Ren Descartes was known for periodically re-evaluating and questioning his opinions and beliefs.
In the context of business, it's easy to make decisions based on long-held assumptions about the market, customers, or operating environment. But how far can we go if we're not willing to sail into the unknown? Business landscapes are constantly evolving due to competition, technology, regulations, etc. Re-evaluating opinions allows us to identify shifts and pivotal moments where old ways of thinking need to be discarded for new strategies. Successful businesses (and people) can sometimes fall into the trap of hubris and overconfidence. To curb this, we need to nurture humility- acknowledge what we don't know, thus move forward. By not clinging to entrenched opinions, businesses create space for disruptive thinking and innovating beyond the status quo. Besides, many scientific breakthroughs in a specific field were made by scientists from opposite fields (e.g. Claude Shannon's pioneering work in information theory while being an electrical engineer and mathematician). Ultimately, continually stress-testing beliefs against new information and giving disconfirming evidence due consideration leads to higher quality, reality-based decision-making rather than decisions anchored to outdated certainties.
To sum it up:
- Avoid blindly following assumptions
- Adapt to changing conditions
- Mitigates risk from hubris
- Encourages innovation.
- Improves decision quality
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