I finally read The Mom Test, a lovely little book about how to do effective customer research for startups. It kept reminding me of the quote that confirmation bias is the single biggest problem in business. The Mom Test adds the related finding that social norms are full of white lies, which help keep the peace but also mask the truth about bad ideas.
In other words, as a decision maker, you’re not only up against your own tendency to look for confirmatory evidence, you’re also up against everyone else’s tendency to give you confirmatory evidence as their way of being supportive.
The book also reminded me about all the other human needs and motivations that have so little to do with the presumed goal of maximizing the chance of business success. Autonomy, meaning, connection, learning, safety, creative expression and mastery… all needs that can be met regardless of whether a startup actually succeeds.
Being supportive is more important to most people than being honest or objective, so it’s really helpful to know how to dig for objective data when you need it.