This essay uses the catastrophic Roman defeat at the Battle of Cannae as a case study to explore the 'Cannae Problem': how an organization's conventional wisdom and past successes can become the seeds of its destruction. The Roman army, with its standardized and efficient military system, achieved countless victories, yet suffered a devastating defeat at the hands of Hannibal's ingenious tactics. Hannibal exploited the Romans' overconfidence and ingrained mental models, turning their strengths into weaknesses, ultimately achieving a decisive victory. The essay analyzes the cognitive biases that led the Roman army into the Cannae trap, including confirmation bias, the curse of expertise, normalization of deviance, and groupthink. Furthermore, it cites modern examples of companies like Kodak, Blockbuster, and Nokia that failed due to the Cannae Problem, and proposes methods to avoid this trap, such as implementing red teams, studying near misses, rewarding productive dissent, and developing multiple mental models. Ultimately, the essay emphasizes the importance of learning from the lessons of the Cannae Problem, avoiding the blind application of past successes to the future, and remaining vigilant against the limitations of one's own mental models.
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