The Flat Earth Analogy — On Decisions (quick take)

For centuries, humans believed that the earth is stationary and flat. Some still do.

There was a reason for this widespread belief. People looked around and things appeared stationary and flat. And this happened day after day after day after day. There was little indication that we were on a spherical rock constantly traveling in space at high speeds.

As a result, we had the wrong idea about our current place and position. We had to go beyond our experience and intuition to find out about our actual state.

To improve at anything and make good decisions, it’s critical to have an accurate idea about one’s current situation. Then we can determine our aims and set up a course to go from here to there.

So, the question becomes: What else in business and life is like flat earth? In what way we may have a distorted or biased view of our status, in domains that we care about?