Understanding Confirmation Bias in Leadership and Negotiation

In a previous newsletter, we discussed loss aversion as a cognitive bias. This week, we delve into another significant cognitive bias: confirmation bias. This bias can have profound implications in leadership and negotiation.

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What is Confirmation Bias?

Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, and remember information in a way that confirms our pre-existing beliefs or theories. This can lead to blinkered decision-making, preventing us from considering alternative viewpoints and evidence. This bias is now amplified through social media algorithms and the media landscape more broadly - we all now live in various echo chambers, which has profound social and political implications - don’t get me started!

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Confirmation Bias in Leadership

In leadership, confirmation bias can manifest in various ways. We have all seen leaders in professional services (renowned for its change resistance in the first place), invariably ‘lock in’ behind established ways of doing things - business development and IT systems come to mind as two more obvious examples.

Alive to this reality, some leaders ‘shake things up’ to produce a change. An example is the recent decision of Minter Ellison to mandate the use of AI amongst its staff - a decision I applaud as bold and market leading. As with any big change, the challenge now becomes whether the firm's leadership is genuinely data-led in assessing AI's utility and compatibility with their operating systems. Relevant questions include - how is the adoption and utility of AI measured, how effectively is it used and for what tasks, how accurate is it, how much time has it saved, and is there collective uptake and support for AI's role in productivity amongst the workforce?

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Confirmation Bias in Negotiations

Confirmation bias is effectively embedded in our adversarial judicial system. The ideal being that adversaries fairly but robustly advance their own client’s positions, with an independent umpire (a judge or other adjudicator) then making the decision according to law. Although as lawyers we are paid to be objective in advising our clients, we know that the longer we look at a matter and advance a certain position, the more embedded our perspective can become. Alive to this reality, lawyers accept that one important role of a good mediator may be to constructively ‘reality test’ various more fixed positions, as needed.

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Countering Confirmation Bias

To counter confirmation bias, leaders and negotiators should adopt several strategies:

1. Seek Diverse Perspectives: This is important in legal practice, which is why Partners or senior lawyers review advice and why second opinions from barristers can be beneficial, including those from appellate level barristers. These measures are all designed to provide an additional objective lens. The same principle applies to preparing for a negotiation or mediation-seek out other views on strategy and approach.
2. Ask Neutral Questions: When gathering information, frame your questions in a neutral manner to avoid leading responses that can serve to confirm bias.
3. Encourage Open Dialogue: This is critical to leadership- foster an environment where team members feel comfortable sharing dissenting opinions. Sure, as a leader, I found myself sometimes feeling a certain level of frustration dealing with people who didn't necessarily agree with my perspectives. That said, the more I matured, the more I knew these were the very people I needed in the room!
4. Reflect and Reevaluate: Step back and reassess decisions - are you being data led, how reliable is the data, and do you have any preconceived blind spots?

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"First off, don't let the force of the impression carry you away. Say to it, 'hold up a bit and let me see who you are and where you are from - let me put you to the test'..." Epictetus, Discourses, 2.18.24