Big fancy words can cloud important ideas, so let’s talk about something that trips up businesses sometimes: relying on “war stories” instead of hard data. These war stories, also called anecdotal evidence, are basically just personal experiences or rumors – like saying a product is bad because your friend had one issue.
Here’s the problem: war stories might be true for one person, but they don’t tell the whole picture. Imagine a company ditches a supplier they’ve worked with for years because one order went wrong. That’s a bad decision based on a single story, not real facts.
So why do we fall for war stories? A couple of reasons. First, they’re like catchy tunes – easy to remember and relate to. Second, sometimes we only listen to things that fit what we already believe, making war stories that seem to confirm our ideas extra convincing.
The problem starts when an anecdotal evidence is used to proof a cause, a strategy or solution. It might be true in the one single case, but certainly does’t take the full picture and it’s variants into account
Try this: Collect review data to your question. Discuss the problem based on these data and use the anecdotal evidence as just one of the options.
Links:
Albrecht Günther 