Trying to be aware of your limitations and exposing those in your speech is one way of reducing the frequency of having to eat your hat. "If we do that, I think this would happen . . ." is so much more productive than "that won't work," because it allows you to start discussing the why, without the proposer feeling attacked.

That is why I think it's important we suffix our beliefs with a degree of belief. There's a huge difference between

- "that won't work, 60 %" (which could mean a healthy debate is the quickest way to settle the issue);

- "that won't work, 80 %" (which probably makes a timeboxed attempt the best way to settle the issue); and

- "that won't work, 95 %" (which signals something really wonky is at play. If two intelligent people have such firm yet different opinions, it's possible at least one of them has completely misunderstood the problem in the first place, or there's some other unexpected gap in knowledge.)

Of course, for that to work, we have to calibrate everyone's sense of uncertainty and keep validating their opinions to make sure 70 % really means 70 %.

50% of the time, works everytime!