Below is a preview from the book, OPT-IN: How Intentional Optimism Can Change Everything, by Julie Williamson, PhD: So, when trying to think outside the box, remember, first: you are the box. While it’s not always easy to think outside your own box, remember that you’re building both strength and flexibility in the decision-making muscles you need to make your big decisions better. More dynamic decision making begins with knowing more about yourself, so you can sidestep potential bias and gain new perspectives about a problem. Once you do that, you can better check and challenge those biases, adjust your approach, and bring out a more holistic understanding of a situation, better ensuring that you are solving the whole problem. You must identify the mental mistakes or cognitive biases that tend to get in your way. To make better decisions, you need to break out of these patterns and see things differently, even if it is uncomfortable.įirst, you need to understand your own decision-making strengths and your blind spots. But following the same strategy for every problem limits your abilities. We use the same tools and habits every time, even if the decisions are vastly different. Many of us approach decision making from the same perspective over and over. In a recent HBR article, she explores those profiles - I swing between the thinker and visionary - and their inherent biases.īut at the core she offers a central insight: before we can grapple with the pros and cons of a specific decision to be made, we need to get out of our own heads and examine how we - as individuals - tend to approach problem-solving: As a result, I have been tracking all sorts of great contributors on the topic, such as Cheryl Strauss Einhorn, whose new book, Problem Solver, is about the psychology of personal decision-making and ‘Problem Solver Profiles’. I’ve written a three-part series on decision-making for Reworked, the first of which was published this week: Deciding How To Decide. It is not about mobilizing people into collective delusional mindsets or quests.Įmergent management starts with an appreciation of the cognitive biases underlying group dynamics and decision-making, even when reaching for the stars. The emergent business has room for realists, because the core foundation is about being engaged in your work, and connecting to others through a deep culture based on constant learning and adaptation. The fact that one in ten or one in a hundred turns out to create a billion-dollar business justifies the waste and pain of the failed nine or ninety-nine efforts, at least in the mind of the entrepreneur. There is no really good intervention possible to counter irrational exuberance once an elite group in an entrepreneurial organization has collectively decided to move forward. At the most obvious, pointing out that some initiative is based on optimistic projections will lead to the realist being sidelined as a troublemaker intent on demotivating people. Realists are forced out by the organizational immune system, especially when confronting senior leadership about the cognitive biases inherent in most policy settings. In this interview, Kahneman also points out that the key trait of entrepreneurs is ‘delusional optimism’.
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