Have you ever wondered why we only hear about success stories? What about the failures that never make the headlines? This is the essence of survivorship bias.
Survivorship bias is a dangerous tendency that can lead to flawed decisions. It is the habit of focusing on those who have succeeded while ignoring those who failed. To make sound decisions, we must actively combat this bias.
To avoid survivorship bias, we need to learn from failures intentionally.
Here’s how:
Study Failures Intentionally: Establish a culture that values post-mortem reviews of failed projects to understand what went wrong.
Seek Out Diverse Perspectives: Encourage diverse thinking and dissenting opinions to illuminate hidden pitfalls.
Balance Analysis with Experience: Pair data analysis with qualitative insights from experienced professionals to get a fuller picture.
Build a Knowledge Repository: Document and share learnings from successful and failed projects, making this repository accessible to everyone in the organization.
How have you navigated the lessons from failure in your journey?