At work
Someone pointed out a wrong figure on slide nine. It took four seconds, and they were friendly about it. You fixed it, thanked them, and thought about it for the rest of the day. That night you went through the whole deck again. I stay on top of everything so no one has a reason to say I got it wrong.
At work the Right rule often looks like a small correction stinging out of proportion, and a lot of effort going into leaving nothing to correct. Care about accuracy is part of doing most jobs well, and this page may be describing only that.
What you do at work
Slide nine is how it looks afterward. Most of the effort may come before.
You read the email six times before it goes. You prepare for questions nobody will ask. When someone does question a decision, the answer comes out long, with the reasoning attached.
Saying I don't know in a meeting is hard, and saying I was wrong is harder. Handing in something that is good but not finished can feel worse than handing it in late.
I've been doing this for years and I still check myself every single day.
It gets results. You usually are right, and the accuracy has protected you and the people who rely on your work.
What it costs
Some of the cost may be in time. The sixth reading of the email is rarely where the error was.
Another may be what you stop hearing. If corrections go badly, people may give fewer of them. A person who can't easily be corrected can't easily be taught, and may be the last to learn about a problem others have already seen.
And there is the replay. A small correction can stay with you for the evening, after the person who made it may have forgotten it.
As a parent
You read three books before the first week was out. Last night you lost your patience at bedtime, and at midnight you were still going over it. This morning another parent offered a small suggestion at pickup, kindly, and you felt heat and began to explain. Am I doing this right?
In parenting the Right rule often looks like needing to get every decision correct, so that an ordinary mistake feels like proof of something. Wanting to do well by a child is not a rule. This page is about a parent's reaction to being wrong, and it has nothing to say about how children ought to be raised.
What you do as a parent
The midnight replay is one part of it.
You research decisions that other parents seem to make in a minute. You find it hard to tell your child, or your co-parent, that you got something wrong. When a teacher or a relative makes a suggestion, you hear a criticism and answer it.
You may hold to a decision at home after it has stopped making sense, because changing it would mean it had been a mistake. And you may be hard on your own errors. When I miss the mark, I don't let myself off easy.
What it costs
The cost named here is the parent's.
There are a great many decisions in a week with a child, and no way to get all of them right. If each miss is replayed, the replaying alone can take up the evenings.
It can close off help. Other parents, and your own, may have useful things to say, and may stop saying them if advice goes badly.
And it can strain things with a co-parent, when a difference in approach becomes a question of who is correct.
In the body
They said, lightly, that it was the fourteenth and not the fifteenth. You felt heat. Before they had finished the sentence you had your reply ready, with reasons. It was a date on a calendar, and for a moment it did not feel like one. One sarcastic comment at the wrong moment and I feel stupid.
Under the Right rule the signs tend to be heat, a counter-argument forming at once, and sometimes a flare that seems too big for what was said. This page describes sensations that tend to go with the rule. It does not explain them. What a body is doing, and why, is a question for a clinical source, and a physical complaint that persists belongs with a doctor.
When it shows up
It tends to come with being corrected.
In front of other people, most of all. Over a small factual error. When someone picks at a detail.
The size of the mistake may have little to do with it. A wrong date may bring as much heat as a wrong decision.
What sets it apart
Speed and size may set this one apart.
One is speed. The counter-argument can be there before you have decided whether you agree. You may find yourself defending a point you would have conceded an hour later.
The other is size. Now and then the reaction is far larger than what was said, and you can't account for it yourself. I take it personal every time.
Look-alikes
- Ahead (fear of being unprepared, not of being wrong)
- Strong (not showing struggle, rather than not being mistaken)
Right often runs alongside Ahead or Strong. Most people are running more than one rule. Subtraction does not force a single root when the evidence shows two.
Questions to observe
- What was the exact moment it fired? Not the topic, the second.
- What did your body do first?
- What did the moment seem to mean about you?
- What did you immediately want to do, and what were you protecting against?
- Would this rule explain your last three moments like this, across different parts of life? If not, which ones does it fail on?
How subtraction tests it
In subtraction, Right is one of several hypotheses tested against your evidence: moments from work, relationships, conflict, success, failure. If it accounts for what keeps repeating without forcing the evidence to fit, it survives. If it only explains some of the moments, it goes, or it gets paired with whatever explains the rest. How subtraction works.