The Human Mind
Businesses are built by people for people.
Understanding how we take in information,
how we make decisions, and how we decide
what to do or what not to do is critically important
if you want to create and sustain a successful business venture.
Absence Blindness
“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.” — Aldous Huxley, essayist and author of Brave New World
Key Ideas:
- Absence Blindness is a cognitive bias that prevents us from identifying what we can’t see.
- Absence Blindness makes prevention underappreciated.
- Absence Blindness also makes doing nothing when something bad happens feel “wrong”, even if it’s the best choice.
- Experience helps to avoid Absence Blindness. By having a larger database of Patterns, there’s a higher chance of noticing the absence.
- The best way to avoid Absence Blindness is to Checklist. Think about what you want something to look like, and translate it into reminders to refer to when you may feel you should “do something.”
Questions for Consideration:
- How can you use your team’s expertise to identify absence?
- What could you be overlooking, and how can you increase the probability you’ll be able to find it?