A stomach-churning allegation during a swimming lesson for primary-schoolers serves up some lessons about truth-seeking in contexts where it’s one person’s word against another.
Our son Luke is fastidious, and not especially interested in swimming. This is important context for the slightly odd story that follows.
Throughout the summer holidays, we traipse around various local leisure centres and schools, following the swimming school schedule. Yes, we’ve tried to teach him - but he learns nominally quicker when competing with people his own age. “Nominally” in this context is glacially (before global warming). He is not a fan of swimming, generally.
So, when he accused Taylor (name changed), a classmate, of noxious farts in the pool, there was some parental scepticism. Could this be another ruse to explain his typically lacklustre efforts? Well, not really. He’s actually doing well in this class, and after nearly eight years, he might finally have cracked it. “Never in the field of swimming lessons has so much been spent for so little return.”
Prove it
Even if we wanted to get to the bottom of it (pun intended), which we don’t. How would we? Ask the teacher? How exactly would you broach the bottom breach - “Excuse me, did you notice a putrid rotten egg smell near Taylor?”? Unlikely. And Taylor’s parents might take umbrage.
Set up ‘butt bubble cam’ and get promptly arrested (you’re not allowed to photograph the class)? Nope.
Ask Taylor what she had for breakfast? Again, unlikely unless we want to risk (best case) even more filthy stares from the ‘cool mums’ in the local village (a vicious cabal of the unfulfilled). Or, more likely, a Mr Garrison (from South Park) intervention with teachers and Taylor’s parents.
Interrogate Luke (who is discovering lying, finally, having recently started stealing snacks)? Yeah, we could, and did, but he’s not a fantastically reliable witness.
Why even bother?
Who cares? Lord knows, Luke and his sister wage a hideous war of feral ferocity in their shared bathroom. Let he who is without farts cast the first butt-bomb. If Taylor is indeed gas (if not lighting) Luke, he probably deserves it on some karmic level.
Lessons, please
What lessons might be drawn from this swimming lesson debacle? Allegations are hard to prove, often. Especially if it’s one person’s word against another.
In due diligence, risk assessment, and investigations, we frequently find incongruence and smoke (farts), if not fire. Sometimes, we’re fortunate enough to have evidence to back up the supposition. It doesn’t always mean or need to mean an adversarial exchange (see the example below from a project interview ahead of an investment decision).
But it always helps, before you decide to go into truth-seeking mode, to have a plan. Start with these questions:
- What exactly are we trying to establish? And why does it matter?
- What do we know, and what are we merely assuming?
- What evidence could confirm or disprove it?
- Who is best placed to know, and who or what could corroborate them?
- What will we do if the evidence remains inconclusive?
In our work, most things will be more serious and provable that flatulent-leisure-centre-pool-propulsion, but the lessons hold. How do you decide what to prove, and if it’s even provable?