Filters, Perspectives, and Bendable Realities

I'll give some examples from my own life to show you how filters work (filters is Scott's term for what I would otherwise call 'perspectives'). Especially, perspectives on THE PAST.

I own a moving business in Los Angeles called Shleppers Moving & Storage. We move thousands of customers a year, not only locally, but also long distances. Sometimes, items break. Sometimes, just like bags at an airport, items get lost. This is by far the minority of the time, and we measure claims very closely in order to monitor or performance and to make operational improvements when necessary.

For customers that have damages or missing items--their perspective is that they moved once, and something broke, therefore we are incompetent at our job. 100% of their experience confirms their conclusion, so they feel pretty sure of themselves. From our perspective, that customer is an isolated incident, part of the small percentage of customers that have damages or issues with our service. But there is no way to make a customer see this perspective, especially if they have been primed to see a different perspective. Let's talk priming:

We recently delivered a customer to Florida. Upon the arrival of his shipment, it was found that his rug was wet. I was appalled. I was mortified. I was apologetic.  How the heck can a rug arrive wet?

He also was missing a chair that was part of a dining set, and he was very, very upset about that.  The delivery driver, a vendor who himself may have lost the chair or wet the rug, blamed my company for both. He described our operation disparagingly to the customer in order to exculpate himself and remove himself from the customer's wrath.

As a consequence of the actual issues and the driver's narrative, the customer writes me and tells me that his damaged and missing items are the result of an incompetent operation. I obviously understand his perspective, and for him, that narrative works, with no available data that disconfirms his perspective/filter. A poorly run operation and a warehouse with a leaky roof are consistent with his narrative, supported by the delivery man's words. In my filter, our roof is brand new, and maybe the missing chair was delivered mistakenly by the driver to the wrong customer. Both "filters" work. Due to this customer's wet rug, we compensated him quite considerably, but I was reluctant, because my filter, informed not by one move but by thousands, yields different conclusions. By way of example, cut to yesterday:

Yesterday, we were loading a truck for long distance delivery. Many of the items were not packed by us, but by our customers themselves--we just provided the labor, not the packing.

In any event, as the items were being stacked, we noticed water dripping onto some of the boxes from above. The culprit? A customer packed a mini-fridge in box. The pipes inside the fridge started to leak water--which can cause damages. This exact scenario could explain what happened to the aforementioned customer's rug.  But were we at fault? Nope. We just moved things carefully, and because we can't control what our customers pack, sometimes this kind of thing happens, and we don't assume the liability. If you were in our shoes, you wouldn't want that liability either, because it's uncontrollable, and considerable.

The point is that looking back on the past, many filters and perspectives fit. For the customer that thinks we are incompetent, the data from the past fits his filter. My filter, based on a much larger data set, also fits. I will not be able to disabuse him of his perspective.

Win Bigly, thoughts

I just finished reading Scott Adams new book, Win Bigly.

I'm a huge fan. I think he shined brightest during Sam Harris podcast episode Triggered. He's a clear thinker whose teachings and insights are incredibly valuable. In How to Fail at Everything and Still Win Big, Adams instructs on lifestyle habits that lead to success, however you define it. In Win Bigly, the focus shifts from how to change yourself, to how to change, or persuade, others.

He does some clever things to make his point, the most obvious of which is highlighting his success in accurately predicting the win of President Trump in last year's election. As far as I know, Scott was one of the loudest voices predicting Trump's win, and he did so based on his observation and belief that Trump is an expert persuader. Perhaps that's understating his perspective. Adams believes that Trump has "weapons grade" persuasive abilities, and from my vantage point, this is irrefutable. Whether one likes our President or despises him, his ability to manipulate perception, control the narrative, and use language that helps him achieve his goals is profound.

The book--it's somewhat long and repetitive, and Adams uses his background as a hypnotist and accurate prediction of the election results to establish himself as an authority on persuasion. I'm not sure he is that. I'm not sure even he thinks he is that. Instead, he's a really smart guy that studies persuasion much in the same way I did--by reading books on the subject. And in this regard, he, and I, and millions of psychology and business school students share a common theme--that we've studied the work of Robert Cialdini. In fact, I've written on Cialdini myself to illustrate how weapons of influence are utilized by me in my work as a magician.

As a manual goes, I don't think that readers will come away empowered with a new set of skills. His previous book, about changing ones habits, did a better job at that.  Moreover, hearing him constantly refer to himself as an expert made me feel that 1. the repition was part of his pursuasive method (repition is pursuasion...hence product placement!), and 2. that the book was released somewhat quickly to capitilize on his 'hotness' right now. Still, it could have been pared down and edited a bit for my taste.

Overall--an entertaining and insightful read. If you do not understand his main point, that each of us can look back at the past with a different filter that makes sense, then you still live in a world where you think facts matter. More on that in my next post!