How cognitive shortcuts distort planning decisions and what to do about it.
Did you start 2026 with a fresh zing of excitement, a carefully crafted strategy after a detailed analysis of 2025 data? Though, despite all the attention and time you put into it, you're failing to see any vast improvements and in fact that well-constructed campaign has fallen flat on its face? Turns out the Brooklyn Beckham drama has stolen the limelight instead and your idea of 12 dancing unicorns parachuting off the Empire State isn't right for your ICP after all.
Want to know why?
Unfortunately there is an uncomfortable truth overshadowing your strategic planning sessions - the way you think about the future is often more influential than the data you're using to plan for it. Most marketing and sales teams fail to review data objectively and they see previous activity through the lens of bias; a set of predictable mental shortcuts that help us make sense of complex information but quietly distort how we interpret it.
Below, we explore some of the key biases distorting your 2026 strategy, grounded in decades of psychological research and what you can do to counteract them.
1. Planning Fallacy: The 'It'll Only Take Two Weeks' Delusion
You know that website redesign you confidently told your boss would take 'maybe three weeks, tops'? The one that's now rolling into month four with stakeholders still debating whether the CTA button should be 'coral' or 'sunset orange'?
That's the planning fallacy in action.
We systematically underestimate how long tasks will take and how much they'll cost, even when we know similar tasks took longer in the past.
Why it matters for 2026 planning:
Remember that Q4 campaign that was 'definitely launching in October'? The one that actually went live in mid-November after Legal had seventeen rounds of feedback and IT discovered the integration 'just needed a quick tweak'?
Your forecast assumes ideal conditions; cooperative stakeholders, smooth approvals, a world where the design team doesn't suddenly decide they want to 'explore some concepts' two days before launch.
The planning fallacy leads to overly ambitious timelines and underestimated budgets. By the end of Q1, you're already behind schedule, not because of poor execution, but because you planned like you were living in a world where stakeholders respond to emails promptly and nobody goes on unexpected annual leave.
2. Confirmation Bias: The 'See, I Told You So' Syndrome
Confirmation bias is basically your brain's version of only reading the 5-star reviews while conveniently scrolling past the 1-star ones that mention 'arrived broken' and 'smelled weird.'
When planning for 2026, teams engage in strategic cherry-picking. You'll spend hours in spreadsheets finding the
one metric that proves your preferred channel is working ('Look! Engagement is up 3%!'), whilst conveniently ignoring the seventeen other metrics screaming 'THIS ISN'T WORKING' in Arial Bold 72pt.
The narrative becomes self-reinforcing: 'Our digital strategy is strong' or 'That channel doesn't work for us.'
Research shows that 87% of consumers are more likely to purchase products with positive reviews confirming their initial impressions. Marketing teams exhibit the exact same behaviour, except instead of buying questionable kitchen gadgets, they're committing six-figure budgets to strategies validated by extremely selective data interpretation.
Why it matters for 2026 planning:
When building your annual strategy, confirmation bias creates echo chambers. You emphasise the metrics that support your preferred channels. You cherry-pick testimonials. You interpret mixed results as validation, like reading your horoscope and thinking 'Yes! I am feeling energetic about new opportunities!'
The result? You become more confident in your perspective, but not necessarily more accurate.
3. Optimism Bias: The 'But This Time It'll Be Different' Fantasy
Optimism bias is your brain's version of getting back together with an ex because 'they've really changed this time.' It's the tendency to believe positive outcomes are more likely for us than for other people, despite overwhelming evidence that we are, in fact, not exempt from the laws of probability.
When forecasting 2026 results, teams predict they'll exceed targets even when historical data shows consistent underperformance. .
'Yes, the last three product launches were delayed, over budget and underperformed, but this one will definitely hit all our targets because… reasons.' It's the business equivalent of thinking you'll definitely go to the gym this time because you bought expensive trainers..
Why it matters for 2026 planning:
Optimism bias creates revenue projections that are unrealistic. You commit resources based on best-case scenarios.
By Q2, when results fall short, you're in another meeting about 'recalibrating expectations,' which is corporate speak for 'we were wrong, again.'
4. Hindsight Bias: The 'I Totally Saw That Coming' Delusion
Hindsight bias is your brain's way of rewriting history to make you look smarter than you actually were.
Once we know an outcome, it feels inevitable. 'Of course that campaign succeeded—the signs were there all along.' Were they though? Or are you just exceptionally good at retroactive pattern recognition?
It's particularly amusing in post-campaign debriefs. 'The creative was always going to resonate, we nailed the insight' conveniently glosses over the three weeks of arguments about whether to use blue or teal and if the 3rd or 12th version of the same image was strongest.
Why it matters for 2026 planning:
When reviewing 2025 results, hindsight bias prevents you from accurately understanding what drove success or failure. You create neat narratives that are about as accurate as a Netflix 'Based on True Events' film.
'The Q3 campaign succeeded because we understood our audience' sounds great in the board presentation, but completely ignores the fact that your competitor had a major PR disaster the same week, your main distribution partner ran a surprise promotion.
This leads to doubling down on tactics that worked due to luck rather than strategy, whilst abandoning approaches that failed for completely unrelated reasons. It's strategic planning via selective memory.
The Cumulative Effect: When Biases Throw a Party
The real danger isn't any single bias showing up to ruin your planning session, it's when they all arrive together like a terrible group project where everyone's contribution makes things worse.
Here's how the band gets back together:
• Hindsight bias rewrites 2025 into a neat story where everything makes sense (it doesn't)
• Confirmation bias makes you selectively gather evidence for 2026 that supports your rewritten history
• Planning fallacy convinces you that 2026 will require less time and budget than it actually will (spoiler: it won't)
• Optimism bias inflates your expectations
By the time you've finalised your plan, you're essentially operating on a foundation of carefully constructed fiction. Not because you're incompetent but because this is literally how human cognition works.
The result? You carry these distorted narratives forward into 2026, doubling down on what seemed to work, cutting what appeared to fail and reinforcing assumptions that may be about as solid as a chocolate teapot.
Building Behavioural Clarity Into Your Planning (AKA: How to Stop Being Your Own Worst Enemy)
The good news? Once you understand these biases, you can design processes to counteract them. Think of it as installing guardrails on your brain's highway to questionable decisions. Research on debiasing strategies suggests several evidence-based interventions that actually work:
1. Use reference class forecasting: Instead of planning from the inside out ('what we hope to achieve if everything goes perfectly'), start with base rates. What
actually happened to similar campaigns in similar conditions? This 'outside view' is like checking how long Google Maps says the journey will take instead of assuming you'll hit every green light. It reduces both planning fallacy and optimism bias, though it does make you slightly less fun at planning meetings.
2. Seek disconfirming evidence: Actively look for data that contradicts your preferred strategy. Assign someone the official role of 'devil's advocate' to challenge assumptions. Make them present last. Listen to them like they're telling you where you left your keys, not like they're explaining their conspiracy theory about how birds aren't real. This counteracts confirmation bias.
3. Conduct pre-mortems: Before finalising plans, imagine it's December 2026 and your strategy has spectacularly failed. Work backwards to identify what could have gone wrong. This surfaces risks that optimism bias obscures - it's uncomfortable, slightly depressing but remarkably effective.
4. Build in behavioural checkpoints: Schedule quarterly reviews that explicitly examine whether you're falling prey to these biases. Are timelines slipping exactly as the planning fallacy predicted? (Yes.) Are you only noticing data that confirms your strategy whilst ignoring the metrics that suggest you're driving the wrong way up a one-way street? (Probably.) Are you blaming 'market conditions' for everything? (Definitely.) The point isn't to feel bad about it—it's to catch it before Q4 arrives (again).
Before You Finalise Your 2026 Plan
The fundamental question isn't whether you're biased - you are, because all humans are. The question is: are you accounting for it?
At Cognition, we use principles from behavioural science to help marketing and sales teams separate signals from noise. Our behavioural performance reviews strip out bias, reveal the psychological drivers behind your results and build a foundation for truly evidence-based planning.
If you're planning for 2026, don't start with assumptions - start with behavioural clarity.
Want to test your own biases?
Take our quick Bias Audit Quiz to uncover how bias might be distorting your 2026 planning.
