We can improve our planning.
We can fight back against competitor blindness and irrational optimism. Daniel Kahneman recommends an idea developed by Gary Klein called a premortem.

A typical premortem begins after the team has been briefed on the
plan. The leader starts the exercise by informing everyone that the
project has failed spectacularly. Over the next few minutes those in the
room independently write down every reason they can think of for the
failure—especially the kinds of things they ordinarily wouldn’t mention
as potential problems, for fear of being impolitic. For example, in a
session held at one Fortune 50–size
company, an executive suggested that a billion-dollar environmental
sustainability project had “failed” because interest waned when the CEO
retired. Another pinned the failure on a dilution of the business case
after a government agency revised its policies.

Next the leader
asks each team member, starting with the project manager, to read one
reason from his or her list; everyone states a different reason until
all have been recorded. After the session is over, the project manager
reviews the list, looking for ways to strengthen the plan.