We all make mistakes.

Our entire world, all of our shared achievements, absolutely everything has been built on mistakes. And that is not frightening, as long as, step by step, we keep comparing our “maps of the terrain” with the terrain itself. With reality. And time after time, we correct our mistakes.

The frightening part begins when systemic errors are elevated into the norm, while large numbers of people fail to notice them because their own perception is narrow, specialized, and limited.

It is the old parable of the blind men and the elephant, after all! The basic idea is that each of the three specialists studying the elephant was, generally speaking, correct. Within his own area of expertise, so to speak.

The blind man who felt the elephant’s trunk said that an elephant is a snake.

The blind man who felt the elephant’s leg said that an elephant is a column.

And the blind man who touched the elephant’s ear assumed that it was a wing, which meant that an elephant must be some kind of bat.

But taken together, what they were saying was spectacular nonsense that did not reflect actual reality in any meaningful way.

And we do not really need “maps” like that…

The problem is that the models we use to understand the world around us contain an enormous number of cognitive biases. Or, more simply, errors in thinking and distortions of perception. And defective management decisions are made on the basis of these defective “maps of the world.” Decisions that, in fact, fully correspond to the defective foundation—the worldview on which they are built.

So should we really be surprised that our elephant, studied by blind experts, stubbornly refuses to fly by flapping its ears the way a bat flaps its wings?