The Danger of False Dichotomies (And They Are All Technically False)

People, decisions, and situations can be extremely complex.

Making sense of what is really going on and why people do what they do requires good mental models.

These schemas and frames help to cut through the clutter of complexity and can guide leaders to a simpler understanding that can be acted upon.

The problem is that these models often oversimplify and obscure intricacies critical to accurate understanding.

The most common mental model used by just about everyone is a dichotomy. Dichotomies strike a contrast between two opposing views or sides.

Good and evil, strong and weak, true or false, light and dark, success and failure, and optimistic and pessimistic come immediately to mind.

By creating a distinct demarcation between two competing endpoints, leaders are charged with deciding which side of the dichotomy best explains a person, situation, or event. This saves an enormous amount of thinking and analysis and is highly useful in guiding opinions and actions.

Unfortunately, dichotomies as fixed points are usually false. Or stated more accurately, they fail to recognize the gray between the black and white.

And the gray is what matters most in truly understanding complexity.

Forcing people into a dichotomy, such as ambitious or humble, misses the fact that they are likely parts of both.

But we do so to grasp more quickly which side of the continuum they land on, and how that might influence our views about them.

Without our knowing, dichotomies blind us to the subtleties and nuances that lead to a more accurate understanding and to much better decisions.

Applying dichotomies too literally (such as short-term versus long-term, competition versus collaboration, centralization versus decentralization, intuitive versus empirical) can lead to highly inaccurate views and poor decisions. And leaders do exactly that much of the time, often without realizing it.

In the process of navigating complexity, leaders too often lean on dichotomies that oversimplify reality.

There is a difference between describing a colleague as smart (description) versus categorizing all colleagues as smart or dumb (dichotomy).

Because of their limitations, good leaders and sound thinkers do their best to avoid using dichotomies, especially when explaining their reasoning to others.

In fact, the more sophisticated a leader’s knowledge about a given subject matter, the less useful dichotomies are. As a rule, most dichotomies get in the way of sound thinking and paint over the shading so critical for seeing things clearly.

Ask yourself what dichotomies you need to jettison or dispose of quickly after an initial assessment. What contrasting models do you rely upon that diminish your thinking and understanding?

In many cases, you have carried these dichotomies forward from a young or inexperienced time and have yet to discard them.

Leave most dichotomies to psychological assessments and embrace the nuances and complexities of people and situations without the need to oversimplify them.

Simplicity emerges best from deep understanding, not from more simplicity.