Post-Hoc Rationalization
Inventing strategic reasons after the fact for outcomes that were luck, accident or something else; the story becomes the lesson, and the lesson is wrong.
An everyday example
A viral launch attributed in the retrospective to 'our positioning', when the driver was one influencer's unsolicited post.
What it can cost you
Learning false lessons from success; leaders promoted on narratives; strategies built on confabulated causes.
Warning signs
- The story of why we won came after we won.
- Our lessons all flatter our choices.
One thing to do
In retrospectives, list the causes that were outside your control first; write the decision's quality separately from its outcome.
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