New words often tell us what the times are thinking. They reveal not just what’s fashionable, but also what’s fragile. One such word is halfpinion.
A halfpinion is an opinion that looks only at one side of an issue—the good or the bad—while ignoring the other. The term, coined by Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, neatly captures the way many arguments are made today: by clinging to facts that support a preferred view, while quietly brushing aside the rest.
The danger is obvious. One-sided opinions make for shallow thinking, poor decisions, and the kind of misplaced confidence that spreads faster than truth.
Ever wondered why there is so much division and polarisation in the world today? Halfpinions are a major reason why.
The halfpinion isn’t just a social malaise; it has quietly become a leadership blind spot.
Polarisation, Echo Chambers, and the Leadership Blind Spot
Politics, culture, climate, work—the world is increasingly carved into camps. Polarisation makes halfpinions flourish. As Amartya Sen warned, reducing people to “single identities” flattens complexity into slogans. We now live in a flat world hungry for simple answers and quick to scorn nuance.
Data tells its own story. Pew Research reports that over 40% of Americans under 30 now say they get their news from TikTok, up from just 9% in 2020. In India, two-thirds of internet users get their news primarily through WhatsApp forwards, according to the Reuters Digital News Report. Neither TikTok nor WhatsApp is built for nuance; both are built for the scroll.
In that world, halfpinions aren’t a bug in the system. They are the system—designed, refined, and rewarded by algorithms.
Confirmation bias makes this machinery more dangerous. It’s the brain’s lazy shortcut, making us notice and remember only what agrees with what we already believe. Two people can read the same article and each walk away more convinced of their own view. Their conclusions are shaped entirely by the beliefs they started with.
Algorithms exploit this quirk. The more we like, the more we scroll, the more we are fed content that confirms what we already believe. Over time, the walls of our information bubble grow thicker until the “other hand” disappears altogether.
The result is an odd kind of blindness—an illusion of being well-informed while drifting further from reality. We no longer see the world as it is, but as the algorithm arranges it for us.
And when what we see is filtered for emotion and novelty, falsehood travels faster than truth. A 2018 MIT study found that false news on Twitter spread six times faster than accurate news, largely because it triggers surprise, fear, or outrage—the very emotions algorithms amplify. The consequence: the stories we trust most are often the least tested.
What begins as bias becomes belief. And belief, when left unexamined, becomes dogma.
When leaders operate inside this fog of curated certainty, their choices risk being built on distortions they can no longer detect. Confident decisions are made on compromised truths. Echo chambers distort reality; everyone sounds like you, so dissent feels unnecessary. Confidence rises even when certainty is unwarranted. In crises, this becomes lethal. Decisions are made to confirm a first instinct rather than to test it.
The effect runs deeper. The fractures of the outside world seep into organisations. What begins as banter soon hardens into factions. Collaboration suffers, and trust becomes conditional. Strategy execution slows because people stop listening across divides.
Ultimately, this erodes stakeholder trust. Customers, employees, and investors expect leaders to wrestle with nuance, not perform loyalty to a camp. When leaders appear trapped in halfpinions—whether personal or algorithmic—they lose credibility. They sound predictable, mechanical, and disconnected from reality.
In the end, the flood of information creates the illusion of awareness while stripping away perspective. The world may prize speed and certainty, but the real test of leadership today lies in the ability to slow down long enough to see all sides.
The Antidote to Halfpinions
Four habits together offer an antidote—when they are lived, not merely learned.
1. Diversity of information sources
In a leadership programme for CXOs, I encouraged participants to seek feedback from people they often disagreed with. The brief was simple: don’t defend, don’t argue—just ask questions to clarify, and keep the phrase “maybe this is true” somewhere in your mind.
All credit to them, they did exactly that. They listened, and kept listening. A week later, one of them said quietly, “From his point of view, perhaps that’s how it appears. I can see that now.”
That single sentence captured the essence of perspective. Reading beyond the algorithm isn’t just about diversifying news sources; it’s about deliberately exposing yourself to uncomfortable facts and unfamiliar stories.
2. Diversity of relationships and experiences
Diversity today is too often reduced to a statistic. What if, instead, it were an act of deliberate curation—bringing people with experiences and outlooks unlike your own into your life?
Some of the richest learning in my life has come outside the workplace: in running groups, music circles, and travel communities where a lawyer runs beside a designer, and a teacher debates with an entrepreneur. Such spaces stretch understanding. The people who unsettle us often hold the perspectives we most need. That discomfort broadens our view.
3. Courage to change your mind
In that same programme, another leader returned after a week of reflection and told the group, “I think I may have been wrong.” He had revisited feedback from a colleague he had long dismissed—and it changed his view.
That simple admission changed the room. It opened space for honesty and new possibilities.
Opinions are not tattoos; they’re meant to evolve. As John Maynard Keynes said, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”
Leaders who can share how their thinking has evolved don’t lose credibility. They earn trust.
4. Curiosity to keep exploring
Halfpinions thrive on premature certainty. Curiosity, on the other hand, keeps questions alive.
One leader I know has a simple ritual: before making a major decision, he invites someone from a different department to challenge his reasoning for ten minutes. It’s not an exercise in debate; it’s a safeguard against blind spots.
Curiosity doesn’t slow leaders down—it keeps them grounded. I’ve often marvelled at the childlike wonder with which he asks, “What else is there that I’m not seeing?” That single question is often the difference between knowing enough and staying open to more.
Both Hands
Strong opinions that are loosely held give depth to leadership. The moment we stop examining, listening, or changing, our halfpinions begin to harden into walls.
A person who insists on seeing only one hand of the argument understands little of the whole picture. Leadership, at its best, is the art of weaving in what the other hand sees as well.
Because in the end, leadership is less about knowing all the answers—and more about keeping both hands open to what the other might reveal.
