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Revisionism is the art of waiting until everyone who knows better is dead, then interpreting events through your ideological filter.

Consider this response to my September 9th column, Crisis management: “Though FDR often erroneously gets credit for ‘putting people back to work,’ his successful efforts to expand the federal government past its constitutional boundaries is his real legacy. He should be acknowledged as a father of illegitimate government, and the resulting federal fiscal bloat.” It’s bad revisionism because not everyone who knows better is dead yet.

What bothers me isn’t that my respondent challenged my assessment. If everyone agreed with me I’d be bored stiff. No, what bothers me is how often people assume the worst about those who had to deal with a daunting situation without first learning the facts. FDR simply provides a convenient example: Many people today criticize his establishment of Social Security. I wonder how many of these critics have the slightest knowledge of why he did so, and why he made it a pay-as-we-go system instead of using a deferred annuity model. If you know the history and think you could have done better, I’d be interested in your solution to the problem. I know I don’t have one.

But, you may be grumbling, this isn’t a column about public policy — it’s about effectively leading IT. What does criticizing FDR have to do with that? Lots.

Someone who knows nothing about why FDR created Social Security as he did but is certain his unsavory purpose was an unconstitutional power grab will assume the worst about colleagues or direct reports whose solution to a business problem doesn’t line up with his or her preconceived notions. One of the many bad habits of highly ineffective leaders is a preference for ignorant criticism over informed discussion.

So ask yourself this: When an employee or task force reports back to you, do you assume incompetence if “your gut” doesn’t like their recommendations? Does the word “didja” — as in, “Didja think about this? Didja think about that?” — form a significant part of these conversations? If so it’s a danger sign. “Didja” puts people on the defensive instead of letting them tell their story.

So whenever you’re evaluating a solution, whether it’s to establish a federal retirement system or to upgrade to a new server platform, just ask, “Tell us the process you went through, what you’re recommending, and why.” It’s the logical sequence: Understand first, then criticize the results.

Or maybe you’ll find you don’t have to.

When I lived in Washington a decade or so ago, one of the local banks started calling itself The Most Important Bank in the Most Important City in the World.

Needless to say, I took my business elsewhere – I didn’t feel important enough to do business with them and was pretty sure I wasn’t important enough for them to give me the kind of service I wanted.

Self-importance is a geographic hazard in Washington. It’s also an occupational hazard for executives, many of whom exhibit thinly disguised contempt for staff-level employees. Managers in companies afflicted by the executives-are-royalty culture learn that self-important arrogance gets them ahead. Sad to say, in some companies it does.

You have alternatives, though.

For example, shortly after I departed the electric fish of my graduate school days in pursuit of an actual income, I found myself having to present a system design to the senior vice president of manufacturing. I’d only interacted with corporate executives a couple of times at that point in my career. From my perspective, this was a big deal.

Nervous, I arrived a bit early, expecting to sit outside his office until the rest of the attendees showed up.

“Go on in,” his secretary said, and there I was, alone with the No. 2 guy in the company.

After we introduced ourselves, he held up a black book and said, “I found the most remarkable thing in the library the other day.” I asked what it was.

“It’s a PhD thesis from an anthropologist who lived with the Sioux Indians a hundred years ago. It’s just amazing!” And with that he proceeded to put me completely at ease as he told me about what this long-dead anthropologist had learned.

After the meeting (which went well, in part because this gentleman extended himself on my behalf) I learned some other things about him.

That he’d literally started at the bottom of the company, working his way up. That he was responsible for negotiating with a dozen bargaining units as a regular part of his job, and routinely had to make very difficult decisions. That he was respected throughout the industry.

I learned two other things. Here’s the first: Not a single employee had a single bad thing to say about this executive.

Not one.

Can you make that claim?

Here’s the other thing I learned: Abusive, ill-tempered, bad-mannered, politically driven managers didn’t succeed in his organization. With no disrespect to any other group I’ve known in my career, this team, with no written mission statement, vision, or other chartering document, was the most focused, mission-driven, aligned collection of managers I’ve ever worked with.

It’s common for groups with charismatic leaders to lose their way when their leader retires or moves on. Through at least two successors, though (both promoted from within), and at least two complete turnovers in managerial staff, this group continued to have the same chemistry. For all I know it still does.

I’ve since worked for and with screamers, schemers, liars, and back-stabbers. The first time it happened I had no idea how to deal with the situation, in fact.

But I’d learned the key facts: that lots of managers and executives are excellent leaders. That it’s possible to create an organization in which everyone focuses on the job instead of on personal agendas. That you can, as a leader, create an environment in which helping the company succeed is the best route to personal success.

I’ve heard colleagues say things like, “You don’t become a manager to make friends.” Maybe not.

But I know from experience that it’s possible for you, like the subject of this week’s column, to be a highly effective leader and still be a mensch.

I was talking politics with an acquaintance. Explaining his positions on the issues he told me he’s a social liberal but fiscal conservative.

Not uncommon these days. But it occurred to me that while accurate, his self-description had nothing to do with liberal or conservative political philosophy, just liberal and conservative affinities.

What’s this have to do with the world of business?

There is a connection, and we’ll get to it. But with the impending election the poor quality of political discourse in this country is once again on my mind, and this sort of self-indulgent piece is the price you occasionally pay for getting KJR for free.

Let’s get to it.

“Social liberal” should mean you base your positions on social issues on liberal political philosophy. What it does mean is, you hold positions commonly associated with the Democratic party.

Likewise fiscal conservatism, which means holding positions about financial policy commonly associated with the GOP.

The two major political parties and commentariat have convinced most of us that liberalism and conservatism are opposing political philosophies — poles on a spectrum. This is bunk.

Liberalism is more or less an extension of John Rawls’ principle that a fair society is one you’d design if you didn’t know where you’d be born into it.

Conservatism is, more or less, adherence to the principle that the government is the solution only to problems that can’t be decently solved without its intervention.

Do those strike you as opposites — poles on a continuum? To me they’re entirely compatible and complementary. Neither excludes the other. If recognized as complementary principles, different people would still reach different conclusions when applying them, but with a lot less acrimony.

Because our political dialog is really all about affinity — choosing which side you’re on — a Republican candidate for office would be rejected for agreeing that you can’t fix potholes and bridges without spending tax dollars to do it. Meanwhile, Democratic candidates have to at least pretend that anything less than perfect fairness is entirely unacceptable.

And, both parties subject us to a form of political advertising best described as “here’s why the other candidate is awful.”

Imagine applying this art form to selling cars. General Motors’ ads would grimly describe the Toyotas that accelerated uncontrollably. Toyota would retaliate with Thunder Road ads — photos of the skeleton frames of burned out Chevrolets — excoriating GM for being so greedy it wouldn’t install safe ignition switches.

Affinity-driven political philosophy drives polarization. Affinity means understanding what makes you a member of the club. You have to learn and follow its rules.

What’s this have to do with the world of business?

As promised, there is a connection, and not a particularly subtle one, either (and thanks for indulging me): When it’s election-year politics we call it polarization. When it’s politics in business we call it organizational silos.

But while the root causes of political polarization and organizational siloes are different, their sustaining strategies and tactics are quite similar, and if you don’t think so, try defending the bureaucrats in HR to your colleagues in a badly siloed company.

It just isn’t done, and if you’re on the other side of the fence try defending the propeller heads in IT who are always chasing the latest shiny ball; the bean counters in accounting who understand the price of everything and the value of nothing; the pointy-haired bosses who, walking into the Clue Store with a plutonium American Express card would leave empty handed …

Get the picture?

Recently I’ve seen quite a bit of commentary regarding what psychologists call confirmation bias — the tendency to accept without question any and all inputs that support a position you’ve already taken while ignoring or nit-picking to death anything calling it into question. The gist of these articles is that we might as well give up on forming rational opinions, because we can’t. Confirmation bias will always prevent it, and we won’t even know that’s what’s going on in our heads.

I’m less convinced of the hopelessness of it all, largely because, over time, we’ve accumulated pretty good evidence that science works (like, the device you’re reading this on depends on it).

How do scientists … good scientists, at least … avoid confirmation bias? The good ones avoid it by not wanting to prove they’re right. They aren’t even motivated by the need to be right.

What they want is to understand how something works. Confirmation bias doesn’t ever enter the picture.

Try it. Start with HR — the discipline, not the department. You might be surprised, not just at what you learn, but at how much there is to learn.