Learning From What Isn't
The extras included with the first season DVD of "Lost" include the casting auditions by the actors and actresses reading from the pilot script. While I was watching them, something didn't quite sit right with me. Sure, it's intriguing to see Matthew Fox up there reading for the part of Jack Shepard...but I realized that while seeing the actors who landed the roles on the show was interesting, it would be equally interesting and insightful to see some of the runners-up who auditioned for those roles, but ultimately weren't chosen.
What kinds of people auditioned to be Jack Shephard and didn't make the cut? If you're an aspiring actor hoping to break into television, that would be the kind of question you'd need to ask. It's easy for people to look at Matthew Fox's audition and say, "Yeah, he's perfect for the role!" because ultimately, as viewers of the show, we've already typecast him in our own minds.
There's a common bias at play here. More often than not, it's described by people who say something like, "History is written by winners." We see successes, because they get all the attention, and so we're duped into believing that success is all the more likely to happen to us.
Take Starbucks: there are dozens of books written about the coffee giant, about how Howard Schultz built the company steadily, how they managed the brand, and so on. But all of these books tell a story that, while fascinating, is still very much incomplete. The world doesn't work in simple, explainable ways. Most of the events that happen in our world, including what businesses fail and which succeed, are governed largely by chance, luck, and small elements of chaos.
Skill plays a big role, too...but to understand how Starbucks became the de facto coffeehouse in the country, you can't simply look at what Starbucks did and then describe the reasons for causality between strategy and outcome. This kind of analysis suffers from hindsight bias. To determine more accurately how Starbucks managed to end up on top, you'd have to look at all of the other coffee bars that started up or operated in that era and examine what they didn't do, or reasons why they failed. Then, and only then, would you start to get a clear picture about what led to the Starbucks empire.
Whenever I get hired for a job, I always wonder about the other candidates that were interviewed and turned down for the position I'm filling.
What kinds of people auditioned to be Jack Shephard and didn't make the cut? If you're an aspiring actor hoping to break into television, that would be the kind of question you'd need to ask. It's easy for people to look at Matthew Fox's audition and say, "Yeah, he's perfect for the role!" because ultimately, as viewers of the show, we've already typecast him in our own minds.
There's a common bias at play here. More often than not, it's described by people who say something like, "History is written by winners." We see successes, because they get all the attention, and so we're duped into believing that success is all the more likely to happen to us.
Take Starbucks: there are dozens of books written about the coffee giant, about how Howard Schultz built the company steadily, how they managed the brand, and so on. But all of these books tell a story that, while fascinating, is still very much incomplete. The world doesn't work in simple, explainable ways. Most of the events that happen in our world, including what businesses fail and which succeed, are governed largely by chance, luck, and small elements of chaos.
Skill plays a big role, too...but to understand how Starbucks became the de facto coffeehouse in the country, you can't simply look at what Starbucks did and then describe the reasons for causality between strategy and outcome. This kind of analysis suffers from hindsight bias. To determine more accurately how Starbucks managed to end up on top, you'd have to look at all of the other coffee bars that started up or operated in that era and examine what they didn't do, or reasons why they failed. Then, and only then, would you start to get a clear picture about what led to the Starbucks empire.
Whenever I get hired for a job, I always wonder about the other candidates that were interviewed and turned down for the position I'm filling.