To Avoid Confirmation Bias in Your Decisions, Consider the Alternatives

July 05, 2017

To Avoid Confirmation Bias in Your Decisions, Consider the Alternatives

As a leader, it’s a rare luxury to have all of the relevant data before making a decision. More often you make a call with incomplete information, which leaves you open to confirmation bias — meaning you pay attention to data that supports the decision you’ve made and dismiss data that does not. To avoid this trap, take some time before executing your decision and ask yourself what would’ve happened if you’d made the opposite choice. Gather the data you would need to defend this opposite view, and compare it with the data used to support your original decision. Reevaluate your decision in light of the bigger data set. Your perspective may still be incomplete, but it will be much more balanced.

Adapted from “Root Out Bias from Your Decision-Making Process,” by Thomas C. Redman