"The tricky thing about the confirmation bias is that it can look very scientific. After all, we're collecting data. Dan Lovallo, the professor and decision-making researcher cited in the introduction, said, "Confirmation bias is probably the single biggest problem in business, because even the most sophisticated people get it wrong. People go out and they're collecting the data, and they don't realize they're cooking the books." At work and in life, we often pretend that we want truth when we're really seeking reassurance: "Do these jeans make me look fat?" "What did you think of my poem?" These questions do not crave honest answers.
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The odds of a meltdown are one in 10,000 years.
—Vitali Sklyarov, minister of power and electrification in the Ukraine, two months before the Chernobyl accident
Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?
—Harry Warner, Warner Bros. Studios, 1927
What use could this company make of an electrical toy?
—William Orton, president of the Western Union Telegraph Company, in 1876, rejecting an opportunity to purchase Alexander Graham Bell's patent on the telephone
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A study showed that when doctors reckoned themselves "completely certain" about a diagnosis, they were wrong 40% of the time. When a group of students made estimates that they believed had only a 1% chance of being wrong, they were actually wrong 27% of the time. We have too much confidence in our own predictions. When we make guesses about the future, we shine our spotlights on information that's close at hand, and then we draw conclusions from that information.
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The problem is that we don't know what we don't know. ...
The future has an uncanny ability to surprise. We can't shine a spotlight on areas when we don't know they exist."
Trechos retirados de "Decisive - How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work" de Chip and Dan Heath.
