Decisive
-Chip and Dan Heath
Intro
We make many, many decisions but often are completely unaware as to the nature of "why" we make these decisions
As many as 40% of lawyers wouldn't suggest a career in law, tatoos get reversed at alarming rates, NY Resolutions, etc.
We wouldn't have a judge only listen to a prosecutor to make decisions, but we do this ourselves all the time
Most of our decision-making processes are heavily influenced by our personal biases
Chapter One: The Four Villains of Decision Making
WRAP
Widen your Options
Reality-Test your Assumptions
Attain Emotional Distance
Prepare to be Wrong
Four Villains
Narrow framing (this AND that instead of this OR that)
Confirmation Bias
Short-Term Emotions
Over-Confidence
Chapter 2: Avoid a Narrow Frame
We have more options than we think (college admissions)
Consider opportunity cost (would you rather not purchase it and spend your 14.99 on other things?)
Vanishing Options - what if your current options disappeared?
Avoid "whether or not" decisions and consider them a warning flat
Chapter 3: Multitracking - Explore more than One Option at a Time
Not too many though - The Paradox of Choice and the Jelly Samples
Multitracking can prevent politics by reducing the emotional investment in any one choice
Prevention vs. Promotion Mindsets - combine both for better decisions
Beware of Sham Options - Nuclear War, Status Quo, or Surrender
This AND That vs. This OR That
Chapter 4: Find Someone Who's Solved Your Problem
Look outside - Sam Walton and the check-out lines - analyze competition, benchmarks, best practices
Look Inside - Find your Bright Spots (Kaiser Permanente and the Sepsis cases - what can you learn from your own past successes?
Create a "Decision Playlist" - Hughes and Johnson - prompts to remind to explore other areas
Ladder Up - Analogies, abstracts - Fiona Fairhurst and the Spedo
Chapter 5: Consider the Opposite
Confirmation Bias - hubris of CEOs that pay more than they should because "they can turn it around"
Constructive disagreement - devil's advocate, "murder boards" - what would have to be true for this to be the right choice?
Dis-confirming questions - law students "who were the last three associates to leave? Where are they? How can I contact them?
Caution: probing questions can backfire when strong social authority exists (doctor/patient) - ask open-ended ?s instead
Consider the opposite of your decision - marriage diaries to show your spouse isn't as selfish as you think - assume positive intent
Deliberate mistakes - women who dated men they'd previously turned down
Chapter 6: Zoom In / Zoom Out
Go with the averages - read reviews, get expert opinions (on past experience, experts don't predict well)
Again - do not fall victim to hubris. If most restaurants fail, yours is not special or less likely to fail because it is yours
Don't forget to Zoom In and check the details of a sample, as well - 3.5* reviews, but most negatives focused on price (which I don't care about), FDR had a "mail brief" that created a synopsis of his mail, but also read a few letters to get a feel for the "texture" or "temperature"
Chapter 7: Ooch
Ooching = running a small "test" or experiment to see what happens. Try it out. - perfectionist editing habits, wireless sensors
Ooching is good because we are terrible at predicting the future - "expert predictions" no better than simply assuming the past will continue
Entrepreneurs ooch naturally - carsdirect.com, Intuit's farming report app
Caveat: oching is counterproductive when commitment is needed
Common hiring error - we base too much on the interview and not enough of objective metrics - Rob the artist, ignoring GPA for "gut feelings"
Chapter 8: Overcome Short-Term Emotion
Fleeting emotions have us make poor decisions - car salesmen
Distancing ourselves from the decision can overtime this - millionaire teacher and the $3k car
Common problems - loss aversion and familiarity bias - "Zajonc"
Loss aversion + mere exposure = status quo bias - PayPal and the web app vs. PalmPilot
We can attain distance from looking at a situation as though we would be advising someone else - giving friends dating advice
Chapter 9: Honor your Core Priorities
Agonizing decisions are often a sign of priority conflict
By identifying and explicitly acknowledging your core priorities, you can make decisions simpler - Principles, Ray Dalio
Establishing is not enough - we must ACT on them
To make room for priorities, we must make room by eliminating - Jim Collins' "Must Not Do" list
Chapter 10: Bookend the Future
The future is not a certain point, but a range
To find the low point, do a pre-mortem - "the project failed gloriously - how and why?"
To find the high point, do a pre-parade - "the project was a smashing success - how and why?"
Use a "safety factor" - elevator weight limits are underestimated by 11x
Anticipating and managing expectations properly can help us - raise negotiations, the "realistic job interview"
Chapter 11: Set a Tripwire
Especiallly when progress is gradual or you're "waiting for a possible change"
Set explicit points at which you'll re-group
Partitions can also make good tripwires - individually wrapped cookies, pay in many separate envelopes
Parkinson's Law - set deadlines
Stop-losses, avoid the "sunk cost fallacy"
They can actually make the margin of safety higher by allowing a quiet mind until the tripwire is reached and allowing safe gaps for experimentation
Get out of autopilot
Chapter 12: Trusting the Process
Group decisions must be seen as "fair"
Consistently using the process correctly will affirm those involved that fairness is a concern
Procedural justice is critical in determining how people will feel after the decision has been made
Trust the process. Think "Principles" by Ray Dalio - when the principles were followed or disagreed with their decision, the principles were usually right
Don't make decisions like teenagers - only about 30% of decisions even consider more than one alternative (Binary decisions - should I or should I not?)