Bad Decision Makers

• Appoint an executive sponsor to work with a project lead to frame important decisions for senior leaders to weigh in on;
• Break things down (with decision meetings at each stage), and connect them up.
• Focuses on debating the solution (instead of endlessly elaborating the problem) and gather the right people.
• Move faster without losing commitment: get comfortable living with imperfect data and being clear about what “good enough” looks like.

• Identify decisions that involve a cross-cutting group of leaders, and work with the stakeholders of each to agree on what the main steps in the process entail.
• Work through a set of real-life scenarios to pressure-test the system in collaboration with the people who will be running the process.
• Limit the number of decision-making bodies, and clarify for each its mandate, standing membership, roles etc.
• Create shared objectives, metrics, and collaboration targets.

One possible reason for the "optimism bias" is found in the way we learn new information. People are quicker to change their beliefs when the information is better than expected, compared to information that is worse than expected.

• If people were told that lockdown would be eased in two weeks, people would quickly update their beliefs. But if experts said it would last longer, people would be less likely to update their beliefs. They will make statements like "I don't really believe it" or "things change."
• People may underestimate their personal risk of infection.
• People may fail to adopt precautions like social distancing.

Outcomes bias it thinking that because things turned out reasonably good, we can underestimate how close they came to going wrong.

In the past 20 years, there have been two outbreaks of diseases caused by the new viruses. The outbreak of 2003 killed 774 people before it was contained, and the Mers outbreak in 2012 has killed 858. The new virus has far surpassed both.

When we’re consciously doing things we’re using the “executive attention network, ” the parts of the brain that control and inhibit our attention. The attention network makes it possible for us to relate directly to the world presently around us.

By contrast, when our minds wander, we activate the brain’s “default mode network, ” which is the brain “at rest”; not focused on an external, goal-oriented task. In this mode, we still tap about 95% of the energy we use when our brains are engaged in focused thinking. 

• Poor attention control: when people with poor attention control drift into daydreaming. These people are anxious, easily distracted, and have difficulty concentrating, even on their daydreams.
• Guilty-dysphoric: when our thoughts drift to unproductive and negative places. We berate ourselves for perceived mistakes or flaws and feel emotions like guilt, anxiety, and anger.
• Positive-constructive: when our thoughts veer toward the imaginative; it reflects our drive to explore ideas and feelings, plan, and problem-solve.