The curse of 99% approval

(Disclaimer: If you’re not a footy aficionado, bear with me for a paragraph or two, this isn’t actually an article about sport).

Following a year in which he lead his team to a premiership - minus the services of their star ruckman (Nic Naitanui) for the year, and one of their best midfielders (Andrew Gaff) for the entire finals series, West Coast coach Adam Simpson has been given the ‘nod of approval’ by 99% of his team’s fans.

On one hand, this makes sense. Given that you’ve just delivered the best possible result in your role, and contributed to your team winning the greatest possible prize, of course nearly every one of your supporters would approve.

On the other hand (with reference to the previous sentence); “nearly”?

The counterfactual to 99% support is, of course, 1% disapproval, which then begs the question; what could possibly satisfy these people? What could a coach possibly do to appease supporters if winning the premiership without two of your best players does not?

I’d argue; nothing. One percent of people will complain (often loudly) no matter what you do.

I reckon we’re all pretty good at making this assessment in ‘real life’ interactions. The one dissenting opinion in a room of broad support can usually be (respectfully acknowledged and) dismissed pretty quickly.

Play out the same situation in the media or on the internet, though, and you’ve got a completely different outcome.

The nut-jobs who’ll never be appeased no matter how great the outcome suddenly have an inordinately loud voice. Suddenly every issue has “two sides”, even in cases where pragmatically that patently isn’t the case, ergo; the global warming ‘debate’.

Frustratingly, I have no idea what will solve this asymmetry of power. In the complex adaptive system that is human society, we’re some distance away from resolving this problem, and all the issues that consequently show up downstream.

On a personal level, the only advice I can offer is simple. Remember that 1% of every group is completely unreasonable. Avoid trying to reason with them.