WiB Solutions Switzerland brings Management to the classroom

This Educational Sheet is brought to you by WiB Solutions Switzerland – WiBi bringing management to the classroom © by WiB Solutions AG 2013 info@wib.ch / www.wib.ch

Nirvana Fallacy explained by WiB|||| What is a ‘fallacy’: A logical fallacy is when a person embraces a position or tries to convince another person to embrace a position based on an error of thought. It is therefore an error of reasoning. Some fallacies are so often happening in daily life, that some clever people like professors and researchers have given these names and descriptions, like the “Nirvana fallacy.”

What is Nirvana? You may know Nirvana as one of the greatest Grunge rockbands. But there is another meaning for Nirvana. The origin of the word comes out of religion, in this case Buddhism.

Nirvana is something like Paradise. Not a real place which exists, but rather an actual state of none-existence. When someone reaches nirvana, their soul is in harmony with the universe

and they would cease to exist. Therefore we use the word as a state of being which is very good or very positive.

But now, what is the Nirvana Fallacy? Now we must think about a situation which you have certainly experienced as well. Think about Lego. Did you ever play Lego? Sure you did; never mind if it was Lego Friends or Lego Star Wars or just the normal Lego Bricks. What did you try to build? Sometimes I hope you just left it to your imagination, but

other times you surely tried to rebuild exactly something like you saw on a catalogue or a Lego brochure. perfect as on the picture. Most of the time when you tried to get it done exactly as you saw it in the catalogue or the package, you found it never looks as What was your reaction?

Often you may have been totally frustrated, even to a point of angrily giving up playing Lego, since your creation will never be as perfect as the one pictured. Did this or a similar story happen to you as well?

Why bringing management to the classroom? • Get students aware of what their parents are doing

• Discuss in class why decision taking is not always easy

• Prepare students for future free decision taking and avoidance of thinking mistakes

WiB Solutions Switzerland brings Management to the classroom

This Educational Sheet is brought to you by WiB Solutions Switzerland – WiBi bringing management to the classroom © by WiB Solutions AG 2013 info@wib.ch / www.wib.ch

What does that mean for Decisions and Actions in Life? Such a situation does not only happen to you playing Lego. This very same story happens every day in the offices and places where your parents work, when people must decide on important questions during business meetings. And in the very same way, your parents will be trapped if they compare their own solution or their own work with a perfect solution they have in their head, and this will often lead to a wrong conclusion - to not do it at all. Thousands of good ideas and concepts are dropped in business every day because somebody compares their realistic solution to a solution which may be so perfect that it actually does not even exist.

Questions to discuss and tasks to do:

• Why is it important to avoid fallacies?

• How could that be achieved?

• What could be alternative names for the Nirvana Fallacy?

• Can you think of any other notorious fallacy?

• Can you draw another version of the Nirvana Fallacy?

Teachers Note: Answer sheet with more explanations and Quiz available for free at www.wib.ch/academy/bringingmanagement2classroom

More free WiBi business cartoons available at http://goo.gl/1UGGu

Other fallacies you may want to look up yourself:

The Math: •X is what we have.

•Y is the perfect situation.

•Therefore, X is not good enough.