Survivorship Bias and It's Impact On Consultants
It's all about the denominator...
If you’re a consultant, it’s likely at some time or another you’ve fallen victim to survivorship bias.
Survivorship bias is the fallacy of only paying attention to the survivors instead of the participants in any given activity.
For example, 80% of restaurants fail and quietly disappear. Yet, because most people only hear about success stories, they feel their odds of success are much higher.
It’s important consultants understand how survivorship bias can impact both their recommendations for clients and how they try to build their own practice.
The Three Problems With Survivorship Bias
You don’t have to look far to see people sharing stories of personal success and how they achieved it. What you will rarely hear about in these stories is how many people failed repeating exactly what they did.
The problem with these success stories is three-fold:
Those who succeed attribute their success to skill as opposed to luck. Sometimes people just get lucky. They are the right person at the right…
