It’s a good bet that, while you’re scrolling through your social media over the last 24 hours, you have seen at least one list of common traits of successful people, which probably included some items like:

• They wake up early.
• They say “no” to many things.
• They network.
• They exercise.
• They avoid meetings.
• They have grit.
• They ignore others.
• They think win-win.

Perhaps you read these and recognised some of your own traits (and gave yourself an internal high-five), or maybe you were left with feelings of inadequacy reading about things you aren’t doing.

Success lists are an ever-present feature on our Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram feeds, with people espousing their routines which supposedly drive their success. But there’s a catch. One academic at Bayes Business School says that these lists may not only be useless but potentially harmful to decision makers, managers, and entrepreneurs.

“These lists make for good social media content,” says Dr Emre Soyer, a Behavioural Scientist who teaches the elective MBA Managerial Decision-Making module. “But beyond that there is very little to recommend them.”

So why are they problematic? There are several reasons, Dr Soyer explains:

Success is subjective

Any given success is specific to a particular person and context. Yet success list actions and traits are presented as easily applicable to any person or situation. Our starting conditions, careers, families, social lives, priorities, and visions may all differ significantly from those who are held up as the definition of ‘successful people’.

Success lists conveniently ignore the things people had to give up for their ‘success’. Investing time and effort in one particular activity will inevitably take valuable resources from another one. Failing to consider the personal nature of success and the costly trade-offs of different strategies can ultimately lead to various regrets rather than the expected success.

Evidence is unreliable

Advice based on success tends to be heavily based on someone’s subjective interpretation of their personal experience. Just because it worked for one person does not mean it will work for someone else. If the causality is not based on rigorous testing and scientific analysis, it would be hard to judge its validity, even if the advice “sounds” reasonable.

For instance, anecdotal evidence can blur the lines between what is cause, and what is consequence. Behaviours that supposedly successful people share – like avoiding meetings or ignoring others – may be the luxuries of the extremely successful. These behaviours may be the result of a certain level of success and not the cause.

Another problem of anecdotes is that they live in the past. Times change, the world evolves and technology rapidly advances. As a result, most advice for success in business can be quickly rendered obsolete.

Failures are missing

Social media posts are typically highly curated, presenting only what the person posting wants us to see. Yet if there are outcomes that we don’t get to see, their absence can lead to a false sense of effectiveness of those perceived ‘successful actions’.

Analyses based only on the successful ignore the possibility that many people apply the same strategies but fail. What is conveniently missing from most advice for success is the success rate – a vital piece of information that decision makers need to judge their chances of success. If a lot of people entered the game but only a few succeeded (i.e., success rate is low), then it’s unlikely that a simple strategy can make much difference. If it did, many of the motivated failures would have adapted it and become successful.

Learning the skill and science behind decision-making

Advice for success can be motivating. No doubt about that. But the ubiquity of success lists signals the faulty ways in which decision makers learn from readily available data and experience. Benchmarking success seems like a viable method to achieve one’s goals, yet the hard-to-reverse biases that such an analysis installs in decisions is often underestimated.

The Managerial Decision-Making module is an elective on the Full-time, Evening Executive and Modular Executive MBA programmes. It gives you a better understanding of your current way of thinking and how you approach problems using relevant information and methods. It also explores how others make decisions – and how you can influence the process, quality and output of team decisions. You’ll also gain an understanding of how innovation and technologies, such as big data, machine learning, and AI bring new challenges to decision-making approaches.

Next time a success list pops-up on your social media feed, think also about how success is personal, evidence is anecdotal, and failures are missing.