Do we routinely mistake good luck with systemic resilience…until something blows up?
Today I speak with Professor Robin Dillon-Merrill (Georgetown University, McDonough School of Business), who breaks down her 20+ years of research on decision-making under risk, outcome bias, and how organizations misinterpret near misses.
We discuss:
• The differences between resilient vs vulnerable near misses: How the perceived ‘margin of safety’ desensitizes organizations to risk when luck is the primary reason failure was averted.
• Managing outcome bias: Why leaders who experience lucky successes are possibly judged as more competent and promotable than those who face bad luck, even when their underlying decision quality is identical.
• Counterfactual thinking: How processes used by NASA facilitate teams to evaluate alternative outcomes and decouple decision quality from outcomes.
• Gathering info: Why decision makers consistently stop searching for critical warning signs long before they have sufficient data.
• Why ‘speaking up’ campaigns fail: Safety reporting programs may be ineffective for recognising an issue since the issue isn’t recognised as danger in the first place.
#safetyscience #decisionmaking #leadership #nearmisses
