There Are Always Three Sides to a Story

Editorial Note: This essay is part of the Cultivated canon. It explores the role of truth, evidence, ethics and responsibility in leadership — and the quiet damage caused when decisions are made on opinion alone. It sits beneath the wider work on decision-making, communication, and learning cultures.

There Are Always Three Sides to a Story

It’s not uncommon to see leaders make decisions that fundamentally affect a business — and the people inside it — based on little more than opinion.

Who spoke first.
Who spoke loudest.
Who sounded most convincing.

Sometimes it’s trust.
Sometimes politics.
Sometimes proximity.

And often, it’s simply confidence mistaken for clarity.

Edward Deming put it bluntly:

“Without data, you’re just another person with an opinion.”

He wasn’t dismissing opinion entirely.
He was reminding us that opinion alone is a poor foundation for action.

Yet in most organisations, not a single day passes without decisions being made on hearsay, assumption, or bias.

The hardest moments arrive when stories clash.

Two versions of the same event.
Conflicting accounts.
Raised voices.
Strong feelings.

And a leader is expected to decide.

I learned early, as a journalist, that there are always at least three sides to a story.

Their side.
The other side.
And the truth.

It’s the truth we’re after.

Not the cleanest story.
Not the most comfortable explanation.
But what actually happened.

Truth is built from evidence.

From behaviour.
From outcomes.
From patterns.
From facts that remain when emotion fades.

It is the only ground solid enough to build on.

The trouble is that truth struggles to survive in certain environments.

Where mistakes are punished.
Where reflection is rare.
Where blame travels faster than learning.

In those cultures, truth retreats.

It hides behind fudged numbers.
Behind “green” reports that glow red beneath the surface.
Behind stories carefully shaped to avoid consequence.

And when decisions are made from false foundations, problems don’t disappear.

They compound.

Every organisation has moments like this.

A meeting that erupts into conflict.
A release that breaks production.
A campaign that quietly fails.

The details differ.
The question is always the same.

What actually happened?

Not who is at fault.

But what was said.
What was done.
What was observed.
What the impact truly was.

Truth is not interested in defence.
It is interested in understanding. And clarity.

Listening to all sides matters.

But stories are not the same as truth.

Perspective is shaped by fear.
By incentive.
By role.
By history.

Leadership begins where perspective ends.

Culture determines how close truth is allowed to get.

If mistakes are punished, honesty withdraws.
If leaders never admit error, learning stalls.

But when leaders model responsibility — quietly, consistently — something changes.

Truth surfaces sooner.
Ownership increases.
Learning accelerates.

Every mistake under a leader’s watch belongs to the system they shape.

Not as blame.
But as responsibility.

Was the training sufficient?
Was the pressure sustainable?
Were the signals ignored?
Was the environment safe enough to speak?

These are leadership questions.

Good journalism is the discipline of finding truth inside noise.

Good leadership is no different.

There are always at least three sides to a story.

Their side.
The other side.
And the truth.

Our responsibility is to uncover the truth carefully, humanely, and without fear — so learning can happen, decisions can improve, and honesty never becomes a liability.

As the Stoics understood long ago:
the truth does not harm us.

Only ignoring it does.