Breaking Your Bias

We talk a great deal about the importance of the quality of information required for good decision making practices. If you were making an investment decision, you’d hope to have reliable data on the marketplace, for example. Similarly, if you were making a decision about which car to buy you’d like to be able to compare accurate data. Imagine choosing a car based on a completely inaccurate spec sheet. Starting with poor information seems like a recipe for failure.

Similarly, making decisions about ourselves is no different than making any other decision. Yet, the human psyche often has trouble with self-reflection. We tend to avoid looking into accurate mirrors of self-analysis and prefer a sugar coated version of who we really are, which means we often make decisions on bad information. This phenomenon actually has a name in psychology and is a specific kind of cognitive bias called illusory superiority.

In fact, this bias is so prevalent that according to Bridgwater founder and author of the best-selling book, Principles, Ray Dalio says:

“If you ask everyone in an organization what percentage of the organization’s success they’re responsible for, you’ll wind up with a total of about 300 percent.”

There’s a good chance your ability to accurately self-reflect is biased in this way. This begs the question, what strategies do you have in place to maintain proper self-awareness? Do you have people around you that disagree with you? Do you create an environment for accurate reflection?

 

Logan Gelbrich

@functionalcoach