By Dan Elliott

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We often pride ourselves on being logical, rational thinkers. We gather the facts, weigh the options, and make well-reasoned decisions. Yet despite this, we see a curious and persistent phenomenon: people—intelligent, experienced, thoughtful people—repeatedly making the same mistakes when faced with familiar problems. It’s not always the same individuals, but often people in similar roles, with access to the same information, relying on the same reasoning, arrive at the same faulty conclusions.

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As I often say, “I'm not trying to be a pessimist, but given the extraordinary sample size of disappointing results, what makes you think the same approach is going to yield a different result?” It’s a rhetorical question, but an important one—because when outcomes continually miss the mark, it demands a deeper look not at the decision itself, but at the assumptions and blind spots baked into the decision-making process.

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The Illusion of Objectivity

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It’s a mistake to assume that because someone is intelligent or experienced, they are immune to bias. In fact, cognitive biases often increase with experience. When we’ve “seen this movie before,” we’re tempted to rely on pattern recognition to shortcut our decision-making. This can be useful in many contexts—but it becomes dangerous when we stop asking new questions, ignore emerging data, or fail to challenge long-held assumptions.

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Mark Twain captured this perfectly when he said, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” That’s the insidious part of bias: we don’t experience it as a blind spot. We experience it as a certainty.

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A good example of this is in leadership hiring. How often do we see leaders confidently select a candidate who checks all the boxes—strong resume, polished interview, aligned experience—only for that person to fall short in culture fit, emotional intelligence, adaptability, or leadership presence? The hiring manager did everything “right,” but still got it wrong.

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Contrast that with those leaders who seem to have a knack for consistently hiring strong contributors. They aren’t simply lucky—they’ve developed ways to supplement their intuition with tools that provide greater insight into the human dynamics that a resume and an interview can't fully reveal.

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Repeating the Same Mistake: A Systemic Problem

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Why do these patterns persist? Several reasons emerge:

• Incomplete Fact Sets: Often, decision-makers operate from an incomplete understanding of the situation. They may not realize what’s missing, or they may mistake surface-level data for a comprehensive picture.
• Overconfidence in Past Experience: We rely heavily on what worked before, even if the context has shifted. This is especially problematic in rapidly changing environments, where historical success may be a poor predictor of future performance.
• Failure to Seek Diverse Perspectives: Homogenous thinking leads to blind spots. When everyone in the room sees the problem the same way, they’re more likely to arrive at the same flawed solution.
• Underestimation of Human Complexity: People are not spreadsheets. Evaluating a candidate—or solving any problem involving human behavior—requires tools that go beyond the rational and into the realm of behavioral insight.

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Adding Dimension with Behavioral Assessment

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This is where assessments can add real value. At Paradigm Associates, we use these tools to supplement—not replace—good reasoning and professional judgment. The goal isn’t to outsource your decision to a test, but to gain an additional lens into how someone thinks, acts, and interacts.

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These assessments are built around multiple validated sciences—DISC (behavioral style), 12 Driving Forces (motivators), EQ (emotional intelligence), Acumen (thinking styles), and Competencies (skills and abilities). Each science reveals a different layer of how a person shows up in the world, and when combined, they provide a holistic profile that helps identify alignment—or potential misalignment—with the role,the team, and the company’s values.

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Forinstance:

• A candidate may have excellent technical skills but lack the emotional intelligence to lead a team effectively.
• Someone may be motivated by harmony and collaboration, but placed in a highly competitive, metrics-driven environment where they are unlikely to thrive.
• A strong performer in one environment may struggle in another if their behavioral wiring clashes with the expectations of the role.

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These insights can explain why someone who “looks great on paper” fails to perform in practice. They also help hiring managers become aware of their own preferences and biases—perhaps a tendency to favor people who resemble their own behavioral style or communication approach.

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Breakingthe Pattern

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Recognizing that everyone (including us) has unconscious biases is the first step. The next is actively designing processes to reduce its influence. Here are a few practical strategies leaders can implement:

• Add Objective Data Points: Use assessments to gain insight into behavioral, emotional, and motivational fit.
• Create Structured Evaluation Criteria: Agree in advance on the competencies and traits needed for success in the role and measure each candidate against that standard—not against each other or a “gut feeling.”
• Involve Diverse Perspectives: Bring multiple voices into the evaluation process, especially those who think differently than you.
• Encourage Disconfirming Evidence: Actively look for what doesn’t fit. Ask, “What might we be missing?” or “What would have to be true for this to not work?”
• Commit to Post-Mortem Reviews: When a hire (or any major decision) doesn’t work out, take the time to debrief—honestly and without blame. Identify what assumptions were made, what signals were missed, and how future decisions can be improved.

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Conclusion: Thinking Beyond the Obvious

We all want to believe that our reasoning is sound, our decisions are well-founded, and our outcomes are predictable. But the truth is, even our best thinking can be flawed if we fail to challenge it. Bias is not a flaw of intelligence—it’s a feature of human nature. The danger lies not in its existence, but in our unwillingness to acknowledge and account for it.

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In leadership, hiring, strategy, and beyond, the cost of getting it wrong can be high. So why rely solely on instinct or conventional approaches when we have tools available to broaden our perspective?

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Before reaching for the same familiar solution, pause and ask: What makes me confident this time will be different—and what makes be equally certain it might not. If the answer is just a hunch, it may be time to add a few more data points—and ask a few better questions.

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