The human mind is powerful, but some naturally occurring biases might mitigate that power. These biases blind the person to what is right in front of their eyes. None of us are immune to this effect.
The alert fleet professional will notice which bias is in play and conduct their conversations and make their decisions with thought. The following is a list of ten biases to watch out for.
1. Fundamental attribution error
The attribution of a problem to individuals in a system rather than to the system in which they find themselves is so pervasive that psychologists call it the fundamental attribution error.
In 2001, John Sterman, director of MIT’s System Dynamics Group, and Nelson Repenning, distinguished professor of System Dynamics and Organization Studies at MIT, published an article in the California Management Review titled, “Nobody Ever Gets Credit for Fixing Problems that Never Happened.” The people are not the problem; the system is. We need to fix the system so the people can do better work. We need everyone helping to identify and fix the system, and only by working cross-functionally is it possible to succeed.
2. Normalization of deviance
Normalization of deviance occurs when people repeatedly accept a lower standard of performance until that lower standard becomes the norm. NASA astronaut Colonel Mike Mullane relates the story of the Space Shuttle Challenger.
The NASA team accepted a lower standard of performance on the solid rocket booster O-rings until that lower standard became the norm. They had become so comfortable with seeing occasional O-ring damage and getting away with it that the original standard, in which any O-ring damage was intolerable deviance, was marginalized.
3. Correlation implies causation
If two facts are correlated, are they related by cause and effect? A recent medical article stated the results of an extensive study of children who take Tylenol being more likely to have asthma. The news article leads with “Tylenol causes Asthma?” The author wanted an unsophisticated public to think that correlation implies causation.
But in fact, correlation does not imply causation. The relationship between two variables does not automatically mean that one causes the other. In this case, children who take Tylenol might have more colds and take more Tylenol. There is proper research that viruses are causally related to asthma. Correlation but no proof of causality is a prevalent problem in research.
4. After the fact, therefore because of the fact
This mistake is so popular and well known that it has a Latin phrase describing it: “post hoc ergo propter hoc,” meaning, “after this, therefore because of this.” It requires that one event occurs before the other.
It is a fallacy which states, “Since event X followed Y, then X must have been caused by Y.” If I change grease in a bearing and the bearing fails, we might be clever and say that the new grease caused the bearing failure. But in fact, we need evidence beyond the mere time relationship for proof.
It is a legitimate question (and a valuable one) to ask what happened before the failure or what has changed. The leap (without good evidence) from something happening first to that thing being the cause is “post hoc ergo propter hoc” thinking.
5. Cherry-picking
An observer who only sees a selected data set may thus wrongly conclude that most or all the data is like that. Cherry-picking can also be found in other logical fallacies. For example, the fallacy of anecdotal evidence tends to overlook large amounts of data in favor of some other cause.
Cherry-picking is the bane of medicine. Advertisements tout a new cure to high blood pressure or high blood sugar. If you track down the testimonials, you might find that it did work for that one person in that specific situation. The problem is that the burden of proof is much higher for a medication used by the public. Even with the higher burden of proof, the regulators sometimes get it wrong.
6. Name-calling
Name-calling is a technique to use emotional arguments as a substitute for rational arguments. People use the name-calling technique with the intent to incite fears or arouse positive prejudices. This tactic is used instead of logical arguments based on evidence or experience. This technique is widely used in politics. Name-calling by one political candidate can be used to invoke fear in an opponent or others.
7. The fallacy of the single cause
“What was the cause of this?” Such language implies that there is one cause when instead, there were probably many causes. Even the phrase “root cause analysis” encourages the idea that there is one cause that is the root of the problem.
Of course, we are looking for the cause that gives us the most leverage; the least effort and the most significant impact. This is not the root cause, but the cause we can eliminate or mitigate with the least effort.
8. Regression fallacy
If we assume some attribute is randomly distributed in any population, then the appearance of outliers would generally be followed by a regression to the mean for that population. An example of this is something called the Sports Illustrated cover jinx. In this example, an athlete has a great year, better than their past performance. They then get selected to appear on the cover of an issue of Sports Illustrated, and their subsequent performance regresses toward their previous performance level.
This regression fallacy follows for all kinds of results in many fields. The logical flaw is to make predictions that expect exceptional results to continue as if they were average; people are most likely to act when the variance is at its peak (such as buying a stock). Then, after results become more regular, they believe that their action was the cause of the change when, in fact, it was the normal regression reasserting itself.
9. Circular cause
The circular cause is where the consequence of the phenomenon is claimed to be its cause.
There are many real-world examples of circular cause-and-effect, many of them constituting virtuous or vicious cycles. Where the circular cause is a cycle, it is a complex of events that reinforces itself. A virtuous circle has favorable results, and a vicious circle has detrimental consequences.
More jobs cause more money in people’s pockets, which increases consumption, which requires more production, and thus more jobs. The expectation of an economic downturn causes people to cut back and spend less, which reduces demand, which results in layoffs, which means people have less money to spend, causing an economic downturn.
10. Third-cause fallacy
In this fallacy, sometimes called the joint effect, there is a third, invisible factor driving both effects. The famous example is that a city’s ice cream sales are highest when the rate of drownings in city swimming pools is highest. To conclude that one was a cause of the other is spurious. In this case, the invisible third factor could be a heatwave that was driving the ice cream sales and the increased pool use (and drowning).
These patterns are all easy to fall into, so it’s important for fleet professionals to keep them in mind in order to remain unbiased and make logical decisions.
Joel Levitt is the president of Springfield Resources, a management consulting firm that services a variety of clients on a wide range of maintenance issues. Levitt has trained more than 17,000 maintenance leaders from more than 3,000 organizations in 38 countries. He is also the creator of Laser-Focused Training, a flexible training program that provides specific, targeted training on your schedule, online to one to 250 people in maintenance management, asset management, and reliability.
