Even experienced practitioners make pattern recognition errors. Understanding common mistakes helps avoid them:
Pattern Forcing
Seeing patterns that aren't there because you expect them. Every disruption is unique despite following common patterns. Forcing exact matches leads to poor decisions.
Laura learned this lesson expensively. She'd profited from Trust Architecture Rebuild in 2008's financial crisis and expected identical patterns in 2020. But the trust crisis manifested differently—in social institutions rather than financial ones. Her forced pattern matching led to misallocated resources.
Pattern Blindness
Opposite of forcing—failing to see patterns because surface differences obscure underlying similarities. This blindness misses opportunities others capture.
Martin suffered pattern blindness during early digital disruption. He couldn't see how online commerce followed the same Proximity Paradox pattern as historical disruptions—just inverting digital rather than physical proximity. His blindness cost years of missed opportunities.
Pattern Timing Errors
Recognizing patterns correctly but timing interventions poorly. Being too early wastes resources; too late faces entrenched competition.
Nancy recognized the Skill Stack Reshuffling pattern accurately but moved too early. She built training programs for skills that wouldn't be valued for another year. By the time demand materialized, she'd exhausted resources and competitors captured the opportunity she'd correctly identified.