In this chapter, we’ll scrutinize three kinds of ghost victories. To foreshadow the three varieties, let’s imagine a long-struggling baseball team that is determined to remake itself as a winner. Because that journey may take years, the manager decides to emphasize power hitting—especially more home runs—as a more proximate measure of success. In the first kind of ghost victory, your measures show that you’re succeeding, but you’ve mistakenly attributed that success to your own work. (The team applauds itself for hitting more home runs—but it turns out every team in the league hit more, too,
...more
