The ancient Greeks were well aware that we humans like to preserve our natural attachment to existing beliefs. We are prone to noticing and emphasizing information that confirms our perceptions and views, while dismissing data that contradicts them, even when we believe we are trying our best to be objective and impartial.

Entrepreneurs - just like everybody else – are also eager to confirm the decisions they have made. In their case, however, the danger may lead to collective team behavior, which can manifest itself in at least two ways:

First, an ego-driven entrepreneur may hire “yes” people and “yes” consultants and surround themselves with people who confirm their decisions, rather than seeking critical thinkers who are not afraid to voice their opinions.

Second, the entrepreneur’s enthusiasm may become contagious and create a belief that pervades the development team so that they fall prey to “groupthink.”

To make matters worse, in the face of vague evidence we tend to escalate our commitment to existing courses of actions, particularly when we have invested considerable time, money and effort into them. In addition, many novice entrepreneurs have their decision-making ability clouded because they either become emotionally caught up in the “fun” of starting a business, or do not want to give up, because they “just know it will be successful.” Both of them will lose sight of hundreds of aspects of the business that must be executed correctly for it to succeed.

While conventional wisdom suggests that mistakes and failures are negative events that should be avoided at all costs, scholars point out that failing early and often are steps to in-depth learning. Simply experiencing a negative event or failure is, however, not sufficient for learning. Behavior can only change when individuals choose to learn from an event. Most new ventures, no matter how well planned, are experiments characterized by mistakes and failures. Experimenting through small failure often gives entrepreneurs an opportunity to test and fine-tune a commercial concept.

In addition to learning from experience, we also learn by example. While starting a business plan, for instance, we may study the methods and tactics of successful companies. Drawing on theses cases, we will see that most of these leaders shared two key traits: they persisted - despite initial failures. Although this sounds compelling at first, the problem here is that the same traits are the hallmark of unsuccessful entrepreneurs. The correct way to discover what makes a business successful is, of course, to look at both thriving and floundering examples.

In other words, we do not necessarily need to fail ourselves in order to learn. Successful entrepreneurs can learn to recognize risk, observe the failures or crises experienced by peers and take action to avoid making the same mistakes. Within their own experiences, entrepreneurs should insist that data on their personal failures be systematically collected, analyzed, and turned into constructive feedback. Personal and professional networks as well as industry associations can help to collect data about failures of new practices and concepts. Furthermore, entrepreneurs often make decisions based upon their personal perspective and preferences. Rarely, though, are their preferences and perspectives identical to those of the customers they will serve. To be successful, they need to see through customers’ eyes and leverage this information.

Considering the flawed nature of the human cognitive condition, how can entrepreneurs have a better success rate while preventing pitfalls?

1. Entrepreneurs must be sensitive to their own blind spots.
2. Entrepreneurs should treat mistakes or even failure as an opportunity to recognize a potential crisis or to prevent a similar crisis in the future.
3. Entrepreneurial training and planning should emphasize the reflection and preservation of previous learning and make building entrepreneurial knowledge reservoirs a priority.
4. Entrepreneurs must be willing to unlearn outdated or ineffective procedures if they are to succeed.
5. Ultimately, the goal for an entrepreneur is to efficiently engage as many minds as possible across their core network—and even beyond it—in the search for critical opinions and new opportunities.