Think Twice

An interesting talk by Michael Mauboussin, on his book by the same name, Think Twice.

The snippet attached reads:

No one intentionally makes bad decisions. Yet we make them all the time. In fact, some of the worst disasters in recent history--the collapse of major investment banks, the global financial meltdown--were the result of seemingly reasonable decisions made by a lot of smart people. How does this happen?

If you've watched, don't bother reading further.....

He shows how bad decisions can come of certain thinking fallacies that we all typically fall victim to. How a lot of decisions are intuition based, but how there's a context in which intuition works best, and ones in which it won't. But the mind is conditioned and trained to work in a particular manner, and it's only awareness that can enable the discernment. 

I love the math problem that he starts with as instance of how we are vulnerable to those fallacies.

He brings out three points in the context of better decision making:

• Smart people do dumb things....what matters is your rationality quotient
• Recognize when you need to think twice
• It's about opportunity

It's hard to put a synopsis; this attempt is to egg you on to watch if you haven't already :)

And I love the two tools he recommends to enable a higher level of awareness, a journal and a checklist....I'm addicted to both, so feels good....but kidding apart, I do believe they've both been huge  huge enablers.

He says, when you use a checklist you'll find that there is this huge increase in outcome, without an increase in underlying skill; you can increase efficiency of an existing team with no increase in input or skill, and this I completely vouch for. I'm so hooked, I often times do checklists even for chores at home, like optimizing my sundays :)