I think that captured the key essence of a lot of the fraud that goes on. Essentially you have people who consider themselves to be reasonably critical thinkers, and the dissonance of how wrong they were is so great that the external information is rejected. Being aware of this effect is critical for people who want to be active listeners. You have to accept the possibility that the information you are hearing that goes against everything you believe, might be true, and then work to understand whether or not you can test the two disjoint beliefs for validity.
Were I in the position George found himself in, I would start by asking deeper questions about how the process works, how it fails, and how one can test that it is working as expected. If people get evasive it lends credence to the dissonant information, if they are forthcoming and have answers to the questions, it tends to support the core belief. "Trust but verify" is often used in this sort of context.
Always listen for meta-data and probe it when it throws up red flags. When someone gets angry in response to what seems like a simple question, follow that anger to see where it originates.
Good points, these are useful ways to confront it. Sometimes, I also think of Andy Grove's motto, "only the paranoid survive", which helps to check and challenge ideas.
Were I in the position George found himself in, I would start by asking deeper questions about how the process works, how it fails, and how one can test that it is working as expected. If people get evasive it lends credence to the dissonant information, if they are forthcoming and have answers to the questions, it tends to support the core belief. "Trust but verify" is often used in this sort of context.
Always listen for meta-data and probe it when it throws up red flags. When someone gets angry in response to what seems like a simple question, follow that anger to see where it originates.