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How to Not Attribute to Malice Things Adequately Explained by Stupidity
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SIMILAR ARTICLES & IDEAS:
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Key Ideas
We are social creatures who desire validation. We feel good when others share our belief system. But we feel dejected when others do not value our inputs, crush our ideas, or ignore what we have to say.
These difficult people act in undesirable ways and give us permission to pass judgement and offload responsibility by blaming them for undesirable outcomes.
We view the world and the people in it from a specific paradigm.
How we relate to someone is driven by our personality, expectations, background, and experience. Why we find someone difficult is then a very personal affair.
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Key Ideas
When polarizing topics are discussed in meetings, it can turn into a fight. In these conflicts, where passions run high, people tend to confuse correlation with causation while determining the reason for the problem, or can have hindsight bias. They can also create evidence out of nothing or assume a maliciousness intent from the decision-makers.
Mental models are tools that can help us navigate through such challenging or confusing situations.
This mental model states that most actions made by people need not be categorized as malicious or intentionally bad, but simply a sign of incompetence and acting out of fear.
Many poor decisions and actions are not intentional but due to ineptitude. By following this mental model, we untie ourselves from unnecessary negativity and work towards a solution.
The mental model of relativity states that everyone's outlook, viewpoint and perspective are different from ours.
The same situation is looked in different ways by people, and understanding these variations can help us toward a meaningful dialogue with them. We can diffuse any inherent conflict by hearing out and identifying what we understand, making the other person feel listened to.