Opinions?

Where do your opinions come from?

I have posted before about ideas. Research has, I believe, shown that original ideas are very rare and fewer than 1 in 20 people have them. Johnny Baker said 'Originality is forgetting where you found something.'

Most of us who get labelled 'creative' from time to time are usually doing our best with material reassembled to fit rather than being in the ex nihilo game.

But what about your opinions? I have, from time to time, been guilty of not deciding what I thought about a particular piece of art until I had read the reviews. But I like to think I know my mind. I know what I like and I like what I know.

This set of thoughts started upon me last Saturday as I was reading a Guardian article about Angela Merkel by Tim Cook of Apple. I realised that I had never formed an opinion of Merkel the person before. She had been part of my life (in that I kept hearing her quoted) for some years but I treated her with ambivalence. I didn't know if I thought she was a good thing or a bad thing but she was simply there. Then Tim Cook praised her and, before I had a chance to stop myself and examine my working, I thought 'Yes. That's what I think.' Somehow it fits my package of opinions on other matters if she is a good thing.

We've all met people who bear the opinions of the last person they spoke to. I had one colleague once whose previous company could be deduced by what he was talking about. 'You think that? I heard James say that once. Haven't you just been talking to James?' I never said these things to him and names may have been changed.

Earlier this year I was doing some interviewing. Reviewing how the candidates had done on each question I remarked that I thought one person had done well on a particular question and discovered that everyone else in the room disagreed. Since the meeting was moving to appointing a candidate I was happy with I did not labour the matter and chose silence for a while. Given that experience, anything I said may have made my preference less likely,

The interesting thing though was that every candidate gave the same answer to the question in question. But one was a bit more emotional about it and, in engagement with the questioner, was persuaded to give a bit more information out. It was the sort of subject where making a quick decision was done far better by taking the emotion out of the situation. I wouldn't have got the job unless I showed my working really well.

Elections and referendums show that many people get their opinions from habit and don't revisit their working. They do Level 1 thinking because Level 2 is too hard. Read Daniel Kahneman if this thought is new to you.

In a second hand bookshop the other day I found this book. It is a collection of Oliver Burkemann's wonderful columns from the Guardian over the years. Each piece is based on his response to popular self-help writing. I love the idea of not bothering to find your passion or your comfort zones. I also note that introverts are under-rated.

Where am I going with this? Not very far. Simply to say that most people manage to work out how they operate for the best without reading a book. It's the old joke isn't it:

Excuse me, where are the self-help books?

If I told you sir, that would defeat the object.

But most people don't come ready-armed with opinions. They develop them over the years in the company of other people. A group of people, persuaded by the most compelling member of the group on each particular matter, becomes an echo chamber.

So, to summarise, to develop life skills you don't need as much help as you think. To form an opinion you need more. That will be twenty guineas.