The crash that killed Kobe Bryant and six others was due to pilot error. “Officials believe [pilot Ara] Zobayan may have felt ‘continuation bias,’ an unconscious tendency among pilots to stick with the original plan despite changing conditions,” according to the recently-released National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) report.
Pilots aren’t the only ones who suffer from this influence. Many leaders have plunged ahead on the same path even though external factors drastically changed. Businesses who did not adapt to the pandemic are also guilty of perpetuating the status quo and it may be their enterprise that crashes instead of a helicopter. Individuals plod along with the same diet, savings plan, or relationship and ignore the signs that the current path isn’t working for them.
“The closer you get to the destination the more you think just maybe you can pull this off,” NTSB Vice Chairman Bruce Landsberg said in the crash report. As is the case with everyone, it becomes difficult to throw in the towel or even to alter direction when your past actions have been working for you for so long. You do what you know, especially when things are deteriorating and you feel pressure to achieve your results.
It helps to become conscious of this unconscious sway in order to avoid falling victim to it. Create conditions for psychological safety so that others can speak up around you. Ask for help. Question your own assumptions. Have the courage to admit that your original plan isn’t working.
Stubborn continuation biases you toward failure.
Source: Pilot error led to crash by Stefanie Dazio, Brian Melley and David Koenig for the Associated Press in the Telegraph Herald, February 10, 2021, 5B.
