'Lovaglia' revisited

'Lovaglia’s Law' sounds intriquing.  It may even hold in most instances, but does it not seem to suggest that acceptance of evidence is always appropriate to critical decision making, and that a certain opprobrium attaches to those who ”resist”  its application in such situations?  In fairness, perhaps this is not the intention of the Law.  But observation would seem to indicate that ‘evidence’ may, in fact, be consciously  –  and appropriately  –  marginalized in some group decision making.  The real issue here may finally turn on the legitimacy of any universal model, in face of the right of exceptional groups to preserve their own modus operandi.

In the world of organizations, some groups of a strongly religious type can, for example, with their emphasis on members’ receptivity to higher Authority, be committed to the rule of private psychological intuitions as both end and means.  Groups that intend subjective psychological states as earthly goals while remaining continually ‘open to the spirit’ can preserve a receptivity to potentially 'unverifiable' means and ends throughout their corporate life.  They may offer no a priori principle, or even desire, to exclude private spiritual or mystical judgments from strategic considerations.  Within the worldview of such a group, private feelings require no external criteria by which they are assessed; they are appropriated or rejected, based on members’ spiritual judgments.  These mental states may be regarded by outsiders as problematic in respect to rational analysis, but treasured as meaningful, even essential by the group which, after all, can lay claim to divine guidance through such manifestations. By the canons of the group, will ‘evidence’ be decisive or even meaningful here? 

Perhaps.  But private insights and intuitions can play a powerful and accepted role  —  and if they coalesce into a major decision, or are mandated by a Founder, they can dominate an organization’s destiny.  In pragmatic terms, a group can even make shipwreck by remaining true to its inner voice and mission, despite ‘evidence’.  Met any Shakers lately? By the internal standards of such a world, evidence, in any normal sense of the word, may be rightly marginalized.  In fact, in a curious twist, followers may actually propose their religious intuitions as ‘evidence’ of a superior order, the beat of a higher Drummer.  

In such scenarios, applicability of Lovaglia’s Law becomes tenuous.  Perhaps our Law simply needs nuance, taking the exceptions into account.  And in today’s America, there may be more exceptions than we realize.

....................................................................................................................................................
Posted in Beliefs and assumptions by Paul Reist | | Permalink |

« Lovaglia's Law | Main | The Real Reasons 'Why' »

2 Comments »

1. Hmmm.

   I take a couple of points away from Lovaglia’s Lemma (it isn’t yet a law as it has not been verified by careful experimentation):

   First, we need to consciously choose how much evidence to consider before making a decision. But we often fail to make a conscious choice. Lovaglia is postulating that, failing that choice, we often use less evidence the more important the decision.

   Second, we will never have perfect evidence before we must decide. Therefore, as Bob Sutton often suggests, we need to have “strong opinions weakly held,” meaning that we need to be open to new evidence.

   Comment by Kent Blumberg — November 16, 2006

2. nice and informative post to read

   -asif raza

   Comment by online people magazine — April 5, 2010

Leave a comment