# Fixation Errors _Fixation errors_ are a type of cognitive error in which individuals and teams focus on one aspect of a situation, while ignoring more relevant information. Recall the [popular video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo) where you are instructed to count the number of passes in a basketball match. Because our attention is focused their, we miss that a gorilla is walking across the screen. > The reason you didn't notice the gorilla is somebody had you fixate on something else. And so it's really important that you think about that when we don't let other people define the problem for us, because when they define the problem for us, we become fixated on seeing things through that lens. That's why it's really important that we define the problem, we get the root problem and we do the work ourselves.