💭 Fighting Confirmation Bias: Harder Than You Think!

Happy Halloween edition!

What is your costume?

The Big Idea: Confirmation Bias

Definition: the tendency to search out the data that will validate your ideas.

Dave’s Take:

I encounter this constantly.

In the past, I’ve chatted with Ruth Hartt on my podcast about the “Jobs to Be Done” theory.

Ruth posts on LinkedIn about how arts organizations can do their marketing differently.

She gets a lot of blowback because she’s challenging the “confirmation bias” inherent in most sports, arts, and culture marketing.

The bias seems to be: You should like this stuff the way that we do and you should know what it is great.

Go outside of these areas and you’ll see it in political ads where commentators look for statistics that make their point. You see it on earnings calls where executives make the argument using the data that makes their point.

On and on.

I don’t blame people for having a “confirmation bias” especially when it comes to selling their idea.

You probably need to have one to make the sale.

My challenge comes when people allow their “confirmation bias” to overtake everything that they are taking on.

You have to deal with the world as it is and not as you want it to be.

Quote :

“Ever since I learnt about confirmation bias, I see it everywhere.” —Jon Ronson, British journalist