We
love stories.
They connect on a personal and emotional level. We trust them more thanstatistical evidence.
Unfortunately, we tend to overgeneralize from others’ stories, from anecdotalinformation and from small sampling sizes. We tend to confuse now with “whatalways is” as if our immediate situation consistently represents the entireuniverse of similar situations. As conference organizers this leads us to baddecisions when selecting speakers and programming where we promote sharingsuccess stories over asking questions, verifying validity and understandingcontext.
Wonderful Word Of Stories
We have become natural storytellers.
Humans have evolved into storytelling creatures. We pass downgenerations of family history as we sit around the dinner table sharing storiesof our lives. We are social creatures. We are interested in what others did,how they succeeded and their personal problem solving solutions.
It’s only been since the printing press that we started recording and mass producing our stories for others to access. For that reason, we have a fondness for personal narratives. Our brains are inclined to any information that comes in the form of the story. (See Michael Shermer, editor in chief of Skeptic magazine, The Belief Module, Skeptic 5, no. 4, p. 24.)
Our Misguided Trust In Stories
We are storytellers, not statisticians says author Thomas Kida in Don’t Believe Everything You Think: The 6 Basic Mistakes We Make In Thinking. He says our partiality for stories over statistics is one of the six pack of problem thinking.
Our natural bent toward stories gets us into trouble.
We rely on anecdotal evidence to form our beliefs. We defer to circumstantialproof. We trust our misguided thinking of, “If it worked for them, it will workfor me.”
We don’t ask, “Show me the evidence.” Instead we ask, “Well, how didyou do it?” We should be saying, “If you have a claim, show me the proof.”
The Risk Of Trusting Stories As AnecdotalEvidence
Relying on anecdotal evidence to form the steps and pathways to solveour problems is fraught with errors.
Why? Because it means we ignore relevant information. Even though weknow that figures and numbers—the hard data—gives us the best and most reliableinformation for our decisions, we let personal stories affect us more. Since wedon’t verify and ask questions, we trip up and are easily manipulated.
We fall victim to a common, widespread bias—generalizing. We shape ourbehavior based on incomplete or inadequate data. We use generalizations comingfrom our interpretations of another person’s stories to make criticaldecisions. That bias guides our governing and managing process.
It is very risky to make decisions based on another person’s quickquips, their anecdotes, their it-worked-for-me-and-it-will-work-for-you-toosuccess stories. Why? Because you could be planning for a problem that doesn’texist. Or you could be investing in opportunities that are not there. Or it maybe a problem from a bygone era.
The Great Gold Rush
Kida sites the 1800s Great Gold Rush which you may recall from your U.S. history class. It is a perfect example of trusting stories and anecdotal information where thousands of miners moved across the states in hopes of finding gold. They trusted hearsay over the evidence. In using this story, Kida gives both anecdotal and empirical evidence as he models how to thoughtfully use a story.
So how often have you promoted conference round table discussions forattendees to share stories and take advice from peers? How often have you securedindustry professionals as expert-speakers to share their success story over thestats of what worked?
Be careful of promoting stories over facts because it will lead todemise. We should promote asking questions, stats and verifying validity!
How can we make round table story sharing more effective by promoting empirical data over anecdotes? What should we ask conference presenters to do when listening to peer success stories?
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