My December Research magazine column is now available online. Here’s a taste.
Innovation in financial planning typically starts with an idea. If enough people (or the right people) think it might be a good idea, it then moves to evidence-gathering for confirmation. But the entire endeavor—designed to try to confirm if the idea makes sense—is inherently prone to confirmation bias. We should be systematically and consistently looking to disprove the idea. Without a devil’s advocate with the specific mission to try to show why the idea is a bad one, without recrimination or criticism for doing so, many bad ideas will seem to be confirmed.
I hope you will read the whole thing.