B.F. Skinner was right – it is possible to make a pigeon superstitious.  Here’s how he did it.  He put a pigeon in a cage and arranged for food to appear at regular intervals.  Whatever the pigeon happens to be doing just as the food arrives – bobbing its head, scratching the floor – it will keep doing over and over again in the hopes that it will cause the food to appear.  The pigeon will assume a cause and effect relationship that doesn’t actually exist.

     Superstition is a compulsion to take an action that has no influence on the desired outcome.  

     Pigeons are superstitious, as are all of us.  You’ve met the person who believes that they have found the one and only truth, and they can’t fathom the thought of changing their old rules even in the face of new data.  Many of these people decide whether they like a new piece of information based on how it will affect their prior belief system, not based on whether it is actually true.

     When you meet a person who will disregard an obvious truth just because it will conflict with his current belief system you must wonder about his judgment.  What other data is this person willing to ignore in order to preserve his superstitions?

     I see many organizations which have built policies based on superstition.  Many of these organizations don’t want to change their policies even when the data suggests that the market has changed and it may never return to the way it was in the past.  Superstitious leaders in organizations enforce rigid adherence to a set of policies that they believe are responsible for their organization’s success, only to doom the organization.

     A pigeon won’t wise up and change its behavior, but you can.  You now know that this aversion to rational change has a name – superstition.   Don’t give into pigeon-minded superstition, speak up and point out the rational thought that needs to drive change.