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Decision-Making Warning Flag 1d – Distinction Without a Difference
“What is six to one is a half dozen to another.”
Author Unknown
While two or more things may be truly the same, people may attempt to characterize them as being different; drawing attention to characteristics or features that are either exactly or materially the same. These individuals seek to draw a distinction between the subject items where no difference exists.
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About the Author
Nathan Ives is a StrategyDriven Principal and Host of the StrategyDriven Podcast. For over twenty years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.
Superiors often find it difficult to provide critical feedback to those who put their very heart and soul into their work. Individuals receiving such messages tend to interpret them personally; feeling disappointment, regret, and unappreciated. Rather than constructively improving their performance, these individuals become less productive and contribute substantially less to the organization. Consequently, business performance assessment leaders frequently seek plausible justification to avoid criticizing these individuals’ performance; recognizing their exceptional effort while ignoring the results achieved. Doing so, however, foregoes the improvement opportunities and sacrifices the associated gains that could otherwise be realized.
When examining organizational performance, assessors too often fall into the trap of concluding that the absence of adverse outcomes indicates a lack of underlying performance issues. This is an evidential fallacy. Many organizational shortfalls exist without causing consequential outcomes for reasons of redundant barrier prevention, lack of recognition, or simply blind dumb luck. The lack of a noticeable consequence does not necessarily equate to an absence of an issue; it simply means that the problem itself, up until the point of examination, has not manifested itself in a substantial outcome.
“An ad hominem argument, also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin: “argument to the man”, “argument against the man”) consists of replying to an argument or factual claim by attacking or appealing to a characteristic or belief of the person making the argument or claim, rather than by addressing the substance of the argument or producing evidence against the claim. The process of proving or disproving the claim is thereby subverted, and the argumentum ad hominem works to change the subject.
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