Post-truth has become a popular phrase, rolled out as a part insult, part excuse and part blame for many of our perceived social and political problems.
On reading a definition of post-truth, I was struck that this described how many people I have coached over the years approach their lives. It might be a part of the natural human condition. The Oxford Dictionary says Post Truth: “Relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief”
Here is my reframed version of the definition.
Post-truth in individuals: “Relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts (about the person's behaviour) are less influential in shaping personal opinion (and their taking of personal responsibility) than their own emotions and personal beliefs”
This version shows up in various disguises. As victims, as justification for blaming and shaming behaviour and for the assertion of the right to individual authenticity at the expense of others' feelings.
In the coaching session and in the coaching relationship, there needs to be a carefully crafted relationship between knowable facts and emotions and beliefs. Many coaching sessions start off with an assertion of facts. We encourage it really in the way we open and start coaching sessions. But with facts come emotions, always. Facts reported in coaching never come without emotions, for emotions are what focus facts into conscious consideration.
But what post-truth really points to is a chicken and egg situation. Are emotions driving the assertion of any given set of facts, or are facts driving the emotion?
This is perhaps one of the greatest wins a transformative coaching relationship can offer someone. The ability to explore the ways that they consider facts in relation to feelings and how that shapes the way they live and fulfil their lives.
What use of the phrase 'post-truth' often accuses people of is that they are ignoring facts if they contradict or do not support their emotions.
Well, welcome to the human race and the human condition! We have always been biased in this way, primarily because of fear. Survival tells us that if we can anticipate a danger before it actually appears, we stand a better chance of taking evasive action. So if we believe a person or place is dangerous before we receive actual facts that that person or place is dangerous in the actual present moment, then we are more likely to take defensive or evasive action, which increases our survival. So, if we compile over time a list of all the places, people and situations that we believe are dangerous to us (even though they may not be) this will improve our survival chances. Except that, in large part, we have to rely on what we learn from other people.
For example, if a person believes, because they have been told by others, that forests usually contain bears that have been known to attack and kill people travelling through the woods, then they will tend to resist any information that opposes that belief because it is fear-based. No matter how many times we tell them that there are no more bears in the woods or that only one in a million bears are aggressive, we will be trying to overcome the fear-based bias. The best way to change that belief is to work not with the facts but with the underlying emotions.
People resist and reject facts that contradict what they believe when they are frightened more than when they are not. That is why the best way to get people to ignore real facts is to scare them. And if you want to be a populist president, then scare people witless and then offer them a solution: you and your self-proposed talents!
So when working with people, one great service we can offer them is the opportunity to explore how much of what they believe and the facts they are drawn to is driven by fear in all its various forms. It is not that we are saying that fear is bad or wrong but fear, when our primary emotional filter, gives us only a limited experience of life and mitigates against a wider range of deep human experiences and emotions.