Today is October 18 and the Navigate the Chaos question to consider is “How often do you remind yourself to be on guard against confirmation bias?”
People who navigate the chaos remind themselves to be on guard against the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms one's preexisting beliefs or hypotheses. To properly make a decision in today’s volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environment, one needs to be on guard against relying on confirmation bias.
NBA star Jeremy Lin knows all too well what happened when scouts, coaches, and owners relied on their confirmation bias to overlook Lin who is Asian.
With no Division I colleges recruiting Lin out of high school he choose to attend Harvard. Upon graduating Harvard no pro team recruited him.
To his disappointment, no team chose Lin in the 2010 NBA draft. Eight teams had invited Lin to pre-draft workouts. Lin joined the Dallas Mavericks for mini-camp as well as their NBA Summer League team in Las Vegas. Donnie Nelson of the Mavericks was the only General Manager who offered him an invitation to play in the Summer League. "Donnie took care of me," said Lin. "He has a different type of vision than most people do." For the next two seasons Lin bounced between teams.
During the 2011-2012 season, while on the New York Knicks but not playing very much, Lin was put into a game because so many of his teammates were injured. Lin had decided that he was not going to play for the Knicks her was going to quit basketball altogether.
Luckily, he made the most of the Knicks opportunity and went on to dispel the confirmation bias that so many held against him; an Asian could play professional basketball. Experts concluded that Lin did not belong in the NBA but they allowed their confirmation bias to cloud their judgement. Do you?
As Robertson Davies wrote “The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.” How often do you remind yourself that the eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend?