Reverse Running commentary
M
odel Railroad
Hobbyist
has this
name because we
want to always remember
the hobbyist. Yes, the hobby
is also about “the stuff”, the
models we build and collect.
But what makes the hobby
the most rewarding is the
people side, and sharing the
hobby with others.
We pursue a hobby because
it’s a passion that we’re willing to devote some significant
free time to. And as a passion, we can also have passion-
ate opinions about how to best pursue our beloved hobby. It
shouldn’t surprise us that we’ll also encounter some passion-
ate disagreements now and then when talking about the hob-
by, which these days includes places like online forums.
Once in a while, someone with a contrary view shows up and
then people may get worked up about the nay-sayer’s view-
point. While nobody likes conflict, we need to realize these so-
called devil’s advocates can lead to superior solutions.
My favorite illustration of this comes from a team interaction
study done many years ago.
In this study, six teams were formed to review some problems
and produce solutions. A panel of judges would determine
which team provided the best solution to each problem.
Reverse Running: Stepping outside the box with a contrary view
by Joe Fugate
The devil’s advocate
For three of the teams, one member was secretly pulled aside
and told to disagree with the other team members and to chal-
lenge their conclusions at every turn. Neither the judges nor
any of the other team members knew this had happened.
For each of the many problems presented, the judges always
selected one of the teams with the secret devil’s advocate as
having the superior solution. Remember, the judges had no
idea the secret devil’s advocate existed. They were simply chos-
ing the team which, in their opinion, had the best solution.
For round two, each team got to eject their least valuable
member – and yes, you guessed it, on the three teams with the
secret devil’s advocate, they each expelled the devil’s advocate.
Without realizing it, each team had just ejected their comple-
tive advantage!
True, conflict isn’t fun. But it’s generally held that for any group
pursuing a goal, if someone doesn’t need to apologize to others
in the group every so often, then the group is underachieving.
Ruffling some feathers can be a key to excellence!
So let’s learn to appreciate the devil’s avocate view in any discus-
sion, and allow for a contrary view, because that contrary view
could be just what’s needed to drive our thinking outside the
box and lead to a superior solution.
No, trying to deliberately be disagreeable and contrary should
not be business as usual, but if everyone’s always in agreement,
the alarm bells should go off because that isn’t healthy either.
We could be missing something that might lead to an even bet-
ter solution if someone would just challenge our thinking.
So learn to see a contrary devil’s advocate discussion as a-ok
and even healthy when talking about how we better pursue our
great hobby of model railroading!
MRH-May 2014
