Let’s Talk About Navigating the “Opinion Era”

In our daily lives, both personal and professional, I believe how we communicate can be broken down into a powerful framework I call the Communications Trifecta:

We aren’t necessarily doing all three at once. A dinner party might just be a conversation. A series of team strategy meetings might involve all three over time. How these elements intermingle – or exist alone – profoundly affects our lives.

While all three need our attention, one of them is throwing the trifecta dangerously off balance in a way that’s unique to this moment in time. This imbalance has the potential to reduce our personal joy and impede our professional success, but there’s a solution.

The Trifecta of Meaningful Communication

1. Conversation: The Overlooked Foundation

The importance of genuine conversation is often overlooked. Its essential components are simple yet challenging:

• Listening
• Authentic interest in the people with whom you’re communicating

You can have a conversation in-person or online. It can be linear and back and forth, or dynamic and interactive in real-time. We can have conversations without expressing an opinion or trying to be persuasive. It’s often beneficial to have many conversations with someone about a subject before expressing your opinion or trying to persuade them.

I work on my listening skills every day and still fail frequently, even when I’m genuinely interested. How would you describe your listening skills? What does it feel like to be truly listened to—and what does it feel like when you’re not?

2. Persuasion: More Than Just a Viewpoint

Views and judgements on something are often mistaken for persuasion. Simply expecting people to act based on what you think is rarely effective. True persuasion involves a deep understanding of the people you’re communicating with, rooted in self-awareness, empathy, and compassion. It answers the questions: What’s in it for them? What’s in it for the common good?

3. Opinion: The Pillar Under Threat

This brings us to the most problematic element at this moment: Opinion. The very nature of opinion is being weakened by the unprecedented challenges of social media and the algorithms that manage digital content.

Welcome to the “Opinion Era”

We are currently living in an “Opinion Era.” It’s not the first time in history that opinion has dominated public discourse. What makes this era unique, however, is how we form our opinions. We are basing them on a high volume of easily accessible information rather than on our individual analysis of what we truly believe about that information.

Unlike other “Opinion Eras,” social media and the algorithms that manage digital content are saturating and manipulating the information landscape from which we collect and shape our views and values.

Information alone is insufficient. Manipulated, nefarious information is dangerous. When we repost or repeat opinions crafted without scrutiny or contemplation, we’re merely info-dumping.

This act of “dumping” means we’re not listening or showing interest in others (destroying Conversation) and not thinking about what’s in it for them or the common good (undermining Persuasion). This approach is less likely to be inspiring and more likely to be confusing and confrontational. At worst, it can cause real harm.

Persuasiveness is fueled by well-thought-out, belief-based opinions that consider the interests of others, not just your own. Currently, however, we are often expressing what we profess to be our opinions but are instead simply info-infused data. Sometimes this data is toxic. This result is intentional.

The Way Forward: From Opinion Back to Conversation

In our current Opinion Era, we’re expressing our views about something outside the arena of a conversation, with an expectation to be persuasive without the deep thought or reflection that bolsters true belief. Over time, this deteriorates the effectiveness of the Communications Trifecta.

One remedy to get back to inspiring positive action would, therefore, seem to be transitioning away from unsubstantial Opinion to focus more on the merits of Conversation.

But the beneficial qualities of being a good listener – being interested in others, caring, and having empathy – are not only being diminished – they’re being attacked. The alarming distinction about this Opinion Era is that the landscape is being controlled by people who aren’t motivated by communicating to inspire positive action.

Their bottom line is improved when people believe that the positive qualities of human communication are, in fact, a sign of weakness and that the people who live by them are the problem and should be silenced.

The solution is to better understand who profits from and is advantaged by this Opinion Era.

Who has well-funded social media campaigns and the ability to sway the algorithms? Who not only can saturate and manipulate the information landscape, but owns or is powerfully affiliated with the companies that control these platforms?

Understand who is intentionally damaging the way the trifecta is meant to work and why.

Then, identify those who aren’t, and persuade them to have a conversation with you. Have many conversations about how to resist the disruption and reclaim how personal joy and professional success can be experienced by all of us, not just the few.

What are your thoughts on this “Opinion Era”? Share in the comments.

#Communication #Leadership #SocialMedia #Persuasion #ListeningSkills #CriticalThinking #FutureOfWork #ThoughtLeadership