Crossed answers
Answering a value claim with a study
Eight of the ten value claims on this record were answered with research. It is the single commonest move in the argument and it cannot work.
Claims this part is about, and what each was answered with
A company is a place, not a login
Value≠A studyYoung people are owed the experience of working near others
Value≠A studyPeople are less likely to leave if they feel connected to a place
Empirical≠A principleHybrid teams make worse decisions than co-located ones
Empirical≠A principlefour claims · two empirical and two value · four were answered with the wrong kind of answer
Four of the twelve crossed answers on this record.
Ten value claims on this record. Eight of them were answered with a study, a statistic or a research finding.
That is the commonest single move in this entire argument, it is made by both sides, and it cannot work — not because the studies are weak but because of what a value claim is.
Why it cannot work
A value claim says what matters. A study says what is the case. No quantity of the second entails anything about the first.
"Work should be something you go to" is not a prediction about output. Produce a study showing output is identical at home and the claim is untouched, because it was never about output. The person who holds it will say so, usually in the form of a restatement, and the exchange will repeat.
The same in the other direction. "People should be free to choose where they live" is not refuted by evidence that co-location helps collaboration. It was never a claim about collaboration.
What it does to the person on the other end
This is the part worth dwelling on, because it explains the disproportionate heat.
Being answered with a study when you have made a value claim is a particular experience: your actual point has not been engaged with, and the form of the reply says it has been. You cannot say "you have not answered me" without appearing to deny the evidence, and you cannot accept the evidence without appearing to drop your point.
So people restate, more firmly. From the other side that looks like refusing to accept facts, which is the precise moment the argument turns into one about honesty.
On this record, every one of the eight produced a restatement within the same session.
The eight, as they ran:
| The value claim | What it was answered with |
|---|---|
| Work should be something you go to | A productivity paper |
| A company is a place, not a login | The same paper |
| Being trusted to choose is part of being treated as an adult | A survey of engagement scores |
| Young people are owed the experience of working near others | A study of early-career outcomes |
| Time with a family is not a perk to be granted | Output figures |
| A job should not require owning a car | Output figures |
| Flexibility is what the last five years were for | A paper on hybrid performance |
| The commute is part of the job that was accepted | A paper on hybrid performance |
Four from each side of the argument, and in every case the study was real and the claim was not about it.
Why it keeps happening
Three reasons, none of them bad faith.
The study is to hand. People in this argument have read things and want to use them. The relevant claim is whichever one is on the table.
It feels like the strong move. Evidence outranks opinion, so producing evidence feels like raising the standard of the discussion.
The value claim was not recognised as one. This is the main reason. "Offices are more productive" and "a company is a place" sound similar in a meeting, and the first genuinely does call for evidence.
What to do instead
Three replies, in rising order of usefulness.
Name it. "I do not think a study settles that one — it is about what we think work is for." Short, and it changes the register without conceding anything.
Answer in kind. "I hear that. For me the thing that matters most is being there at four o'clock, and I know that is a view rather than a finding." Two values on the table and nobody pretending otherwise.
Offer a trade. "Suppose we both accept that we want different things here. Is there an arrangement you could live with?" This is the only one that ever ends anything, and it is only available after the first two.
The check on yourself
Before producing a study, ask what claim you are producing it at, and whether that claim would survive the study going the other way.
If it would, the claim was a value and the study is the wrong instrument. Putting it away is not a retreat — it is the only move that leaves you anywhere to go.
The subtler version
There is a form of this that is harder to spot, because no study is produced.
Somebody answers a value claim with an implied empirical one: "that is not how modern organisations work", "nobody does that any more", "the market has moved on". No citation, but the register is factual and the move is the same — a claim about what matters has been met with a claim about what is the case.
It is in some ways worse, because there is nothing to examine. A study can at least be read.
The reply is the same as to the cited version, with one addition:
Even if that is right about what most places do, it is not what I was saying. I am saying what I think it should be.
When the study is the right answer after all
One case, and it is worth flagging so this is not read as a blanket prohibition.
Sometimes a value claim has an empirical premise smuggled inside it. "Young people are owed the experience of working near others" contains a value — we owe them something — and an implicit factual claim, that the experience is good for them.
Evidence can bear on the implicit part. The right form is to separate them explicitly rather than to produce the study at the whole thing:
I agree we owe them something. On whether proximity is what delivers it, there is actually something we could look at.
That is a study offered at the empirical component, with the value component conceded. It is a legitimate move and it is a different move from the one this page is about.