In Michael Lewis’s Moneyball, the Oakland Athletics leveraged the right statistics to build a championship baseball team without the price tag. They noticed, for instance, that batting average (how often a player manages to hit the ball) is less closely related to runs scored, compared to how often that player is able to get on base.
Competitors had, to that point, completely overlooked nuances like these, leaving the Athletics to capitalize on their potential. And just like in sports, tapping into overlooked indicators is an excellent way to push your company forward. The following are three cognitive biases to be aware of and avoid if you hope to uncover the true metrics to your business’s success:
Overconfidence
Being able to distinguish your hope and intended results from reality is crucial to distilling where exactly to apply the right pressure to achieve that changes you’re looking for.
Availability
The availability bias speaks to our tendency as humans to put more faith in information that is easier to recall or more “available”. This information is very often associated with either extreme examples of a situation or with situations that we run into repeatedly. Neither of these two factors, however, guarantees the validity (or reliability) of the information.
Status Quo
Fear of change. Comfort with the way things are. Resistance to risk. All of these are just different ways of talking about the Status Quo bias. And its origins are deeply rooted within us: we naturally choose to avoid risk, even if it means we miss out on achieving a great gain.
Being aware of these biases and keeping them is a reliable way to uncover the metrics that really matter to the business you do.