bias: That’s The Biggie

In Thursday night’s State of the Union address, President Biden…wait, where are you going? I have a point here!

Admit it, you already knew how the speech was going to turn out, and that depends on your own bias — for or against the President, because we’re tribal people — and you probably had a good chance of finding that sort of media to confirm how you felt. If you like the President, you could find lots of websites, or stories on mainstream media, or tweets that confirm your bias.

If you dislike the President, same.

How Does Confirmation Bias Interfere With Your Message?

In 2018, I commuted from Chicago to Dallas every week for work. This coincided with the Senate race between Sen. Ted Cruz and upstart Beto O’Rourke. Cruz ended up winning, but the race was closer than expected.

Because of where I spent my time while in DFW — most of it in the Denton area, which is a college town, thus rather liberal — 90 percent of the lawn signs I saw (yes, that’s an accurate number) were Beto signs. So imagine the surprise from my more liberal colleagues when Beto…lost.

“He ran the better campaign! He’s not Ted Cruz! Everyone here supports Beto!”

Confirmation bias at work.

But how does this work…at *actual* work? (Like, at your job?)

Courtesy Bias Has Entered the Chat

Ever feel like you wanted to give direct feedback, but you can’t? Ever feel like you really can’t say how you feel about issues because, well, you’re pretty sure you’re in the minority?

This is where “Courtesy Bias” steps in.

Here’s a really good definition from the website Listen4Good: “Courtesy bias is when someone overstates positive feedback and stays silent on negative feedback.” Put another way: “I’m being nice because I don’t want this information to negatively impact our business (or personal) relationship.”

Again, a story from my time in Texas — probably memoir-worthy, but that’s a subject for another day — when we learned the hard way. (Changing a couple details because we really don’t want to *actually* go there.)

We were preparing for a company meeting and one of the speakers was controversial — not in a political way, mind you, but in a “yeah, the language isn’t G-rated” sorta way — and we advised leadership that it was probably not a good idea to have this speaker speak in front of a group like this (highly religious, highly family-oriented, etc.).

Our feedback was rebuffed.

Can we compromise, and ask the speaker to tone it down?

Also rebuffed.

The speech was the disaster we had predicted.

How do you think it went the next time we gave feedback? Well, it pretty much amounted to “do what you want, boss, we can’t talk you out of it, we’re gonna put our heads down and focus on what we can control.”

Put Courtesy Bias together with Confirmation Bias and you have some trouble afoot.

Let’s Talk About the 10th Man

There’s a concept called the “10th Man,” and it comes from the Israeli Yom Kippur War of 1973.

Israel was caught flat-footed because they received intelligence information that (as the story goes) nine leaders thought was impossible to believe. So they ignored it.

They were then surprised by an attack by a group of Arab fighters on the first day of Yom Kippur. It was a war that the Israelis did win, but they had to ask themselves how to avoid such a thing in the future.

Simply put: they decided that, if 9 people agree with one side of an argument, a 10th Man needs to enter to counter the argument.

It’s not just asking another voice to play devil’s advocate, but to take the position that the opposite may in fact be true.

Put this into play at work: 9 executives think you should enter a new market and it will be a slam dunk; the 10th needs to ask what would happen if it’s NOT a good idea and if it’s NOT a slam dunk.

9 marketers want to launch the new ad campaign with the celebrity spokesperson; the 10th needs to figure out what happens if the celebrity spokesperson actually is an awful individual or has political views that could run counter to the effectiveness of the campaign or if…well, you see where this is going.

What Do You Do With This Information?

Well, it’s now time to step up. Pretty simple, too:

To rule out Confirmation Bias…

Be ready to step out of your bubble of information. Does that mean seeking out those who might have a different point of view? Yes.

(If you look at our Cruz v. O’Rourke example above, one quick look at Texas demographics could have told our Left-leaning colleagues that Cruz was going to win. And it could have told our Right-leaning colleagues that it might have been closer than expected. Which it was.)

To tackle Courtesy Bias…

If you’re part of a team at work: consider the fact that you might be withholding information that could make a difference in your business — or your life — and don’t be afraid of sharing it.

If you’re a leader at work: Your job depends on getting feedback from others and being willing to listen to that feedback. And being prepared to act on it, if necessary.

To implement The 10th Man…

You actually don’t need 9 voices in agreement to ask a 10th to take the opposite side. Sure, you have a great idea, but what are the possible negatives you might bump up against?

Heck, you don’t even need two voices to agree…if you’re a solo practitioner or a consultant working with a company that wants to do [X] thing, start thinking about what could go wrong? What is the additional information that you should consider? Where might your thinking be flawed?

As always, be prepared to think strategically. Your mind might be getting in the way of a breakthrough.

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