D.B. Cooper – Where Are You?!

I had some down time and was surfing through Netflix, when it automatically recommended a series for me to watch – D. B. Cooper: Where Are You?! I’m not sure if you heard about him, but he was one of the most wanted fugitives by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He pulled off the perfect crime and disappeared without a trace!

According to Wikipedia, “D. B. Cooper is a media epithet used to refer to an unidentified man who hijacked Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305, a Boeing 727 aircraft operated by Northwest Orient Airlines, in United States airspace on the afternoon of November 24, 1971. The aircraft was flying from Portland, Oregon, to Seattle, Washington.”

He managed to extort over $200,000 (now the equivalent of $1,460,000) and escaped by parachuting from the plane – never to be seen again – getting away with the perfect crime. Or so he thought…

The series, which helped build a picture of a prime suspect that the producers wanted you to believe was still alive at the time of filming. It made for compelling viewing, and I have to admit that I did binge on the series.

Despite numerous sightings from the public in the aftermath of the event, the FBI maintained an active investigation for 45 years after the hijacking. Despite compiling an extensive case file over the period, the FBI reached no definitive conclusions regarding Cooper’s true identity or fate. Eventually, the FBI officially suspended active investigation of the case in July 2016, releasing their evidence to the public over time. This led to accelerated theories from people involved with the original investigation, now documented in this Netflix series.

What struck me the most was the title of the third episode: “Seeing Jesus in The Toast.”

In this episode, one of the investigators makes the following statement:

“Trying to discern truth is now a major occupation of the American public. And the Cooper case is a tiny piece of that dynamic. On many of the Cooper forums, as one hunter wrote to another, ‘You’re seeing Jesus in the toast.’”

Now that got me thinking. How often do we look at the evidence and try to make it fit a presumption of what we want it to be?

Here are three keys to unlocking the truth in any conversation and dispelling the myth that we are, “Seeing Jesus in the toast.”

DO YOU HAVE A BLIND SPOT?
I remember speaking to my wife when we were on holiday in Perth back in 2015. As we were walking around Bibra Lake, I made some throw-away comment about what she had said or done. Without breaking stride, my wife asked, “Is that what you are looking for, because that is what you will find!”

This got me thinking. Am I really looking for the evidence to support my viewpoint? What do you do on a regular basis that could put you in a similar category to me? Do you have a blind spot that you might not be aware of?

There is a great article on Hive.com about how to identify leadership blind spots. Amongst the seven points they raise, here is one that appeals the most to me:

Question where you get information from.

“Is your social media feed filled with people who look, see and act just like you do? When faced with a challenge at work, do you only seek advice from a small circle or do you bring people to the table with varied experiences and perspectives? Broadening the scope of how you are informed allows you to see valuable resources you previously missed,” says Beckham.

Remember that you’ll most likely have to go out of your way to access different perspectives. But it is well worth it.

ARE YOU OPEN-MINDED OR SIMPLY BIASED?
An author of an interesting article I found on LinkedIn, Robert Glazer, opens his article with the following thought: “I Am Biased. So Are You. Here’s What Open Minded People Do Differently.”

Glazer goes on to say in his article that, “We need to be mind-changers, of which there are two kinds: The people who are open to change and those who are successful at creating it.”

Here’s how they do this. Glazer identifies a group as “persuaders.” These are the people who are successful at creating change.

“When they are in a debate or dialogue, they are engaging, rather than dismissive. Their arguments lean on facts and historical background rather than emotion and opinion. They seek to explain and educate, rather than to attack.”

The second group are the “open-minded” people who are open to challenging their preconceived biases. They will seek to understand the perspective of others and they are open to having a dialogue or debate about their own beliefs. Glazer states that, “They listen and thank people for sharing their perspective and feedback. They contemplate before responding.”

It was that last statement that made me think. Do I contemplate before responding?

HOW DO YOU SPOT A PHONEY?
Psychology Today published an article related to spotting fake news. Here are the 10 points that they raised:

1.  Don’t just read the headline – dig deeper. Read the full article and assess the sources of the claims.
2. Look for evidence, not (just) opinion.
3. Look for replication – Has the same story been published elsewhere?
4. Read about the site, the author or publisher. Knowing more about these will help inform your evaluation of balance as well.
5. Ask yourself, are all the reasons presented to you for believing something actually relevant to the central claim?
6. If the structure lacks logic or what the writer deems to be logic is weak, this may be a sign that you’re dealing with fake news.
7. Logic is objective; so, look out for dramatic punctuation (!) and sensationalist language.
8. Construction of logic requires care, so look out for careless presentation.
9. Count the reasons and objections (i.e., reasons for and against). If there’s a relatively large difference between these counts, then we can consider the argument imbalanced, which may imply that that the argument’s author is in some way biased.
10. Question the intentions of the author and ask yourself, “What is the purpose of this news story?”

So, the next time you find yourself thinking a specific thought about someone, ask yourself, “Am I being open-minded or simply biased?” Are you finding yourself simply looking for Jesus in the toast?