For some years now, we have been living in a society where people don’t like to upset others. One might question whether “political correctness” has gone too far when we can’t have Christmas decorations at a public school for fear of upsetting non-Christian students and in many schools kids are taught that “everyone’s a winner”.

Well the results of the recent US election prove that not everyone’s a winner. Not just Hillary; thousands of people have demonstrated against the results of a democratic election because they didn’t get the outcome they wanted. They didn’t like the result.

While clearly Donald Trump and others have decided to throw political correctness out the window, it may well be much harder than that to escape from. The widespread use of social media has perpetuated political correctness in our lives. On Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn we have all become used pressing the “like” button. Only on YouTube are you able to give a if you don’t like something. My kids tell me that this is to avoid bullying online, but we all know it doesn’t need a “thumbs down” for bullying to take place on social media.

One of the effects of “liking” something on social media is that we are then led to other like-minded posts or sites. Algorithms are designed to suggest “other sites you might like”. And so, we can easily found our screens filled with information that confirms or strengthens the first idea, proposition or statement we liked.

This confirmatory process has implications for our children, society generally and our business leaders.

Our kids today have more information literally at their fingertips than they will every need. Their challenge is not to try to find the information but rather to discern bias, truth or otherwise, fact from opinion rather than just accepting what they read or believing that the first three “unsponsored” entries on Google are correct.

Another implication of only hearing and reading what we “like” is that we become affronted when we see something we don’t like – leading to a lack of resilience. We have people in democracies demonstrating against the results of free elections. We have trigger warnings being brought into universities in the US, UK and Australia to warn students that they may be about to hear something that they find upsetting – and here we’re talking about facts being presented, not just opinions. We are becoming less and less comfortable hearing things that we don’t “like”.

As individuals, with this awareness, we need to be honest with ourselves; honest about our understanding (or lack of) situations, people, teams, whatever it is we are dealing with. We have to cut through the things we like to hear and ask ourselves the hard questions, or perhaps ask others hard questions about us. And more importantly, we have to listen to the hard answers, even if we don’t “like” them. We need to not just hear the things we don’t like, we need to acknowledge and understand them in order to be able to really understand our situations and ourselves.

The risk of not listening to what we don’t like to hear is that individuals are likely to blame someone or something else. Hilary’s loss in the election has been blamed on many things, but was she listening to anyone telling her she wasn’t connecting with the people in the places she needed votes? In business, it will be the economy, the unions, the government rather than your own strategy, lack of planning, poor execution or lack of understanding of the markets compared to your offering that is the reason you are now dealing with an outcome you don’t like.

For leaders of companies, the risks that arise from this environment of accepting the information provided or hearing reports that confirm their opinions, are whether they are really listening to understand their customers, their employees and their stakeholders. The best businesses understand their customers’ wants – just as Donald Trump threw out political correctness in targeting the many disenfranchised voters underwhelmed by the political regime they had. Yes, companies receive negative feedback on social media as well as “likes”, but are they listening to those who aren’t shouting it from proverbial rooftops?

In the same way, boards too need to critically evaluate the information presented to them. Are they probing beyond what they have been told? Do they have a real understanding of all the available levers within the business and their status? Do they scratch beyond the surface of what management want the board to hear?

The US election was not just a wake up call for politicians around the world. It should be a wake up call for leaders everywhere as individually or collectively as management teams or boards to filter the information they are provided with, particularly if it comes through social media channels. Information that they may not like to hear needs to be sought out, heard and understood so that they can be truly well-informed and understanding of the implications. As a result, surprise outcomes are far less likely.

Coffee count: 491