The Rashomon Effect or the Downside of Being Smart

Smart people are more prone to let their biases cloud their thinking. 

Because they are superb at constructing narratives that support their beliefs, they find more creative ways to rationalize and reframe evidence to fit their preexisting views. They shape the narratives to describe how they arrived at a decision in a way that supports their views and suggests that their conclusions are rational, objective, and hard to dispute. This is especially true of people with high intelligence. (That’s you!) 

People naturally interpret and describe common events and experiences in very dissimilar ways. Known as the Rashomon Effect in cinema, it’s named after a 1950 Japanese film in which four witnesses describe a murder in four contradictory ways. The temptation to craft a story that fits a preexisting view is so strong, that almost everyone does it. Smart people just do it better and with more negative consequences, especially when the decision is major and its impact and influence on future success is large. 

When sharp-minded leaders describe the events, facts, and context surrounding a major decision in a way that reflects their self-interest or biases, rather than the objective truth, they unsurprisingly make bad decisions. It is the construction of this narrative effort to explain how the building blocks of a decision are coming together which sets off the dreaded confirmation bias that undermines so much of sound decision-making. 

Fighting against the construction of this self-beneficial narrative is the first line of defense against bias and poor decision-making. The best decision-makers do this by first recognizing how they instantly begin forming a narrative once the problem or opportunity has been clarified and they start to gather facts and data. 

Rather than deny this sense-making and the biases it contains, great decision-makers seek a second narrative on the same facts and information. They turn the Rashomon Effect on its head and ask for a second narrative to be created as soon as they begin to construct theirs. 

More commonly, this second narrative is composed by another leader, team member, or a so-called red team. By comparing the competing narratives during the decision-making process, the leader is less likely to be blind to their biases or to allow them to operate unchallenged. 

The second narrative keeps leaders honest and their biases in check. Even when they strongly disagree with the competing story, they are forced to confront the assumptions they are making when gathering the facts. Red teams (teams that seek to expose vulnerabilities or flaws) offer more value when they focus on marshaling a competing narrative, not just contrary facts. 

The power of a story to shape meaning should never be taken lightly.