Skip to main content

Ignoring failures might cost you your life

Avro Lancaster Bomber Planes
RAF Avro Lancaster Bombers used in WW2
Photographer - Richard R Schunemann


It was the Second World War, and British Royal Air Force (RAF), raided Germany and bombed their cities. German defences were strong. German fighter planes and anti-aircraft gunners shot down British bomber planes. The Royal Air Force wanted to save their planes and pilots. Adding armour plates to the planes can protect. But too much armour adds to the weight and affects the range, speed and air time of fighter planes.


RAF analysed fighter planes that returned from their missions for bullet holes. They found that wings, nose and couple other areas took the most hit. But cockpit, engine and tails were less damaged. They decided to fix armour plates to protect damaged areas of the plane. But Abraham Wald, a Hungary Mathematician suggested the opposite. His suggestion shocked everyone. But Wald reasoned, RAF was analysing planes that survived the mission. Yes, these planes took hits. But they were still able to make it. The RAF was looking at the survivors. Planes that couldn't make it back must have taken a hit in areas that proved fatal. And those areas would be the undamaged areas of planes that survived. RAF took Wald's suggestion and it worked. Many more fighter planes that would have perished otherwise were able to return.

 

RAF focused on fighter planes that survived the mission because they were available. Alas, the planes that lost in enemy territory were not available for analysis. And they were about to decide on placing the armour plates based on the planes that survived. This would not have saved the planes. But Abraham Wald's counter-intuitive thinking saved RAF. This is a good example of survivorship bias. We focus on the stories of successful people. Their stories are available to us. But for every successful person, there are thousands who failed. But their stories are not available to us. Success is only half the story. Look for failures to complete the story. Only then you can know the recipe for success.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fundamental Attribution Error

One day I was waiting in the lift lobby at work, having nothing to do. It was one of those days where frustration was sky-high, everything that could go wrong did. So, I took a break! Software engineers reading this would agree with me. Might seem silly for others though. Coming back to the story. There in the ground floor lift lobby, I noticed a guy, who was in his mid-30s or so he looked like. We entered the lift.  He punched in floor 1. What a lazy ass! I have noticed him repeating this couple other times. I thought he must really be a sloth. I made fun of him. I loud-mouthed once to my teammates that I am going to take the stairs for four floors and beat them to it. The one-floor guy was around waiting for the lift in the lobby. I made sure he heard it loud and clear.  A few months later, I joined the gym to bulk up. My romance with the gym as you guessed didn’t last long. But oh boy I didn’t give up so easily. I persisted for two months you see! The fifth day of my first ...
2 comments
Read more

Magical Number Seven

Photo by  Alistair MacRobert  on  Unsplash Miller, a Harvard Professor, in the 1950s conducted experiments to know maximum items or things a normal person can remember. It turns out an average person can remember 7 items. Miller called it “ Magical Number Seven ”. Come to think of it, humans have utilized number 7 to the fullest. There are 7 wonders in the world. There are 7 colours in the rainbow, or at least only 7 colours are visible to us, humans. Then there is Steven Covey’s bestselling book “7 Habits of Highly Effective People”. A google search on basically any self-help topic redirects us to a blog or website that more often than not has “Here are 7 ways or steps to achieve whatever you want” listed somewhere in the page. And then we have M.S Dhoni whose jersey number is, well, you guessed, 7. Totally unrelated fact, but ok. And surely there are more than 7 ways to help me remember grocery items but none came to my rescue when I needed them the most. You see, I h...
Post a Comment
Read more

Why canned laughter work?

It was the summer of 2010, I had completed high school. I had 4 months before my college started. So, an ample amount of time to play, travel and do something new. I thought of start watching a sitcom show that everyone was raving about in social media. My brother recommended it too. I had never watched a TV series, and that too one in English before. The show was “The Big Bang Theory” . I was a little confused at the beginning. I thought it was a documentary on the big bang and universe. The show’s title track indicated something similar. But five minutes into the show a pretty lady shows up. Oops, it’s definitely not a documentary on the big bang. My ability to predict and understand anything related to that show ended right there.  I don’t know about you, but I could never follow the dialogues without subtitles. The practise continues even today. The show didn’t help either. There was sarcasm, references to American movies and comics culture, actors, and physics!! All these were...
Post a Comment
Read more