The smartest guy in the room—that’s you, right? It’s easy to get tunnel vision and forget that there might be opinions other than yours or, more importantly, facts that don’t support your plans. And if you’re like most powerful people, you don’t encourage those around you to debunk your theories. So when that threatening trend appears on the horizon, or a report warns of disaster, it’s all too likely that you’ll dismiss it. In short, you’re in denial. Denial is the reason why CEOs refuse to acknowledge key data points and counterarguments and miss major societal and consumer shifts.