I do not often talk about politics, but I am worried about the way the world is developing.
Today, Donald Trump was announced as the winner of the 2024 USA Presidential election, by a wider-than-anticipated margin.
During his previous term in office, as well as during his election campaign now, he built on a campaign of lies. Lies about climate change, immigrants, minorities, crime, women’s rights, the economy and everything in between.
Whether or not something was true or not did not seem to matter to his supporters, instead what was more important was the enthusiasm and conviction with which something was being said.
Presenting someone with facts was now no longer an effective way of convincing them to believe something. Facts were no longer as powerful as something which “feels” true because someone in authority tells us it is (also known as the authority bias).
Ironically, his own social media platform was called “Truth”, the irony of which should not be lost on anyone.
Decline of trust in expertise
It is not just Donald Trump who represents a loss of belief in facts.
Over the past decades, there has been a gradual erosion of belief in experts who present arguments and facts based on research.
This has resulted to everything from ignoring structural inequality, believing that climate change is a hoax to refusing to get vaccinated for COVID-19.
People are dying because well-researched facts are being ignored.
I have previously spoken with Gemma Milne about how this is partially a problem with society not wanting to listen to facts, but also with scientists and experts who believe the only way to communicate is by simply presenting statistics and facts in an unbiased way.
Apparently, to convince people nowadays, you need to include emotion as well as facts.
But it is also a problem in business.
I see so many individuals and businesses who no longer want to work with experts in relevant fields, established over years of experience, and especially not if the work they need to do in order to get better results is hard and challenging.
Instead, they want the “instant win solution” that people on platforms like TikTok or Linkedin promise. These people claim to be experts, but often base their advice on nothing more than random feelings without any evidence behind them.
Nonetheless, with strong, emotionally charged marketing, they can come across as believable and seen as more of an expert than someone who actually has done the hard work before
Why I vow to continue fighting for facts and truth in my work
I work in a field dominated by by people’s opinions: Creativity and Innovation.
And when it comes to trying to help individuals improve their creativity, and companies improve their innovation capabilities, there is actually a wealth of well-researched information and facts that can transform their lives and businesses.
In fact, since the 1950s, there are entire fields of academic research devoted to understanding creativity in individuals and groups, how nuances of behaviour, biology and our environment can change our ability to generate and execute on new ideas.
Similarly, there is a wealth of well-researched insights on innovation management and frameworks which can help companies significantly reduce the failure rates of their innovation projects and ambitions.
I believe you need to build on this research, to help people understand what is really going to help them improve their creativity and innovation project performance, and what is just something someone made up.
I have seen “experts” online trying to convince companies that to be more innovative, they just need to use their new A.I. chatbot. Or implement a blockchain. Or put all of their team members in a drum circle to make music together.
I have seen “experts” online trying to convince people they can improve their creativity using herbal supplements, crystals, and goggles to train you in lucid dreaming.
None of these has any evidence behind them. There is no truth.
And the truth is important to me.
I will continue to work on helping people understand the truth of their creativity, and how to unlock their innovation performance.
No matter how hard that may be in today’ world.
