The deadlock
The argument that cannot close
Some disagreements are open because the evidence is not in. This one has a part that no evidence could close, and saying so is the first step to resolving the rest.
Claims this part is about, and what each was answered with
Being trusted to choose is part of being treated as an adult
Value≠A studyInnovation happens in unplanned conversations
Empirical≠A principleAnswered with a conviction about how innovation works
Flexibility is what the last five years were for
Value≠A studyCollaboration tools have replaced what the office used to do
Empirical≠A principlefour claims · two empirical and two value · four were answered with the wrong kind of answer
Four crossed answers, two in each direction.
There is a distinction worth being precise about, because nearly all the frustration in this subject lives in the gap between the two cases.
An open question is one where evidence would settle it and the evidence is not in. It will close eventually, or at least narrow.
An undecidable question is one where no evidence settles it, because what is in dispute is what matters rather than what is the case. It will never close. It can only be traded.
The return-to-office argument contains both, in roughly equal measure, and treats all of it as the first kind.
What proportion is which
On the record here: nine of twenty-four claims are the kind evidence could settle, ten are not, and five are about cost.
So a little over a third of the argument is open in the strict sense. Of that third, two claims could be settled today with data the organisation already holds, three were answered with studies that measure something else, and four have no evidence anywhere.
Which means that even if every piece of available evidence were gathered and read perfectly, roughly four fifths of the argument would still be standing.
Why treating it all as open makes things worse
Three effects, all of them visible on this record.
It generates infinite work. If the disagreement is about facts, the answer is more facts, so more studies get cited, and the pile grows without the disagreement narrowing. One paper on this record was cited four times at four different claims.
It makes the other side look dishonest. If you believe the matter is empirical and the other person will not move for evidence, the available conclusion is that they are not arguing in good faith. They are; the evidence is simply not about their claim. But from inside the first assumption, bad faith is the only explanation left.
It prevents the trade. A value disagreement is settled by somebody accepting an arrangement they do not love. That is a negotiation and it requires both parties to know they are negotiating. While everybody thinks they are establishing facts, nobody offers anything.
What saying it out loud does
The sentence is short and it changes the shape of a meeting:
I think part of this is something we could look up, and part of it is that we want different things. Can we deal with them separately?
Three consequences follow, immediately and reliably.
The empirical part gets smaller and more specific, because once it is separated somebody has to say what would settle it, and several claims quietly withdraw at that point.
The value part becomes sayable. People who have been arguing productivity for a year turn out to have a view about what work is, and are mostly relieved to be able to state it.
And the negotiation becomes possible, because both sides now know there is one.
The thing this does not do
It does not make anybody agree. Four fifths of the argument stays exactly where it was.
What changes is that the disagreement is accurately located, which means it can be traded over, scoped, or simply accepted as a standing difference that a decision will have to overrule. On this record one exchange reached that point and ended with both parties writing down that they disagreed and why — which is a result, and which no amount of further evidence would have produced.
The mistake in both directions
Treating an undecidable question as open is one error. There is a matching one going the other way, and it is just as damaging.
Treating an open question as undecidable — "well, we just see it differently" — closes off the part of the argument that could actually have been settled. On this record two empirical claims were answerable with data in hand, and one of them was waved away as a difference of perspective.
So the sorting has to go both ways. The value claims should stop being argued with evidence, and the empirical ones should stop being treated as matters of opinion.
| Error | What it looks like | What it costs |
|---|---|---|
| Open treated as undecidable | "We just see it differently" | A settleable question stays open |
| Undecidable treated as open | "The research is clear" | An endless exchange of studies |
Both were present on this record, in roughly equal numbers.
The proportion is the point
A third of the claims were the kind evidence touches. That number is worth carrying around, because it sets expectations correctly.
Somebody who goes into one of these discussions expecting evidence to settle it will be frustrated in two thirds of the exchanges, and will attribute the frustration to the other side rather than to the arithmetic.