WHY ‘NO PAIN, NO GAIN’ SHOULD SET ALARM BELLS RINGING
Some day back I was reading an amazing book about thinking named “The Art of Thinking Clearly” written by Rolf Dobelli. It has about 100 short chapters. Today I will be sharing a chapter’s summary from the book named “WHY ‘NO PAIN, NO GAIN’ SHOULD SET ALARM BELLS RINGING” The It’ll-Get-Worse-Before-It-Gets-Better Fallacy.
In this chapter, the author tells when he was on a vacation in Corsica and he fell sick. The symptoms were completely new for him and the pain was increasing day by day. Eventually, he decided to seek help at a local clinic. A young doctor began to inspect him, prodding my stomach, gripping my shoulders and knees, and then poking each vertebra. He began to suspect that he had no idea what my problem was, but he wasn’t sure so he was simply enduring the strange examination. To signal its end, he pulled out his notebook and said: ‘Antibiotics. Take one tablet three times a day. It’ll get worse before it gets better.’ The author was glad to have a treatment and he went back to the hotel room with the prescription.
The pain grew worse and worse — just as the doctor had predicted. The doctor must have known what was wrong with him. But, when the pain hadn’t subsided after three days, he called him. The doctor increased the number of doses to five times a day. After two more days of agony, the author finally called the international air ambulance and a Swiss doctor diagnosed appendicitis and operated on him immediately. ‘Why did you wait so long?’ the swiss doctor asked the author after the surgery.
The author replied: ‘It all happened exactly as the doctor said, so I trusted him.’ ‘Ah, you fell victim to the it’ll-get-worse-before-it-gets-better fallacy.
The author adds another example where he tells the story of a CEO, the sales of the company were going down day by day. The salespersons of the company were unmotivated. In his desperation, he hires a consultant. For $5,000 a day, this man analyses the company and comes back with his findings: ‘Your sales department has no vision, and your brand isn’t positioned clearly. It’s a tricky situation. I can fix it for you — but not overnight. The measures will require sensitivity, and most likely, sales will fall further before things improve.’ The CEO hires the consultant.
A year later the situation was even worse. The consultant said that the conditions are the same as his predictions. As sales continue their slump in the third year, the CEO fires the consultant. The CEO also fell victim to the it’ll-get-worse-before-it-gets-better fallacy like the author.
The It’ll-Get-Worse-Before-It-Gets-Better Fallacy is a variant of the so-called confirmation bias. If the problem continues to worsen, the prediction is confirmed. If the situation improves unexpectedly, the customer is happy and the expert can attribute it to his prowess. Either way, he wins.
Thank You!