
The Japanese battleship Yamato during machinery trials off Bungo Strait, 20 October 1941. To avoid an arms race, the great naval powers had agreed to a sequence of treaties from 1922 to 1936 constraining the sizes and numbers of capital ships they could construct. In 1934, Japan withdrew from the treaty (and the League of Nations), and in 1937 began construction of the Yamato. Its great size was intended to enable it to engage multiple U.S. warships simultaneously, a capability that was believed necessary because of the industrial capacity advantage of the U.S. The idea of initiating a decisive engagement that would bring an end to the war might have been, in part, an instance of the focusing illusion. For more, read the Wikipedia articles, "Treaty battleship" and "Japanese Battleship Yamato". The photo is part of the records in the Yamato Museum (PG061427). It is available from Wikimedia Commons.
The Focusing Illusion [Schkade 1998] is a cognitive bias — a tendency to misjudge — that leads to attaching too much significance to one feature of an event or situation. We then make erroneous predictions of future outcomes. For example, many believe — wrongly, research shows — that wealth inevitably leads to happiness. That's why feature stories in the media about tragically unhappy lottery winners are so fascinating — the stories seem paradoxical.
The essence of the illusion is a failure to grasp the full complexity of life situations. Although living in California might increase the probability of attaining happiness, happiness is far from certain, and indeed, the probability of a given individual being happy in Los Angeles, California, isn't much different from the probability of that same individual being happy in, say, Cleveland, Ohio. The focusing illusion leads us to misjudge these probabilities. We forget, for example, that although Los Angeles has more sunny days, it also has more smog.
Most of the common examples of the focusing illusion emphasize the personal: if I were rich (or thin, or beautiful, …), I'd be happy. Some examples relate to relationships: if we had a child, our marriage would be saved.
But the focusing illusion also applies to organizations. Here are some examples of the focusing illusion in organizational life.
- If we acquire that company, we'll own the market and profits will dramatically increase.
- When we finish this project, the pressure will ease and we can get back to 40-hour weeks.
- If we can get Snidely off the team, we'll finally have peace and get some work done.
- If we hire this superstar, we'll be so much better managed that the share price will triple.
- If we can keep these production problems secret until they're fixed, nobody will ever find out and all will be well.
- If we redesign our work processes, productivity will increase so dramatically that our time-to-market will drop by 40%.
- If we consolidate these three locations into one, the cost savings in Fed-X and airfare alone will pay for the relocations in three years.
To guard against the focusing illusion, remember:
- The value of almostThe value of almost any
organizational attribute (like net
income, time-to-market, …) is
the result of contributions from
many elements any organizational attribute (like net income, time-to-market, …) is the result of contributions from many elements. - Changing some of these elements will probably change the result, but the direction of the change depends on what else is happening.
- Any change you make might also change contributions from elements you don't change.
- Other elements you don't control are always free to change on their own or in response to external factors.
Consequently, the effects of changes we make are usually tangled up with other changes that are either already underway or that result unexpectedly from what we've done. We simply cannot get what we want by focusing solely on what we actually do control. Everything matters. Top
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Footnotes
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Related articles
More articles on Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness:
The Mind Reading Trap
- When we think, "Paul doesn't trust me," we could be fooling ourselves into believing that
we can read his mind. Unless he has directly expressed his distrust, we're just guessing, and we can
reach whatever conclusion we wish, unconstrained by reality. In project management, as anywhere else,
that's a recipe for trouble.
Our Last Meeting Together
- You can find lots of tips for making meetings more effective — many at my own Web site. Most are
directed toward the chair, or the facilitator if you have one. Here are some suggestions for everybody.
Business Fads and Their Value
- Fads in business come and go, like fads anywhere. In business, though, their effects can be so expensive
that they threaten the enterprise. Still, the ideas and methods that become fads can have intrinsic
value. Where does that value come from? Where does it go?
Embolalia and Stuff Like That: I
- When we address others, we sometimes use filler — so-called automatic speech or embolalia —
without thinking. Examples are "uh," "um," and "er," but there are more
complex forms, too. Embolalia are usually harmless, if mildly annoying to some. But sometimes they can
be damaging.
Meets Expectations
- Many performance management systems include ratings such as "meets expectations," "exceeds
expectations," and "needs improvement." Many find the "meets" rating demoralizing.
Why?
See also Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness, Emotions at Work and Cognitive Biases at Work for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
Coming April 14: What Micromanaging Is and Isn't
- Micromanaging is a particularly dysfunctional pattern of management behavior, involving interference in the work others are supposedly doing. Confusion about what it is and what it isn't makes effective response difficult. Available here and by RSS on April 14.
And on April 21: Choice-Supportive Bias
- Choice-supportive bias is a cognitive bias that causes us to evaluate our past choices as more fitting than they actually were. The erroneous judgments it produces can be especially costly to organizations interested in improving decision processes. Available here and by RSS on April 21.
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Decis
ion-makers in modern organizations commonly demand briefings in the form of bullet points or a series of series of bullet points. But this form of presentation has limited value for complex decisions. We need something more. We actually need to think. Briefers who combine the bullet-point format with a variety of persuasion techniques can mislead decision-makers, guiding them into making poor decisions. Read more about this program.
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Webinar Series. PMI members can earn 1.0 Category 'A' PDU by viewing this program. View this program now.
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