The design of better heuristics … seems to be an extraordinary area for improving social behavior. Rory Sutherland gave a great talk (below) at TEDxOxford, which is well worth your time. Rory explains how some rules work for individuals but not groups, the effect of naming a behavior, the origins of the word designated driver, [...]
Cognitive Biases
Think of the last major decision your company made. Maybe it was an acquisition, a large purchase, or perhaps it was whether to launch a new product. Odds are three things went into into that decision: (1) It probably relied on the insights of a few key executives; (2) It involved some sort of fact [...]
Nicolas Carr, author of The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing To Our Brain, speaks to how the digital age is transforming what it means to ‘search.’ When we talk about “searching” these days, we’re almost always talking about using Google to find something online. That’s a big change for a word that long carried [...]
These excerpts were taken from Roger Fisher’s excellent book Getting It Done: How to Lead When You’re Not in Charge. Everyone has filters to select information that receives attention. If we don’t consciously choose them we fall back on unconscious ones. Typically these default rules for selecting data limit the useful information we receive. Like [...]
Based on our dysfunctional national dialogue, Hamilton College Professor Paul Gary Wyckoff articulates the critical thinking skills he wants his students to learn. 1. The ability to think empirically, not theoretically. By this I mean the habit of constantly checking one’s views against evidence from the real world, and the courage to change positions if [...]
“In this program, we’re going to show you how to be more rational, and deal with some of life’s biggest decisions.” http://youtu.be/QHSzAqiIl_M We are bad at making decisions. According to science, our decisions are based on oversimplification, laziness and prejudice. And that’s assuming that we haven’t already been hijacked by our surroundings or led astray [...]
