The Twaddle Tendency
Say Something / Do Something Syndrome
“Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something.” - Plato
Say Something
If you have ever been to a conference or a concall, you may have encountered people asking questions that have already been answered or referred to in the earlier conversations. Or you may encounter someone asking a question for the sake of it. Or you may hear an answer from the speaker/interviewee which makes no sense or is incoherent to the topic of discussion.
Your initial reaction would be to judge the person to be stupid or lame. But what if you see this tendency being played out in Beauty Contests, in politics, or at work. Wouldn’t it make you wonder about the common ingredient in all these cases? Something common in people that makes them say things that don’t fit?
This tendency is referred to as Twaddle Tendency and is one of the 25 tendencies referred to by Charlie Munger in his epic talk on Human Misjudgments in “Poor Charlie’s Almanack”. Twaddle means trivial or foolish speech or writing. It basically refers to nonsense.
Do Something
Something similar happens when people are engaged at work for the sake of it. You see people going about their stuff on daily basis and filling in their 8-10 hours of the working day with anything that could occupy that time. It won’t be about productivity or efficiency, as much as it becomes about creating an impression that work is happening.
Both of these syndromes are common across people. Even you may sometimes suffer from this and do not even realize it. I am aware of instances where I have been sucked into twaddling for reasons I find very immature, on introspection. As the Nobel Laureate Physicist, Richard Feynman once said, “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.”
In Poor Charlie’s Almanack, Charlie Munger describes an interesting experiment …
A trouble from the honeybee version of twaddle was once demonstrated in an interesting experiment. A honeybee normally goes out and finds nectar and then comes back and does a dance that communicates to the other bees where the nectar is. The other bees then go out and get it.
Well some scientist, clever like B. F. Skinner, decided to see how well a honeybee would do with a handicap. He put the nectar straight up. Way up. Well, in a natural setting, there is no nectar a long way straight up, and the poor honeybee doesn’t have a generic program that is adequate to handle what she now has to communicate.
You might guess that this honeybee would come back to the hive and slink into a corner, but she doesn’t. She comes into the hive and does an incoherent dance. Well, all my life I’ve been dealing with the human equivalent of that honeybee. And it’s a very important part of wise administration to keep prattling people, pouring our twaddle, far away from the serious work.
In the 1998 Wesco meeting, Charlie added …
I try to get rid of people who always confidently answer questions about which they don’t have any real knowledge. To me they are like the bee dancing its incoherent dance. They are just screwing up the hive.
I can get that we humans are social animals and have the inherent need to socialize with others, do small talk, connect, make an impression, score points, and come across as smart. All these micro-decisions are made in a very short span of time and it’s the ego that takes over, whereas the left brain (the thinking one) still needs time to process and respond. And hence many workplace conversations sound like a scene from Dilbert -
Bankers may be seen talking about really complicated instruments like they themselves had earned a Ph.D. in Derivatives and Financial Engineering. Sales Professionals may be seen talking about the economy or the industry dynamics and forecast effortlessly about what the future holds. Economists are seen projecting the effect of future interest rates on population growth which could affect inflation and eventually the stock markets. Just imagine these assertions made without a blink of an eye. It actually would look like GOD himself has descended on Earth and sharing his grand plans.
You hear a lot of people indulge in a lot of complicated talk about a future that is uncertain, unknown, and many times unknowable. It could be that their job depends on them opinionating on things. It may be required for closing a deal by making an impression. It could be that their Marketing Department wants them to vomit anything, till it is done daily so that their content creation department has enough material to occupy the media slot.
The final result is a lot of gibberish and jargon-filled statements or low-quality output around you. It’s like seeing mediocrity all around you and it’s somehow become an acceptable form of nuisance. People get by with sub-standard expressions and works, and hence it continues and eventually becomes part of one’s ‘culture’.
But I have a theory on people’s tendency to twaddle and it comes down to 2 basic components -
Lack of Appreciation for Quality
Looking Good in front of others
First: Quality
Oxford defines Quality as ‘to the standard of something as measured against other things of a similar kind; the degree of excellence of something.’ It is also defined as ‘a distinctive attribute or characteristic possessed by someone or something.’
You have a sense of Quality in regards to everything you consume. Your movies were not HD quality 10 years back, Dolby Stereo wasn’t as good and you didn’t have 4D Experience then. But today, it’s a treat to watch Avengers or Avatar in theatres with IMAX Experience. It’s a whole different league.
My favorite restaurant is Wagamama and the dining experience is way better than dining at a Chinese restaurant in Suburbs. (I’m hungry already) Sometimes, quality can be quantified via ratings and rankings system but in most cases, it’s an experiential affair. It’s a touch and feel thing and is personal.
We appreciate quality products and services and work hard to earn more so that we can upgrade our lifestyles to enjoy a better quality of living. But there is a loophole where it comes to quality in the social affairs of men.
We all expect quality from people, but sometimes have to lower the standards to make room for satisficing instead of optimizing. We have errands to run, a job to do, deadlines to meet, targets to deliver upon, deals to close, and hence optimizing becomes a very time-consuming affair and an avoidable one to accomplish things. We do the same with our tasks and responsibilities, exactly for the reasons mentioned above.
This allows for sub-standard-ness to enter our lives. It creeps in slowly and takes over all our decisions and our thought process. By the time one realizes, the culture would have become ingrained in us and everyone close to us. And that’s when one develops a tendency to accept things below one’s expectations, one allows for dealing with people of low quality, and eventually, one allows for conversations or expressions with no substance.
I just finished a brilliant book on Audible by Richard Feynman ‘What Do You Care What Other People Think?’. A huge portion of the book was about his investigations into the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster that occurred in 1986, killing all of the 7 crew members on board. It was fascinating to discover that engineers had warned against the launch due to low temperatures that morning, but their advice was ignored. NASA managers had also failed to address the catastrophic problems in the O-rings inspite of being aware of this too.
You surely would expect NASA, an authority on Space Research and Aeronautical Programs, not to compromise on the Quality of the equipment being used or the process being followed. But they did. In fact, Richard even found a note scribbled in NASA documents by a manager “Let’s Go With It”. This was in spite of the absence of evidence of safety with statistical significance.
It took mere 73 seconds into the flight, for the Space Shuttle Challenger to disintegrate. And it happened due to compromise in quality of supervision, execution, and communication at NASA. It was a very complicated project with thousands of moving parts, but all it took was an O-Ring defect to cause a fatal crash leading to loss of lives and billions of dollars wasted.
You may not be an Aeronaut or a Pilot or a Captain of a ship. But for pursuing quality, you don’t need to be in a post of High Authority. You could exercise your judgment on a daily basis, in all your affairs and expressions. You could choose to eat healthily and not junk. You could read quality material from established authors/writers instead of only social media posts or newspapers. You could consume quality content online instead of 20 Seasons of Game of Thrones every weekend. You could talk about subjects you have researched else stay silent, as much as you can, and learn from others.
The subject of Quality in conversations reminds me of J.D. Rockfeller’s favorite Owl poem -
"A wise old owl
Sat on an oak.
The more he saw,
The less he spoke.
The less he spoke,
The more he heard.
Why can’t we be
Like that wise old bird?"
Without a sense of quality in your own conversations, it’s just twaddling i.e. Saying for the sake of saying it. Many do it, on TV, in media, in Politics, in newspapers, in research reports, in Sales, and almost everywhere. You will be buying into these if you have compromised upon the quality of your own conversations. But if you have invested in building your knowledge and feeding your curiosity, you just might be able to differentiate professional twaddlers from professional knowledge workers.
The former would waste your time and money. The latter could open doors to very profitable alliances and opportunities.
Second: Looking Good
“Man, as a social animal who has the gift of language, is born to prattle and to pour out twaddle that does much damage when serious work is being attempted. Some people produce copious amounts of twaddle and others very little.” - Charlie Munger
What if staying at work till late creates an impact on your line manager, would you stay in the office till late? What if hiring a client’s son as an apprentice in your firm allows you to close a big deal with the client, would you do it? What if buying a BMW stretches your EMI budget by 100% but allows you to appear as successful compared to others, would you buy the BMW?
These are very simple questions to answer and if ‘looking good’ matters to the person, then it will be YES for all 3. It’s in our genes to play our cards well so we belong to a community/clique/clan. In ancient history, tribes would punish people by abandoning them in far-off places and cut them off from the tribe completely. It’s this fear of being cut off or the desire to be accepted that has made our reptilian brain develop an instinct to survive in its social surroundings and act consistent with the accepted norms.
It’s this ‘Looking Good’ syndrome that doesn’t allow most people to say “I Don’t Know”. They feel that they will lose credibility in your eyes and hence have the urge to come up with an answer even if they do not know the answer with any certainty.
As John Mihaljevic of Manual of Ideas states “nobody ever hired a consultant and got a “nothing to add” response, even when that would have been appropriate; instead they’ll get at a minimum a lot of noise in the form of data and charts and straw man arguments”.
Alternatively, try asking a General Physician about Nutrition and he will share with you a diet for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And the reason he does that is because you expect him to have the answers for a healthy life. You may not realize that a doctor has hardly spent any time studying nutrition but he won’t admit the same. And since he’d like you to count on him always and turn you into a Lifelong Customer, he is incentivized to ‘look good’ in front of you and he will.
I still remember a doctor from Prime Medical Center asserted that surgery was the only solution for my Hyper Thyroid issue and nutrition wouldn’t change anything. We almost got in an argument until my friend (who is also a Doctor) interrupted the nutritional debate going on and asked me to think about it.
My stubbornness to find out a natural way to heal my thyroid led me through many rabbit holes which required reading multiple books and watching various videos. It was after many weeks of reading, I bumped into a book on Ketosis which led me to Bulletproof Diet by Dave Asprey.
I experimented with it, loved it, could feel the difference, and have never had to step into a hospital again for my thyroid issue. The only statement the doctor could have made is “I Don’t Know” but he didn’t. Maybe he also had a goal to meet for his employer. Or maybe he wanted to establish authority in front of me or my friend. Or maybe one more surgery gets him to score in the Hospitals Rating system which brings in perks or bonuses.
“I try to keep in my mind the simple question: Am I trying to do good or make myself look good? Too many of our responsibilities get added to our plate when we are trying to please people, impress people, prove ourselves, acquire power, increase our prestige. All those motivations are about looking good more than doing good.” - Kevin Young
Everyone around you is trying their best to look good in front of you so that they look good in front of the employer or because that’s the way to optimizing their incentives. Either way, you got to become good at differentiating between the pros from the twaddlers. You got to become good at BS detection instead of being naive and blindly trusting.
Both Together (1) & (2)
When Quality Drops & Looking Good creeps in, it’s a deadly combination. Especially in the Investment Industry, if both these forces come at you and if you fail at detecting them, then you could have your decisions blow up in your face.
If you are thinking that the onus is on other people to sharpen up and speak the truth, and lay out the inherent risks in the products discussed, then you are being naive again. The onus is on you, and it begins with the simplest of affairs. If you have a task to complete, give it all you got and do it damn well. If you have to contribute to a conversation, then speak what you know else refrain from speaking.
When you choose high standards for the quality of your own work and when you limit your expressions to your circle of competence, then and only then, do you become good at differentiating those that do the same from an army of twaddlers around you.
I remember reading an interview transcript of a multi-billion dollar VC, and he had declined to invest in a company’s funding round due to silly mistakes in the Investment Deck. He was of the opinion that if the team isn’t capable to express themselves in appropriate English, then they won’t be able to execute the strategy in the best manner possible too. It was easy for him to decide so, since he sets high standards for himself, and can detect it when others drop theirs.
No one may notice it in you or you could even get by being ordinary, but Quality is what you seek in you, and around you. Hence it first begins with you, with the task at hand and the next conversation you get into.
“Peace of mind produces right values, right values produce right thoughts. Right thoughts produce right actions and right actions produce work which will be a material reflection for others to see of the serenity at the center of it all.”
― Robert M. Pirsig
From this week onwards, I will be sharing with you a few blog posts or articles from my weekly reading material that stood out for me. These either were profound in their message or insightful in their articulation. Either way, it will be worth your time -
http://www.paulgraham.com/own.html
Paul Graham, Co-Founder of Y Combinator, shares his perspective of building projects of one’s own. He shares this so well in the 1st para itself “Working on a project of your own is as different from ordinary work as skating is from walking. It's more fun, but also much more productive.”
https://www.collaborativefund.com/blog/goalpost/
Morgan Housel is one of my favorite writers and his book had even influenced the name of my Newsletter. This particular post explains the hedonic treadmill we all get seduced into and how it shapes our experience of happiness and satisfaction.
https://forge.medium.com/34-mistakes-ive-made-on-the-way-to-34-2ad84d5ec4cf
This is my favorite piece from this week. Ryan Holiday’s books, podcasts, and blogs have helped me shape my stoic philosophy and contributed to my life in ways he may not even realize. His writing is a treat to digest and especially this one, which he wrote on his 34th Birthday. This would surely make you think.
https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-the-biggest-consumer-apps-got
This was a very interesting article on how the Unicorns like Twitter/FB and many others got their first 1000 customers. It was a fascinating insight into an Entrepreneurs mind and to what length they could go to for making their business survive and thrive.
Helpful ♥️