Expectations change how the same experience feels.
More quotesMonday’s note contains five bullet points. Three favour launch. Two argue for delay. The author puts failure at 30 per cent and writes, “Timing may decide the rest.”
Friday’s launch fails.
By the following week, one of the negative interviews has become a prophecy. People quote it slowly. The encouraging evidence receives less airtime because it now looks embarrassing. That 30 per cent estimate is repeated as proof that management knew disaster was coming, as if thirty had meant a hundred all along.
Had the launch succeeded, the same record could support a heroic version. The team saw the danger, held its nerve and moved decisively. Recklessness would be renamed conviction before the first celebratory drink.
This retrospective editing is rarely conscious. People genuinely remember the decisive clue more clearly once they know which clue mattered. The dozens that led nowhere lose their emotional force. A coherent account replaces the confusion because coherence is what an account is for.
Retrospective accounts need selection; otherwise they are merely a pile of events. The cheating begins when selection is confused with foresight. We remove the alarms that led nowhere, enlarge the clue connected to the result and then judge yesterday’s decision with Friday’s knowledge.
Six months later, a review group opens Monday’s note. The three favourable signals are still there. So are the two objections, the estimate and the names of those who approved the choice.
Someone says, “But surely it was obvious.” The chair records the question, and the review continues.