In business, it could also mean having multiple metrics, or reporting systems, to validate the information coming up the hierarchy. This means, for example, reading the same news story from multiple outlets, which can give a broader and more complex view of a subject. One solution is to get information from multiple sources that might disagree with each other. I have had spirited arguments over a legal judgement or commercial policy, only to figure out that the person had read an ‘executive summary’, and their points were based on newspaper articles alone. I have also had to continually check myself from doing the same, as doing so is very convenient. After all, we are all pressed for time, and at the end of the day, we need to prioritise what is worth going into depth and what we can get away with a superficial understanding of. I have personally experienced long debates and conversations around even common religious books such as the Gita, Bible, Quran and Ramayana, only to discover mid-way through that the people involved had never actually read the books. This failure to go to original sources presents one of the greatest dangers to companies and societies in our modern times. Quite the opposite, many times writers find themselves ignored if they do not take a black or white stance. For those pushing an agenda, it becomes very easy to present evidence from original sources selectively, as they know that very few of their target audience will actually consult the sources they have cited to verify if the claim matches the context and content. ![]() Public opinion bearers feel safe knowing that, as long as they write what their readers want to read, the majority of their followers will not bother to do any research themselves or to trouble themselves with the complexities and nuances associated with most the important topics and causes. The public, predictably, reacts mostly to the few points that are made in public. Savvy politicians have become adept at gaming this by leaving the real meat of the matter in the fine print, comforted by the knowledge that no one will likely bother to read it. Media channels and online rags desperate to churn out fast content end up relying on each other as sources, further playing out the Chinese Whispers game. Due to a paucity of time, individuals are failing to read, listen and watch original source materials instead, they rely on the filtered opinions of individuals and media outlets with whom they agree and thus perhaps trust. It has come to the point where people are comfortable giving their opinions about policies, people or events without actually bothering to read those policies, listen to what a person has said or attend or properly watch the event. This is part of a greater worrying phenomenon in societies around the world. Leaders find themselves disconnected from their potential markets, existing customers and the environments in which they operate, often leading them to make decisions with terrible consequences. What is even more dangerous is when the same business leaders rely on proxies to get their information about consumers, government and the country, rather than taking a first-hand approach to understand what exactly has been said in its original form. In the last decade, the focus on flattening hierarchies and investments in technology has had a huge impact in reducing this risk, but senior leaders often still fall prey to the ‘game’. Senior leaders try to prevent this either by creating sophisticated information systems and/or standardised reports, or by going personally to meet people on the ground and on the front line, so they can see what is happening first-hand. In an organisation, this means that senior management often gets information via multiple reporting layers that slightly change and morph the information, either accidentally or intentionally, until they really have no clue about what is actually happening on the ground. ![]() In real life, of course, this is no laughing matter. Inevitably, the phrase or sentence is so badly mangled that it is unrecognisable at the end of each round. ![]() It is a time-honoured demonstration of the dangers of ignoring original material. ![]() ’Chinese Whispers‘, or ’Telephone‘, is a classic game wherein a phrase or a sentence is whispered by one person to another down a line, until the last person says it out loud to see how it has morphed.
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