What Is The Tenth Man Rule?

"The Tenth Man Rule suggests that, if nine people of a group of ten come to the same conclusion when presented with the same information on an issue, the tenth man must take an opposing stance and assume the other nine are wrong. In the zombie flick by Brad Pitt, “World War Z” , it’s the strategy Israeli intelligence adopted after their repeated failure to take highly unlikely threats seriously.

“After several disasters that NO ONE thought could happen, the Council decided that if a vote was unanimous against a possible outcome, one member would act as if it was ABSOLUTELY going to happen, and trying to prevent it. This way, if they have a crisis, one man is prepared for it, and assumes directorship of the council for the duration of the crisis.” - World War Z

How does it help me?

In a few ways:

* If the 10th man is 1 of 10 people, therefore the 10th man is 10% of the council, well, we dedicate 10% of our time, energy or resources to oppositional thinking. No matter how certain we are. In this way it acts almost as if we are hedging our bets!

* Group think is commonplace and the 10th man rule promotes us challenging group think. In the creative thinking types model, it would be the model of “divergent thinking”

* Skeptical thinking: doubt things, require evidence for things, and finally question the practicality of the debate! What will come of the discussion.

Check out this article by themindcollection.com

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