The Power of Conspiracy Thinking

I like conspiracy theory thinking although I am not necessarily a fan of conspiracy theories themselves. The reason is that the thinking is my kind of thinking as it takes seemingly unrelated events and finds a line of questioning that an tie them together. Some of the ties are weak, some very strong and if one does this enough, occasionally it is possible to actually uncover or get insight into something significant.

In many ways, a good conspiracy theorist is much less 'tinfoil hat' and much more 'scientific methodology' than many expect. They are often critical thinkers who delay emotional response to attempt to remain objective. Not all though, and likely not the majority, as most that claim theorist are actually not much more than relay stations of information that gelled with their personal world view.

The reason I am interested in thinking along conspiratorial lines is because it helps me professionally in my business. It does this because a good conspiracy is one that is in plain sight yet, no one is looking for. If one is able to piece together these parts of the mundane to capture a trend before that trend takes place, there is a lot of opportunity to take advantage and position oneself well.

I wrote the other day about being an in between thinker and operator and perhaps that is in part due to my interest in conspiracy topics as the rabbit holes take one across many different fields of information. This inevitably leads to a wider scope than the narrowing of perspective through specialisation.

Specialisation in many respects is a key part of a good conspiracy as the focus of the specialist silos them across the spectrum of the larger movement, making discovery more difficult. It is also the specialists that can refute the claims but, most can only see their view of the situation. Valuable yes but it is a forest from the trees problem.

I see this often in all kinds of business areas where each department and each employee within overestimates their own value to the system based on a narrow view of the entire umbrella. As I travel across departments and hierarchies with disregard for authority, I get a much more rounded view of the health of an organisation than those within. This has value for my clients as the trends I unearth often mean they can adjust now for a future they had not considered earlier.

There is no conspiracy in that itself, it is just an evaluation of data points to see where there are overlaps or, what hidden strings pull on the arms of others. It is an investigation into behaviour and result across many points of reference. For me, my data is from the people themselves and the quality of the data is dependent on the quality of my ability to listen and parse the information into a narrative of explanation. This narrative is then used to present the client with a few future scenarios and my consultancy is to give some ways to approach each.

It is not a perfect science from my experience and capabilities but, having a few potential pathways to consider that were invisible before means that management teams can introduce some adjustments to either gain from or reduce the situations. So far, although I have work on both sides, there has been the majority of gain on the unforseen risk factors.

This is because the majority of management team and supporting specialists are over optimistic in their predictions as mostly, they are overgenerous in their own abilities to understand the situation. This plagues all kinds of specialists including the doctors and scientists. "With all that training, how can we be wrong?"

'Silos, echo chambers and arrogance', is the answer.

It is common that the specialists spend so much time in their narrow field of vision with other people supporting them that they forget to look up and past their noses or, turn their heads to the side. They often are dismissive of the 'unqualified' as there is a lack of 'evidence'.

This is the problem with evidence though, it needs to be found and if a conspiracy is broad enough, the evidence is scattered far and wide and one piece alone doesn't prove it. But, without looking at all pieces together, not much can be discerned. Specialists rarely look wide, conspiracy theorist thinkers do.

Does it make them right? Is a plausible conspiracy an actual conspiracy? No but, thinking broadly across topics develops the skill set to widen perspectives and explore the unknown. As said, many good conspiracy theorists are unattached emotionally to the theories or the results, they just follow possibility. This is how scientists make discoveries also and many of the most important discoveries were laughed at or deemed impossible by the specialists in the same field.

Should we believe in every conspiracy theory? No. But there is no harm to entertain the ideas...unless you are prone to get emotionally attached to a certain result. Attachment narrows the vision, closes the mind and sees what it wants to see. It specialises.

For me, it is a lot of fun to think of the What ifs of the world and it keeps things interesting as with each dive, I find something new, another data point to compare the rest against. It helps me become a little more creative.

Try it, but don't believe... Find out.

Taraz
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