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First, Try Not To Fool Yourself, Because You are The Easiest One To Fool
I recently read a book by a well-known business thought leader that I have tremendous respect for. Surprisingly, I noticed a factual error and, when I checked her notes, I saw that she cited an article I wrote in Forbes in which I made the same factual error. So it is quite likely that she made the mistake because she put her trust in me.
The error was relatively minor. I wrote that Blockbuster CEO, John Antioco, was fired because of a compensation dispute, when actually he left of his own accord. It was a stupid mistake and, to this day, I’m not really sure of why I made it. But I did so numerous times, in a number of articles and didn’t correct myself until Antioco himself set me straight.
The error wasn’t due to a lack of information. In fact, on some level I knew the real story, but somehow I got the wrong one into my head and it stuck there. The truth is that our minds are incredibly adept at playing tricks on us. Getting facts right has nothing to do with intelligence or ability. We need to recognize how easy it is to fool ourselves and remain vigilant.
The Availability Bias
The story about Antioco carries a lot of baggage. Blockbuster was the 800-pound gorilla of the video rental industry that got upended by Netflix. So many…
