
That’s what was said. Word for word.
But there was more to the actual complete statement.
That statement said, “Pregnant women should not eat soft cheeses and raw egg products, due to the increased risk of salmonella.”
See the difference the rest of that statement makes?
See how much less controversial it is, now that we have the full context?
James Watt has been widely lambasted for his abridged comment this week, when he said that, “You don’t need work-life balance” and “work-life balance was invented by people who hate the work”.
Both of these quotes are technically accurate. Those were his words and they did appear in that order.
On first read, they aren’t particularly forgiving.
It could be interpreted as coming from a privileged position of someone with a reported network of over £250-million.
As he is connected with BrewDog, it could also seem like a repeat of Gerald Ratner’s 1991 speech. Proclaiming that we don’t need work-life balance when you are financially involved with a company selling the “life” side of that equation could seem shortsighted.
But this isn’t the full quote.
Just as pregnant women can (and should) eat, James’ actual statement was:
That is a very different opinion and quotation.
You might not agree. You might think that it’s entirely the person’s decision whether they choose to eat soft cheese or not – just as you might feel that compartmentalising work and life as separate works best for you.
I understand both sides.
I’ve come from a background where you had no choice but to work. Survival roles to bring in money to pay for the necessities were the norm – and you tolerated having unfulfilling, repetitive and even abusive jobs. You put up with it during the day (or night shifts) and kept your life separate. A means to an end.
This is the reality for millions of people.
I’ve also been in the position where I can choose whom I work with and for. Where I can choose a career that aligns with my views on life and the passions that I share when I’m not “working”.
Today, my work is centred around my core belief that people should be able to contribute purposefully without fear of ridicule or reprimand. At its heart, that is inclusion. How can you be you?
That’s the same view I have whether I’m prospecting for projects, working with a client, or inviting some friends round for a barbecue: “Is the food OK?”; “Is the music to your taste?”; “Anything else you need?”
It’s who I am as an individual person, and it means that these aspects are integrated into my working practices and relationships, steering my behaviours, approaches and decisions.
This is the work-life integration that it seems James was likely trying to articulate.
Undoubtedly, his statement does come from a position of huge privilege. The messenger is a millionaire. He likely has no idea – certainly in recent memory – of having to work in a job you loathe, purely because if you don’t you are homeless. Or starving. Or shunned.
Additionally, James has a public persona.
Living partly in the public eye, people that have no other experience of him will form opinions, connections and judgments based on the public view through the lens of social media posts, commentator views, news articles, and others’ reactions to those media.
If 100 people engage with his content, there are 101 versions of the truth of who he is and what the message actually meant. Our subjective interpretation is based on our own views of that messenger – not just the message.
As Dan Kahan – Yale Law School’s Professor of Law – says
He’s not wrong.
A famous psychological study in the 1950s looked at a phenomenon called Selective Perception bias (Hastorf & Cantril, 1954).
On A brisk Saturday afternoon, November 23, 1951, the Dartmouth football team played Princeton in Princeton’s Palmer Stadium. It was the last game of the season for both teams and of rather special significance because the Princeton team had won all its games so far and one of its players, Kazmaier, was receiving All-American mention and had just appeared as the cover man on Time magazine, and was playing his last game.
A few minutes after the opening kick-off, it became apparent that the game was going to be a rough one. The referees were kept busy blowing their whistles and penalising both sides. In the second quarter, Princeton’s star left the game with a broken nose. In the third quarter, a Dartmouth player was taken off the field with a broken leg. Tempers flared both during and after the game. There were many injuries and penalties for both teams. Injury also caused the end of the career of Princeton’s All-American star, Kazmaier.
Needless to say, accusations soon began to fly. The game immediately became a matter of concern to players, students, coaches, and the administrative officials of the two institutions, as well as to alumni and the general public who had not seen the game, but learned of it through local media reporting.
This reporting contained biases of its own. The Hostile Media Effect – itself a form of selective perception bias – meant that individuals with a strong pre-existing opinion tended to perceive media coverage as biased against their position’s side and favourable of their antagonists’ point of view.
This is where the experiment into selective perception came in.
Dartmouth and Princeton fans that had not seen the game were shown a film of the violent match, and asked for their views on the infractions. Princeton viewers reported seeing nearly twice as many rule infractions committed by the Dartmouth team than did Dartmouth viewers. One Dartmouth alumnus did not see any infractions committed by the Dartmouth side and erroneously assumed he had been sent only part of the film, sending word requesting the rest.
Selective Perception bias refers to the tendency of people to perceive what they expect or want to perceive. It also applies to the ability to not notice or to forget stimuli that cause discomfort.
This cognitive bias leads individuals to favour information that aligns with their pre-existing views while ignoring or undervaluing information that contradicts them.
Part of those pre-existing views can be influenced by our pre-conceived ideas, opinions and views of the messenger themselves.
In short, if we don’t like the messenger, no number of facts, evidence or objective truths will convince us of their argument. They’re not one of us, so their words are invalid. Worse, we might take the opposing position, purely because any alignment with their position makes us seem to be part of their in-group.
We see this most clearly in politics today.
When a statement is made, we don’t always ask “What’s valid or invalid about this statement?” or “Where’s the critical thinking and analysis of the data?”. Instead, we might ask “Who’s saying the statement?”
The idea might be good. The argument might be sound. But if we associate part of our identity as being part of which group we support, then accepting a sound argument from the other side challenges part of our identity and it is likely rejected.
James Watt is privileged. You might not feel that you share anything in common with him. You might have created an idea of him based on public persona, media information and your own subjective interpretations, which were wobbled through hundreds of recognised cognitive biases.
But that doesn’t mean that the essence of his statement is wrong, unrealistic or privileged in of itself.
Finding purpose in work can mean that work feels less like work, and more like a calling. As a result, we might feel that the compartmental lines between work and life do become blurred.
That, for me, is the goal. To be able to find work where you can purposefully contribute without fear of ridicule or reprimand.
But it is not a universal goal – or even a universal option for many.
Before many can even consider that, they would need to know what their passion and calling was. Recognising that trauma, stress and circumstance gets in the way is a key point.
If you were in a survivor role – just making ends meet and living hand-to-mouth – talk of integration feels not only unrealistic; it feels condescending.
And those feelings can be exacerbated by our own biases.
Biases of our interpretation of the situation. Biases of the perception of the messenger. Biases of what we find easier to notice, recall and remember.
Biases that blind us to reading the whole of a statement, post or article critically, and analysing the opinion objectively.
We don’t need to agree. Indeed, in friction and disagreement is where we grow and learn.
But we must be cognizant of dismissing opinions, ideas and even facts out of hand purely because they don’t agree with our own world view or we disagree with the messenger.
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