Bias

“In science, you move closer to the truth by seeking evidence to the contrary.  Perhaps the same method should inform your opinions as well.”

–  David McRaney  in his book “You Are Not So Smart”

Thanks to the subscribers who recommended this book a few weeks ago.  It’s a pretty compelling read.

We are all biased.  When it comes time to decide — to hire, to buy, to fire, to sell — our biases impact the process by which we take action.

Pragmatists, skeptics, optimists — all of us.  If we’ve had an experience, we’re biased by it.

I figure that’s why the old “hold a kid’s hand near a hot stove” thing was so popular.

Like that kid, though, we have to be careful that our biases don’t become unsubstantiated fears.  We have to use caution to make sure that just because something was once true that we presume it will, forever, be true.

Matters of Faith aside, what we believe can skew us significantly toward, or away from, decisions that we should, or shouldn’t make.

As sellers, we’d best understand that those to whom we sell might benefit from us proving some things about our product or service that run counter to all the easy reasons they might want to buy.  As buyers, we’d be dollars ahead to challenge our own perspectives, and to challenge those who sell to us to get deeper into the opposite of what they claim.

Moving closer to the truth by seeking evidence to the contrary.

Sounds like difference-making stuff to me.