Of all the things that never happened, these never happened the most.
The quote from Lincoln is false. But what about the ones below? Also, false. But that doesn’t stop them being popular.
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.”
Charles Darwin
Usually used on the topic of change management, but there’s no evidence that attributes this to Charles Darwin. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/05/04/adapt/
“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
Henry Ford
Again, no evidence that he said this — but that doesn’t stop it cropping up when we discuss whether customers know what they need.
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/07/28/ford-faster-horse/
“Communication is 7 percent spoken words, 38 percent tone of voice, and 55 percent body language.” Albert Mehrabian
At best, this research from Albert Mehrabian is taken out of context. Extremely popular when discussing presenting or why you should have your video on in conference calls. Here’s an actual quote from Albert Mehrabian
“Whenever I hear that misquote or misrepresentation of my findings I cringe, because it should be so obvious to anybody who would use any amount of common sense that that’s not a correct statement.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lyvz9
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” — Albert Einstein
No evidence he ever said this — along with some other “quotes” of his you may recognize. With complex problems, doing the same thing over and over again is likely to get you different results.
https://www.history.com/news/here-are-6-things-albert-einstein-never-said
“NASA spent billions developing a pen that would work in space. The Soviets used a pencil”
Last spotted in “The Lean Product Playbook”
The pen was developed independently by Friedrich Schäcter and sold to both the US and Soviet space programs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Pen
“The Chinese word for crisis is composed of 2 characters meaning danger and opportunity”
Unfortunately, not true either.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_word_for_%22crisis%22
I’ve seen these crop up in many books, training courses and presentations over the years. Usually they appear along with an image of the author to vouch for their authenticity. The danger is, they sound plausible and while they’re used to support a point, they actually undermine it. Is the authors point still as strong without this alternative fact? If they haven’t checked this, what else haven’t they checked?
What others have you come across?
