Many organisations are wrestling with the same challenges:
- Growth has slowed
- Innovation is stifled
- Processes that once worked are now clunky and outdated
- Attrition is rising and talented people are moving on
Leaders respond with analysis, reports and data. But the uncomfortable truth is that sometimes the way we look at a problem is the problem.
The trap of survivorship bias
A famous story from WWII illustrates this perfectly.
Allied statisticians studied returning aircraft to see where they were most often hit by enemy fire. The idea was to reinforce those areas with armour. Planes came back riddled with bullet holes in the wings and fuselage and they concluded that they should strengthen those spots.
But this was completely wrong and it’s blindingly obvious when you think about it.
Thank goodness there was Abraham Wald who saw things differently. He realised that they were only analysing the planes that had made it back. The bullet holes marked the areas where a plane could take damage and survive. The real vulnerabilities were the places without holes because the planes hit there never made it home.
That’s survivorship bias in action: focusing only on what we can see and measure, while missing the more critical but invisible data.
Another everyday example
The same bias has shaped more modern debates too.
When seatbelts were made compulsory in the UK some critics argued that they were actually dangerous. Why? Because hospital admissions increased amongst people wearing seatbelts.
At first glance, the data looked alarming. But the missing detail is that before seatbelts, many people never made it to the hospital. They went straight to the morgue.
The “increase” in hospitalisations was actually proof that seatbelts were saving lives.
It’s a reminder that unless we ask what’s missing from the data, we can draw completely the wrong conclusions, and even resist changes that would help us thrive.
How survivorship bias shows up at work
In organisations, survivorship bias often props up existing assumptions and ways of working. A few examples:
- Promotion pathways: Looking at the career journeys of leaders and assuming that others must follow the same path. Forgetting the many talented people who left because the path didn’t work for them.
- Innovation: Companies celebrate the “success rates” of products or processes that endured, ignoring the countless abandoned ideas that could have flourished under different conditions.
- Culture: Engagement surveys show what current employees thing – but miss the voices of those who left, often taking unspoken truths about culture with them.
In each case, we risk doubling down on what’s visible and “successful” at the same time missing the hidden factors that actually explain why things are going well.
Flipping the lens
What happens if we consciously look for the missing data?
- Instead of only asking the opinions of long-tenured employees, talk to those who have recently left about why
- Instead of replicating past innovations, explore the ideas that might have been shelved too early
- Instead of rewarding only the people who thrive under current systems, ask who is excluded or being overlooked
Often the real breakthroughs come not from asking “what worked?” but “what didn’t?”
For example, I worked with a team that was 100% male. When asked why, the leaders explained that no women seemed interested in those roles. They were simply “choosing the best from the applicants” and those applicants all happened to be men.
At first glance, it looked like a natural outcome. But what the team hadn’t asked was the more important question: why weren’t women applying in the first place?
When we dug deeper, we found barriers in the way the roles were advertised, the language used in job descriptions and the team’s reputation in the wider organisation. Once those issues were addressed, applications from women increased and so did the team’s overall diversity, creativity, and performance.
The problem wasn’t that women “weren’t interested.” The problem was that the data they were looking at i.e. only the applications received, hid the real story.
Breaking Free of the Bias
Survivorship bias is subtle but powerful. Left unchecked, it narrows our vision, locks us into outdated ways of working and hides the real levers of growth and change.
That’s where I come in.
I help organisations and teams surface the “invisible data” (the overlooked patterns, the unheard voices and the untested assumptions) so they can:
- Unlock innovation
- Design better processes
- Improve retention
- Build cultures where more people can thrive
If your organisation is grappling with stalled growth, high attrition or change fatigue, let’s talk. Together, we can look beyond survivorship bias and find the insights that really matter.
