Member-only story
Don’t Believe Everything You Think!
Early in my career I was working on a natural gas trading desk and found myself in Tulsa Oklahoma visiting clients. These were genuine roughnecks, who had worked their way up from the fields to become physical gas traders . When the NYMEX introduced “paper” contracts and derivatives into the market, however, much would change.
They related to me how, when New York traders first came to town offering long-term deals, they were thrilled. For the first part of the contract, they were raking in money. Unfortunately, during the latter months, they got crushed, losing all their profits and then some. The truth was that the trade was pure arbitrage and they never had a chance
My clients’ brains were working against them in two ways. First, availability bias, caused them to value information most familiar to them and dismiss other data. The second, confirmation bias, made them look for information that would confirm their instincts. This, of course, isn’t at all unusual. It takes real effort to avoid believing the things we think.
Becoming A Square-Peg Business In A Round-Hole World
When I was researching my book, Mapping Innovation, I spoke to every great innovator I could find. Some were world class scientists, others were top executives at major corporations and still others…
