Biases are nonconscious drivers — cognitive quirks — that influence how people see the world. They appear to be universal in most of humanity, perhaps hardwired into the brain as part of our genetic or cultural heritage, and they exert their influence outside conscious awareness.
On the whole, biases are helpful and adaptive. They enable people to make quick, efficient judgments and decisions with minimal cognitive effort. But they can also blind a person to new information, or inhibit someone from considering valuable options when making an important decision.
All of these biases, and others, lead many great companies and institutions to make disastrous and dysfunctional decisions.
Cognitive psychology and design, they are two closely related fields. Cognitive bias should be a powerful tool in the designer’s belt. Because we can take advantage of it.
Good teamwork is the heart of successful business. But what is a good team? Many teams are riven by dysfunctionality, poor leadership, groupthink, and in-fighting. Research across 180 teams and 37,000 employees at Google has identified the core component of high-performance teams - psychological safety. This is a collaborative, customer-focused and civil environment in which creativity, critical thought and cognitive flexibility can flourish. But drop the smallest amount of toxicity into the team and everything can quickly becomes poisonous and low-performance. Informed by years of cutting-edge management research and decades of practical experience in organisational transformation, this Masterclass explains how to deliver a high-performance, psychologically safe environment and how to quickly identify and eliminate the various toxic processes, behaviours and people that destroy the core of a great business.
American Bankers Association Risk Management Forum April 29, 2010 Tyler D. ...tnunnally
American Bankers Association Risk Management Forum, April 29, 2010. Best Practices: Managing Judgment Risk. Presented by Tyler D. Nunnally, Founder & CEO, Upside Risk
Psychological Safety in the Time of PandemicJohn Dobbin
Talk | Best Agile Articles Conference -- Sept 28th, 2020
Findings from recent interviews and observations with medium to large size organisations in the Middle East and Asia Pacific region
- Why Psychological Safety is Critical
- Good Practices
- Bad Practices
Growing Interest in Psychological Safety
Definition
Impact on teams
Zones
Fear and Seeking systems of mammalian brains
Impacts of toxic cultures
Mental Health symptoms since COVID-19 outbreak
Pandemic of Uncertainty
Confusing Productivity with Performance
Digital Panopticons
Backbiting
Authentic Communication and Vulnerability Modelling
Wellness Check-ins
Compassionate layoffs
World at Work Total Rewards 2017 presentation - lantern group - behavioral sc...Kurt Nelson, PhD
Our presentation from the 2017 Total Rewards session that showed how we used behavioral science to change the incentive and total reward framework for Lilly.
Behavioural economics (and beyond: a presentation to Which? magazineJames Caig
A presentation to Which? magazine covering the main ideas behind Behavioural Economics and the way advertisers are using it. The deck also touches on how the theory fits with current government thinking, and how technology is helping brands apply nudge theory even more easily
Cognitive psychology and design, they are two closely related fields. Cognitive bias should be a powerful tool in the designer’s belt. Because we can take advantage of it.
Good teamwork is the heart of successful business. But what is a good team? Many teams are riven by dysfunctionality, poor leadership, groupthink, and in-fighting. Research across 180 teams and 37,000 employees at Google has identified the core component of high-performance teams - psychological safety. This is a collaborative, customer-focused and civil environment in which creativity, critical thought and cognitive flexibility can flourish. But drop the smallest amount of toxicity into the team and everything can quickly becomes poisonous and low-performance. Informed by years of cutting-edge management research and decades of practical experience in organisational transformation, this Masterclass explains how to deliver a high-performance, psychologically safe environment and how to quickly identify and eliminate the various toxic processes, behaviours and people that destroy the core of a great business.
American Bankers Association Risk Management Forum April 29, 2010 Tyler D. ...tnunnally
American Bankers Association Risk Management Forum, April 29, 2010. Best Practices: Managing Judgment Risk. Presented by Tyler D. Nunnally, Founder & CEO, Upside Risk
Psychological Safety in the Time of PandemicJohn Dobbin
Talk | Best Agile Articles Conference -- Sept 28th, 2020
Findings from recent interviews and observations with medium to large size organisations in the Middle East and Asia Pacific region
- Why Psychological Safety is Critical
- Good Practices
- Bad Practices
Growing Interest in Psychological Safety
Definition
Impact on teams
Zones
Fear and Seeking systems of mammalian brains
Impacts of toxic cultures
Mental Health symptoms since COVID-19 outbreak
Pandemic of Uncertainty
Confusing Productivity with Performance
Digital Panopticons
Backbiting
Authentic Communication and Vulnerability Modelling
Wellness Check-ins
Compassionate layoffs
World at Work Total Rewards 2017 presentation - lantern group - behavioral sc...Kurt Nelson, PhD
Our presentation from the 2017 Total Rewards session that showed how we used behavioral science to change the incentive and total reward framework for Lilly.
Behavioural economics (and beyond: a presentation to Which? magazineJames Caig
A presentation to Which? magazine covering the main ideas behind Behavioural Economics and the way advertisers are using it. The deck also touches on how the theory fits with current government thinking, and how technology is helping brands apply nudge theory even more easily
Employees encounter a lot of choices. It is human resources’ ongoing challenge to help workers make these choices better and be more informed. Luckily, there is a huge amount of literature from behavioral science around topics like nudges and choice architecture that you can use to your advantage. Hear from Morningstar Inc.’s behavioral economist about today’s leading tips from the science behind behavior change.
The webinar will cover:
An introduction to the behavioral science topics that are most relevant to HR.
How small changes in environment and communication can make big differences in employee action.
Concrete tips and takeaways that you can apply from these lessons to your job.
Business opportunities of moderate to even light complexity often expose decision makers to hundreds, if not tens of thousands, of coordinated decision options that should be considered thoughtfully before making resource commitments. That complexity is just overwhelming! Unfortunately, the typical response is either analysis paralysis or "shooting from the hip," both of which expose decision makers to unnecessary loss of value and risk. This tutorial teaches decision makers how to tame option complexity to develop creative, valuable decision strategies that range from "mild to wild" with three simple thinking tools.
Behavioral economics overview presentation at TGASKurt Nelson, PhD
The following was the presentation that I gave at the TGAS conference in Texas this spring. Highlighting some of the behavioral science principles that can be used to help improve your incentives and sales operations.
An investigator’s job is to come to an unbiased conclusion about something that has occurred. But if the investigator is impacted by unconscious biases, staying impartial can be challenging. It’s important, therefore, for anyone conducting investigations to recognize the potential for bias and work towards eliminating it. The more we understand our own biases, and the vulnerability we all have to be influenced by cognitive biases, the more we can do to prevent these biases from impacting our decision making.Join Amy Oppenheimer, attorney, author and leading expert on workplace investigations, teaches investigators to conduct impartial investigations that aren’t affected by unconscious biases or the influence of external forces. Webinar attendees will learn:
To identify the different forms of unconscious bias
The impact that bias can have on an investigation
How to recognize the signs of unconscious bias
What the Implicit Association Test (IAT) can teach us about unconscious bias
What studies have taught us about bias in different segments, such as law and education
What confirmation bias is and how to avoid it
ing the Conditions for Failure: An Initial Exploration of the Systemic Relat...Janet Fulton
Success and failure in the creative and media industries are not polar opposites. They are intimately connected and both are enabled and constrained by the same entrepreneurial systemic structures. Creative failure and creative success both require equal research attention to help us understand the co-dependent relationship that exists between them. In a predominantly neoliberal world, with its consuming emphasis on winning at all costs, success is not only easy to identify but is valorised above all else, particularly for individuals, while failure is often hidden or perceived as negative. However, we argue that the relationship between failure, risk and success is deeply symbiotic and should be examined from a systemic rather than an individual view.
Creative practice emerges out of a system where an individual is placed in a relationship to the social and cultural context and network of peers that enables and constrains creative opportunities. If, as we argue, creative practice is systemic, it is important to examine how these factors intersect to allow both failure and success to emerge and understand the close relationship between them. There is a need to understand how creative failures and successes are managed by players in the media and creative industries.
This paper provides a brief literature review of creative success and creative failure and an analysis of the current media and creative industries’ landscape. Using a theoretical discussion of the relationship between failure, risk and success and how creative industry entrepreneurial neo-liberal business conditions are forcing individuals to be risk averse, the proposition being presented is that the media industries, operating through SMEs in this neo-liberally dominated market, have become highly constrained and, as such, create conditions that restrict creative opportunities largely through their own outsourcing and sub-contractng behaviour. We conclude that further research is needed about the relationship between creative
failures and successes of media industry sectors and how these are treated by both employers and those seeking to work in the creative industries.
Urgent problems, rational solutions and passionate patient advocates are necessary but not sufficient to create change in health care organisations.
Lois Kelly and Carmen Medina of Rebels at Work will look at common mistakes in developing and introducing new ideas and discuss important and often overlooked organizational, interpersonal and personal self-awareness practices needed to navigate the journey from ‘I see a problem and have an idea’ to the idea being adopted.
When we are young, we learn things like manners, social cues and social values and incorporate them into our daily actions to the point that we don’t even think about them. How useful would it be to have a collaboration and influencing framework, a tool to improve your social awareness to the point that advanced leadership skills become second nature to you? Today we’re going to explore one such model, the SCARF® model.
The SCARF Model was developed by David Rock in 2008 and is described as a brain based model, as it leverages detailed neuroscience research.
The 3 Themes of the SCARF Model
SCARF centres around three core themes or ideas. Our rough translation of those themes is:
1 - ‘Social threats’ are perceived by the brain with the same intensity as actual physical threats.
2 - When are under threat, our ability to solve problems or make decisions or interact with others is diminished. When we are in a ‘reward environment’ our abilities are enhanced.
3 - The threat response, or the desire to avoid pain, is more common and always outweighs the desire to seek pleasure. Thus the more pain we can avoid in social situations, the more effective we can be.
The past five years have been good to the auto industry. Following a cyclical downturn and a series of bankruptcies and harsh restructurings in the wake of the 2008–09 financial crisis, U.S. vehicle sales have been strong, especially for highly profitable trucks and SUVs. Globally, automobiles have grown more attractive than ever, with all kinds of exciting new technologies — impressive powertrain systems, mobile connectivity, advanced driver-assistance systems, maintenance monitoring, and the like — further exciting car buyers.
In the eyes of many in the industry, the future looks equally bright. Oil and gas prices appear likely to remain reasonably low for some time, encouraging big-margin SUV sales. The technology inside autos will continue to grow more sophisticated and affordable.
Automakers feel confident investing large sums of money in developing new features for their cars, particularly advanced safety and navigation options. Many suspect that they can make fully autonomous vehicles (AVs), machines that can drive themselves anywhere, under any traffic and weather conditions, without a human ever having to take the wheel, a reality within a relatively short time, as little as five or 10 years. That, in turn, would open huge new markets, it is hoped, as buyers — large fleets as well as individuals — flock to driverless vehicles and associated services.
There is much truth in the vision of fully autonomous vehicles. Certainly, there will come a time when commuters can relax, eat breakfast, and write emails on the way to work as their robotic taxis transport them on algorithmically chosen routes in perfect safety. But as the recent fatal crash of a Tesla in semi-autonomous mode sadly made clear, it will probably take decades, not years, for this vision to become a common reality.
Employees encounter a lot of choices. It is human resources’ ongoing challenge to help workers make these choices better and be more informed. Luckily, there is a huge amount of literature from behavioral science around topics like nudges and choice architecture that you can use to your advantage. Hear from Morningstar Inc.’s behavioral economist about today’s leading tips from the science behind behavior change.
The webinar will cover:
An introduction to the behavioral science topics that are most relevant to HR.
How small changes in environment and communication can make big differences in employee action.
Concrete tips and takeaways that you can apply from these lessons to your job.
Business opportunities of moderate to even light complexity often expose decision makers to hundreds, if not tens of thousands, of coordinated decision options that should be considered thoughtfully before making resource commitments. That complexity is just overwhelming! Unfortunately, the typical response is either analysis paralysis or "shooting from the hip," both of which expose decision makers to unnecessary loss of value and risk. This tutorial teaches decision makers how to tame option complexity to develop creative, valuable decision strategies that range from "mild to wild" with three simple thinking tools.
Behavioral economics overview presentation at TGASKurt Nelson, PhD
The following was the presentation that I gave at the TGAS conference in Texas this spring. Highlighting some of the behavioral science principles that can be used to help improve your incentives and sales operations.
An investigator’s job is to come to an unbiased conclusion about something that has occurred. But if the investigator is impacted by unconscious biases, staying impartial can be challenging. It’s important, therefore, for anyone conducting investigations to recognize the potential for bias and work towards eliminating it. The more we understand our own biases, and the vulnerability we all have to be influenced by cognitive biases, the more we can do to prevent these biases from impacting our decision making.Join Amy Oppenheimer, attorney, author and leading expert on workplace investigations, teaches investigators to conduct impartial investigations that aren’t affected by unconscious biases or the influence of external forces. Webinar attendees will learn:
To identify the different forms of unconscious bias
The impact that bias can have on an investigation
How to recognize the signs of unconscious bias
What the Implicit Association Test (IAT) can teach us about unconscious bias
What studies have taught us about bias in different segments, such as law and education
What confirmation bias is and how to avoid it
ing the Conditions for Failure: An Initial Exploration of the Systemic Relat...Janet Fulton
Success and failure in the creative and media industries are not polar opposites. They are intimately connected and both are enabled and constrained by the same entrepreneurial systemic structures. Creative failure and creative success both require equal research attention to help us understand the co-dependent relationship that exists between them. In a predominantly neoliberal world, with its consuming emphasis on winning at all costs, success is not only easy to identify but is valorised above all else, particularly for individuals, while failure is often hidden or perceived as negative. However, we argue that the relationship between failure, risk and success is deeply symbiotic and should be examined from a systemic rather than an individual view.
Creative practice emerges out of a system where an individual is placed in a relationship to the social and cultural context and network of peers that enables and constrains creative opportunities. If, as we argue, creative practice is systemic, it is important to examine how these factors intersect to allow both failure and success to emerge and understand the close relationship between them. There is a need to understand how creative failures and successes are managed by players in the media and creative industries.
This paper provides a brief literature review of creative success and creative failure and an analysis of the current media and creative industries’ landscape. Using a theoretical discussion of the relationship between failure, risk and success and how creative industry entrepreneurial neo-liberal business conditions are forcing individuals to be risk averse, the proposition being presented is that the media industries, operating through SMEs in this neo-liberally dominated market, have become highly constrained and, as such, create conditions that restrict creative opportunities largely through their own outsourcing and sub-contractng behaviour. We conclude that further research is needed about the relationship between creative
failures and successes of media industry sectors and how these are treated by both employers and those seeking to work in the creative industries.
Urgent problems, rational solutions and passionate patient advocates are necessary but not sufficient to create change in health care organisations.
Lois Kelly and Carmen Medina of Rebels at Work will look at common mistakes in developing and introducing new ideas and discuss important and often overlooked organizational, interpersonal and personal self-awareness practices needed to navigate the journey from ‘I see a problem and have an idea’ to the idea being adopted.
When we are young, we learn things like manners, social cues and social values and incorporate them into our daily actions to the point that we don’t even think about them. How useful would it be to have a collaboration and influencing framework, a tool to improve your social awareness to the point that advanced leadership skills become second nature to you? Today we’re going to explore one such model, the SCARF® model.
The SCARF Model was developed by David Rock in 2008 and is described as a brain based model, as it leverages detailed neuroscience research.
The 3 Themes of the SCARF Model
SCARF centres around three core themes or ideas. Our rough translation of those themes is:
1 - ‘Social threats’ are perceived by the brain with the same intensity as actual physical threats.
2 - When are under threat, our ability to solve problems or make decisions or interact with others is diminished. When we are in a ‘reward environment’ our abilities are enhanced.
3 - The threat response, or the desire to avoid pain, is more common and always outweighs the desire to seek pleasure. Thus the more pain we can avoid in social situations, the more effective we can be.
The past five years have been good to the auto industry. Following a cyclical downturn and a series of bankruptcies and harsh restructurings in the wake of the 2008–09 financial crisis, U.S. vehicle sales have been strong, especially for highly profitable trucks and SUVs. Globally, automobiles have grown more attractive than ever, with all kinds of exciting new technologies — impressive powertrain systems, mobile connectivity, advanced driver-assistance systems, maintenance monitoring, and the like — further exciting car buyers.
In the eyes of many in the industry, the future looks equally bright. Oil and gas prices appear likely to remain reasonably low for some time, encouraging big-margin SUV sales. The technology inside autos will continue to grow more sophisticated and affordable.
Automakers feel confident investing large sums of money in developing new features for their cars, particularly advanced safety and navigation options. Many suspect that they can make fully autonomous vehicles (AVs), machines that can drive themselves anywhere, under any traffic and weather conditions, without a human ever having to take the wheel, a reality within a relatively short time, as little as five or 10 years. That, in turn, would open huge new markets, it is hoped, as buyers — large fleets as well as individuals — flock to driverless vehicles and associated services.
There is much truth in the vision of fully autonomous vehicles. Certainly, there will come a time when commuters can relax, eat breakfast, and write emails on the way to work as their robotic taxis transport them on algorithmically chosen routes in perfect safety. But as the recent fatal crash of a Tesla in semi-autonomous mode sadly made clear, it will probably take decades, not years, for this vision to become a common reality.
Digital fabrication devices (such as 3-D printers) are doing to manufacturing what the Internet has done to information-based goods and services. For example, a 3-D printer generated a bust of Beethoven in less than two hours, using a design uploaded to Thingiverse.com by a contributor identified only as “dino-girl.” Here are the changes to consider before this innovation takes hold.
The immense uncertainty that today’s business leaders face is something truly unique. In its scale, ferocity of impact, and ubiquity, it is different — by orders of magnitude — from anything I’ve seen before. We’ve been living with uncertainties forever, of course. What’s new is structural uncertainty. It is structural because the long-term, irresistible forces now at work can explode the existing structure of your market space or your industry, putting it at risk of being drastically diminished or completely eliminated. If you are unprepared, the massive changes these forces bring are like sudden bends in the road. They appear, seemingly without warning, to convey you away from the future you envisioned for your business. But in a world that is projected to add a minimum of US$30 trillion of GDP in the next decade, where human needs and wants are both multiplying and changing, structural uncertainty also creates myriad new needs, new industries, new businesses, new business models, and new market segments.
Taking control of uncertainty and successfully steering your organization through frequent bends in the road is the fundamental leadership challenge of our time. And it will call for a distinctly different type of leadership than the one you were trained for and are likely currently exercising. The advantage now goes to those who don’t just learn to live with change, but who create change. I call these people catalysts.
Your company's identity (what you do) and implementation (how you do it) should be closely linked. Here are the precepts to keep in mind as you bring them together: Aim high. Build on your strengths. Be ambidextrous (sophisticated at both strategy and execution). Clarify everyone's strategic role. Align structures to strategy. Transcend functional barriers. Become a fully digital enterprise. Keep it simple, sometimes. Shape your value chain. And cultivate collective mastery. Do all those things, and your company will be on its way to effectively executing its strategy.
The specialist leaders of HR, IT, finance, and other functions have had their time, attention, and (in some cases) money freed up by more efficient practices. They now have the ability--and the mandate--to play a more influential role, especially when building capabilities. Instead of balancing services among all business units equally, or striving to be best in class in everything, they can become increasingly "fit for purpose," thinking and acting in line with the enterprise strategy.
There is a great deal of discussion about the potential of “big data,” the high-volume, high-variety information assets that require new forms of data processing to enable companies to make better decisions and operate more efficiently. There is, however, one important caveat. Many companies—probably most—work in relatively sparse data environments, without access to the abundant information needed for advanced analytics and data mining. Companies that only have access to “little data” can still use that information to improve their business.
About 30 miles away, a group of young creative professionals — writers, filmmakers, and a chef — are having brunch at one of Mumbai’s many international cafes. They are representative of today’s full-fledged smartphone-based media market. Over shaksouka (a poached-egg dish from North African Jewish cuisine) and masala tea, their conversation flows freely from the Panama Papers to the new Captain America film to the local motion picture investment scene. Everyone at the table is well informed. But when asked if they read newspapers, only one says yes. “I always read news at breakfast — but only peruse the headlines,” she says.
This group is representative of India’s global sophisticates. In media terms, they are digital self-aggregators; they get their information through Twitter, Facebook, and WhatsApp, following links to particular stories on the Times of India, NDTV, or New York Times websites. A few of them regularly scan aggregator apps like Flipboard, Inshorts, or Google News. What they consider “news” is highly varied, is easily shareable, and has an extremely short life span. And they’re reading just about all of it on their mobile phones, connected wherever possible to high-speed Internet service from urban providers.
Meanwhile, rural communities throughout India constitute the largest and fastest-growing media market of all: regional print readers. India is one of the few parts of the world where newspapers enjoy rapid circulation growth. With free delivery, and a business model driven by advertising, newspapers cost only 5 to 10 cents per copy. For people who are largely first- or second-generation literate, the print newspaper is still a mark of status and a newly discovered window on the world. Families buy several papers daily and read them together at breakfast. Commuters read them on trains and buses, and discuss the contents during lunch and tea breaks.
The Korean automaker’s explosive growth in the last few years—achieved through better quality, stylish design, and clever marketing—has made it a dynamic player in the U.S. auto industry.
Future leaders will succeed by being entrepreneurial and by rethinking the balance between financial and social goals. The developed world stands at the cusp of a major transformation unlike anything experienced since the Gilded Age. An examination of the Gilded Age offers two lessons for the coming disruption. First, managers must become entrepreneurial again: Number-crunching computers will replace number-crunching managers. Second, the new generation of managers must address the social challenges of the emerging disruption. Unlike the entrepreneurs of the Gilded Age, they should incorporate a social mission into their definition of business success, rather than making philanthropic gestures following the achievement of success.
These time-honored tools and techniques can help companies transform quickly. And watch the video “How to Lead Change Management": http://youtu.be/PQ0doKfhecQ.
Industrial revolutions are momentous events. By most reckonings, there have been only three. The first was triggered in the 1700s by the commercial steam engine and the mechanical loom. The harnessing of electricity and mass production sparked the second, around the start of the 20th century. The computer set the third in motion after World War II.
It might seem too soon to proclaim that the fourth industrial revolution, spurred by interconnected digital technology, has begun. But Henning Kagermann, the head of the German National Academy of Science and Engineering (Acatech), did exactly that in 2011, when he used the term Industrie 4.0 to describe a proposed government-sponsored industrial initiative.
When you look closely at the rapid pace of digitization in industry today, the name doesn’t seem hyperbolic at all. It is a signal of sweeping change that is rapidly transforming many companies and may catch others by surprise.
Thought leader Rita Gunther McGrath, author of The End of Competitive Advantage, describes the ramifications of transient competitive advantage on corporate strategy and organizational structure.
The uncertainty advantage presents a chance to go well beyond the typical meaning of risk management -- that is, seeking ways to achieve the best of the worst outcomes -- to create new and sustainable value out of confusion.
From this article Kahneman, D., Lovallo, D., & Sibony, O. (2011.docxbudbarber38650
From this article:
Kahneman, D., Lovallo, D., & Sibony, O. (2011a). Before you make that big decision. Harvard Business Review, 89(6).
This is the article in reference:
Dangerous biases can creep into every strategic choice. Here's how to find them--before they lead you astray
THANKS TO a slew of popular new books, many executives today realize how biases can distort reasoning in business. Confirmation bias, for instance, leads people to ignore evidence that contradicts their preconceived notions. Anchoring causes them to weigh one piece of information too heavily in making decisions; loss aversion makes them too cautious. In our experience, however, awareness of the effects of biases has done little to improve the quality of business decisions at either the individual or the organizational level.
Though there may now be far more talk of biases among managers, talk alone will not eliminate them. But it is possible to take steps to counteract them. A recent McKinsey study of more than 1,000 major business investments showed that when organizations worked at reducing the effect of bias in their decision-making processes, they achieved returns up to seven percentage points higher. (For more on this study, see "The Case for Behavioral Strategy," McKinsey Quarterly, March 2010.) Reducing bias makes a difference. In this article, we will describe a straightforward way to detect bias and minimize its effects in the most common kind of decision that executives make: reviewing a recommendation from someone else and determining whether to accept it, reject it, or pass it on to the next level.
For most executives, these reviews seem simple enough. First, they need to quickly grasp the relevant facts (getting them from people who know more about the details than they do). Second, they need to figure out if the people making the recommendation are intentionally clouding the facts in some way. And finally, they need to apply their own experience, knowledge, and reasoning to decide whether the recommendation is right.
However, this process is fraught at every stage with the potential for distortions in judgment that result from cognitive biases. Executives can't do much about their own biases, as we shall see. But given the proper tools, they can recognize and neutralize those of their teams. Over time, by using these tools, they will build decision processes that reduce the effect of biases in their organizations. And in doing so, they'll help upgrade the quality of decisions their organizations make.
The Challenge of Avoiding Bias
Let's delve first into the question of why people are incapable of recognizing their own biases.
According to cognitive scientists, there are two modes of thinking, intuitive and reflective. (In recent decades a lot of psychological research has focused on distinctions between them. Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein popularized it in their book, Nudge.) In intuitive, or System One, thinking, impressions, associations, feeling.
7 cognitive biases that impact conversion rates and how to leverage them to y...Conversion Fanatics
Our brains make mistakes. They judge. They like to take shortcuts, also known as heuristics, to process information more quickly. And our brains are swayed by biased and circumstantial factors.
For this assignment you will create a power point presentation sha.docxtemplestewart19
For this assignment you will create a power point presentation sharing what you have learned over the course of the semester. This presentation needs to be approximately 5 minutes long. Below are some ideas to help you craft your presentation. You don’t have to incorporate all of these into your presentation, they are merely idea starters. Be sure you include a variety of topics. Please do not "read" your slides, use pictures and graphics and titles for your slides, but describe what you learned and why you chose that particular topic in your own words.
They only need be a few minutes and (minimum) 12 slides covering a handful of your favorite topics
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Idea Starters:
Describe what you learned from the course…
Discuss your favorite topics
Make sure to explain – give examples – how what you have learned has made an impact on your life.
Share some ways that you are applying these principles.
Tell us what you thought you would gain from the course, and what you have learned in reality. Is there a difference?
Anything else you can think
Copyright McGraw-Hill, Inc. 2013
Chapter 11
Social Psychology
Copyright McGraw-Hill, Inc. 2013
Copyright McGraw-Hill, Inc. 2013
Copyright McGraw-Hill, Inc. 2013
Social Psychology Social psychology studies how people think about, influence, and relate to othersExamines many topics in psychology in a social contextWhereas sociology looks more at social behavior at the level of the group, social psychology examines at the level of the individual within the group
Copyright McGraw-Hill, Inc. 2013
Copyright McGraw-Hill, Inc. 2013
Social Cognition
Explores how people select, interpret, remember, and use social information
Copyright McGraw-Hill, Inc. 2013
Social Cognition - Person PerceptionProcesses by which social stimuli, such as faces, are used to form impressions of othersPhysical attractiveness
A common social stereotype is that “Beautiful is good”, so people will be more willing to trust a good-looking person than someone who is not attractiveThis can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy of expectations – you expect the best of someone, and behave better toward them; in turn, they behave better in response to youFirst impressions take advantage of the primacy effect – we place a high value on the first information we get about an individual, because we have no other information to go on
Copyright McGraw-Hill, Inc. 2013
Social Cognition - AttributionAttribution theory examines how people are motivated to discover underlying causes of behavior to make sense of behavior, in both themselves and othersThis domain looks at how people focus on or neglect factors such as:
Internal/external causes of behavior
Stable/unstable causes
Controllable/uncontrollable causes
Copyright McGraw-Hill, Inc. 2013
Attributional Errors and BiasesAttributions for causes of behavior va.
CIS502 discussion post responses.Disaster RecoveryDisaster rec.docxmccormicknadine86
CIS502 discussion post responses.
Disaster Recovery
Disaster recovery has been the topic of study this week. What do you think is the most difficult and expensive disaster to plan for? Do you think companies plan adequately? In your experience (or research if you have no experience) what aspect is most lacking in corporate planning? Why do you think this is? What would you do to advise leadership in your company to prepare for a disaster? Be specific and explain your thought processes on this subject based on your learning.
JP’s post states the following:Top of Form
Disaster Recovery
Disaster recovery has been the topic of study this week. What do you think is the most difficult and expensive disaster to plan for? Do you think companies plan adequately? In your experience (or research if you have no experience) what aspect is most lacking in corporate planning? Why do you think this is? What would you do to advise leadership in your company to prepare for a disaster? Be specific and explain your thought processes on this subject based on your learning.
I believe a natural disaster is the most expensive disaster to plan for. Natural disasters could occur at any point and time and location has a lot to do with it. Depending on the businesses geographic location it may have to deal with floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, electrical storms etc. The companies that I have had the pleasure to work for are located globally and have well established disaster recovery plans for natural disasters known to happen in that region. Because of the unpredictable nature natural disasters bring, not one company has a disaster recovery plan that is readily available for every situation. Funding for possible disasters that have a low chance of occurring may be a lacking aspect in corporate planning, since at the end of the day in business investments must make sense. Also advising leadership on shortages or delays of necessary materials can keep bandages, disinfectant, and medicine cabinets up to date in case of an unexpected emergencies.
Reference
https://yourbusiness.azcentral.com/effects-lack-planning-organization-11394.html
KF’s post states the following:Top of Form
Disaster recovery is the topic of study this week. What do you think is the most difficult and expensive disaster to plan for? Do you think companies plan adequately? In your experience (or research if you have no experience) what aspect is most lacking in corporate planning? Why do you think this is? What would you do to advise leadership in your company to prepare for a disaster? Be specific and explain your thought processes on this subject based on your learning.
I thought about many disasters this week and also discussed this information with my friends because I thought it was interesting. We came to a conclusion that any aspect that takes human life would be the worst kind of disaster. Physical/Weather Disaster can cause this (strong tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes). We also dis ...
We are proud to announce our eighth Innovation Excellence Weekly for Slideshare. Inside you'll find ten of the best innovation-related articles from the past week on Innovation Excellence - the world's most popular innovation web site and home to nearly 5,000 innovation-related articles.
Measuring Risk - What Doesn’t Work and What DoesJody Keyser
The topics for this webinar include:
The Problem – Why your method may be a “management placebo” and why that is the biggest risk you have Problems that many methods ignore – and problems some methods introduce What Does Work – Studies reveal some methods show consistent, measurable improvements on the forecasts and decisions of managers
Examples of Real Improvements
Overview of Applied Information Economics (AIE) Process Common Objections to quantitative methods and the misconceptions behind them
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Discover 12 reasons why your culture is preventing you from being the organisation you want to be, awareness is the first step on the journey to redemption.
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Whole Foods Case study.pdf
Organization Behavior WK 3 reading assignment.docx
Week 3 Lecture 1 “Problems in Person Perception”
Salutations Class! In our personal and professional lives, we all have perceptions which drive our behaviors. Whether we like to admit it or not, we all have both positive and negative perceptions of various things (people, tasks, events). Understanding what’s behind those perceptions will allow you to evaluate, understand, and better appreciate happenings around you.
A perception, academically defined in the text on page 121 by Hitt, Miller, and Colella, is the process of sensing various aspects of a person, task, or event and forming impressions based on selected inputs. Within the slide presentation this week, we reviewed the three stages of perception which included sensing, selecting, and organizing. During this lecture, we’ll focus in on what the text calls “Problems in Person Perception”.
We’ll cover four specific terms and give you a bit more insight into each one. Noted below are each topic, how the Hitt, Miller, and Colella text defines each one on page 125, and some specific examples to help you identify each in practice.
Implicit person theories – defined as “personal theories about what personality traits and abilities occur together and how these attributes are manifested in behavior.” An example of this recently surfaced in the workplace. Here’s the scenario…a leader recently had his door shut for the majority of the day for the last couple of weeks. His secretary senses that his door being closed is a reflection of how he feels about her. In other words, subconsciously believes that physical separation and dislike are coupled together. The problem with this is that the leader had his door shut for very valid reasons. He was coordinating an entangled web with human resources and the legal department to terminate an employee for poor performance. How could this problem in person perception be avoided? What could be done the next time around to prevent this misunderstanding?
Halo effect – defined as “a perception problem in which an individual assesses a person positively or negatively in all situations based on an existing general assessment of the person.” Let’s use the all too popular example of a politician on the national level…how about a longstanding member of Congress who has cheated on his tax returns and is facing tax evasion charges. Many folks would generally see that Senator or Congressman as an all-around bad person regardless of any good that individual has done in his or her community.
Projecting – defined as “a perception problem in which an individual assumes that others share his or her values and beliefs.” For this concept, let’s take the manager who values bonuses in the form of money as a motivational tool. The manager’s employees, however, have varied beliefs. Some prefer money but many prefer paid time off to spend with their respective fam.
Persuasion architectures: Nudging People to do the Right ThingUser Vision
Review of some of the most popular commercial and public sector persuasion methodologies. Plus some reasons why they may not work and some criticisms, and a comparison of how supermarkets persuade us, offline.
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As more and more companies in a range of industries adopt machine learning and more advanced AI algorithms, the ability to provide understandable explanations for different stakeholders becomes critical. If people don’t know why an AI system made a decision, they may not trust the outcome.
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Putting the SPARK into Virtual Training.pptxCynthia Clay
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Unveiling the Secrets How Does Generative AI Work.pdfSam H
At its core, generative artificial intelligence relies on the concept of generative models, which serve as engines that churn out entirely new data resembling their training data. It is like a sculptor who has studied so many forms found in nature and then uses this knowledge to create sculptures from his imagination that have never been seen before anywhere else. If taken to cyberspace, gans work almost the same way.
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5 Things You Need To Know Before Hiring a Videographer
Beyond Bias
1. strategy+business
ISSUE 80 AUTUMN 2015
REPRINT 00345
BY HEIDI GRANT HALVORSON AND DAVID ROCK
Beyond Bias
Neuroscience research shows how new organizational practices can
shift ingrained thinking.
3. IllustrationbyLincolnAgnew
IMAGINE THAT YOU ARE HIRING AN EMPLOYEE for a position in
which a new perspective would be valuable. But while
reviewing resumes, you find yourself drawn to a candidate
who is similar in age and background to your current staff.
You remind yourself that it’s important to build a cohesive
team, and make up your mind to offer her the job.
Or suppose that you’re planning to vote against a
significant new investment.This is the second time it’s
come up, and you voted no before. A colleague argues that
conditions have changed, the project would now be highly
profitable, and you can’t afford to lose this opportunity.
Upon closer examination, you see that his data is
convincing, but you vote no again. Something about
his new information just doesn’t feel relevant.
Neuroscience research shows
how new organizational practices
can shift ingrained thinking.
BY HEIDI GRANT HALVORSON AND DAVID ROCK
Beyond BiasBeyond Bias
featureorganizations&people
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4. strategy+businessissue80
3
Heidi Grant Halvorson
hghalvorson@
neuroleadership.com
is a social psychologist. She
is the associate director of the
Motivation Science Center at
the Columbia Business School
and a senior consultant for the
NeuroLeadership Institute.
Her most recent book is No
One Understands You and What
to Do About It (Harvard Busi-
ness Review Press, 2015).
David Rock
david@neuroleadership.com
is cofounder and direc-
tor of the NeuroLeadership
Institute, a global initiative
bringing neuroscientists
and leadership experts
together. He is the author of
Your Brain at Work: Strategies
for Overcoming Distraction,
Regaining Focus, and Working
Smarter All Day Long (Harper-
Business, 2009). He is also
the CEO of the NeuroLeader-
ship Group, a global
consulting firm.
These are examples of common, everyday biases.
Biases are nonconscious drivers — cognitive quirks —
that influence how people see the world. They appear
to be universal in most of humanity, perhaps hardwired
into the brain as part of our genetic or cultural heritage,
and they exert their influence outside conscious aware-
ness. You cannot go shopping, enter a conversation, or
make a decision without your biases kicking in.
On the whole, biases are helpful and adaptive.
They enable people to make quick, efficient judgments
and decisions with minimal cognitive effort. But they
can also blind a person to new information, or inhibit
someone from considering valuable options when mak-
ing an important decision.
A number of biases occur so often, in so many
contexts, that cognitive scientists have given them
names. (See “Common Biases,” next page.) Some, like
the confirmation bias (which leads people to discount
information that disagrees with their assumptions),
have been critical factors in financial crises, including
the one that began in 2007. This crisis also derived in
part from the temporal discounting bias: Bankers chose
to pursue immediate gains, even if that meant ignoring
long-term risks. Two other common biases, the illusion
of control and the planning fallacy, adversely affected
Japan’s preparedness for the 2011 tsunami, as well as
New York’s ability to recover from Hurricane Sandy
in 2012. People overestimate the degree to which they
can control the negative effects of a disaster and under-
estimate the time and effort it would take to prepare
for one. All of these biases, and others, lead many great
companies and institutions to make disastrous and dys-
functional decisions.
In a hyperconnected world, where poor decisions
can multiply as if in a chain reaction, breaking free of
unhelpful bias has never been more important. That is
why many large organizations are putting money and
resources toward educating people about biases. For
example, U.S. companies spend an estimated US$200
million to $300 million a year on diversity programs
and sensitivity training, in which executives, managers,
and all other employees are being told to watch out for
biases, in particular when making hiring and promo-
tion decisions.
Unfortunately, there is very little evidence that
educating people about biases does anything to reduce
their influence. Human biases occur outside conscious
awareness, and thus people are literally unaware of them
as they occur. As an individual, you cannot “watch out
for biases,” because there will never be anything to see.
It would be like trying to watch out for how much insu-
lin you are producing.
How then can the negative effects of bias be over-
come? Collectively. Organizations and teams can be-
come aware of bias in ways that individuals cannot.
Team-based practices can be redesigned to help identify
biases as they emerge, and counteract them on the fly,
thus reducing their impact.
The first step is to identify the types of bias likely
to be prevalent in organizations. To that end, we have
grouped the 150 or so known common biases into five
categories, based on their underlying cognitive nature:
similarity, expedience, experience, distance, and safe-
ty. (Our research group has named this the SEEDS™
model.) Each category has defining features as well as
mitigation strategies specific to that bias. Once you know
which type of bias you are dealing with, you can put the
strategies in place and make more effective decisions.
Also contributing to this
article was Matthew D.
Lieberman, director of the
Social Cognitive Neuroscience
Laboratory at UCLA.
featureorganizations&people
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Common Biases
Similarity
Ingroup Bias: Perceiving people
who are similar to you (in eth-
nicity, religion, socioeconomic
status, profession, etc.) more
positively. (“We can trust her;
her hometown is near mine.”)
Expedience
Belief Bias: Deciding whether
an argument is strong or weak
on the basis of whether you
agree with its conclusion. (“This
logic can’t be right; it would lead
us to make that investment I
don’t like.”)
Confirmation Bias: Seeking and
finding evidence that confirms
your beliefs and ignoring
evidence that does not. (“I trust
only one news channel; it tells
the truth about the political
party I despise.”)
Availability Bias: Making a
decision based on the informa-
tion that comes to mind most
quickly, rather than on more
objective evidence. (“I’m not
worried about car accidents, but
I live in fear of airplane crashes
since I saw one on the news.”)
Anchoring Bias: Relying heavily
on the first piece of information
offered (the “anchor”) when
considering a decision. (“First
they offered to sell the car for
$35,000. Now they’re asking
$30,000. It must be a good
deal.”)
Outgroup Bias: Perceiving
people who are different
from you more negatively. (“We
can’t trust him; look where he
grew up.”)
Base Rate Fallacy: When judg-
ing how probable something is,
ignoring the base rate (the over-
all rate of occurrence). (“I know
that only a small percentage of
startups succeed, but ours is a
sure thing.”)
Planning Fallacy: Underesti-
mating how long it will take to
complete a task, how much it
will cost, and its risks, while
overestimating its benefits.
(“Trust me, we can finish this
project in just three weeks.”)
Representativeness Bias:
Believing that something that
is more representative is
necessarily more prevalent.
(“There may be more qualified
programmers in the rest of the
world, but we’re staffing our
software design group from
Silicon Valley.”)
Hot Hand Fallacy: Believing that
someone who was successful
in the past has a greater chance
of achieving further success.
(“Bernard Madoff has had an
unbroken winning streak; I’m
reinvesting.”)
Halo Effect: Letting someone’s
positive qualities in one area
influence overall perception of
that individual. (“He may not
know much about people, but
he’s a great engineer and a
hardworking guy; let’s put him
in charge of the team.”)
Experience
Blind Spot: Identifying biases in
other people but not in yourself.
(“She always judges people
much too harshly.”)
False Consensus Effect:
Overestimating the universal-
ity of your own beliefs, habits,
and opinions. (“Of course I hate
broccoli; doesn’t everyone?”)
Fundamental Attribution Error:
Believing that your own errors
or failures are due to external
circumstances, but others’
errors are due to intrinsic fac-
tors like character. (“I made a
mistake because I was having
a bad day; you made a mistake
because you’re not very smart.”)
Hindsight Bias: Seeing past
events as having been predict-
able in retrospect. (“I knew the
financial crisis was coming.”)
Distance
Endowment Effect: Expect-
ing others to pay more for
something than you would pay
yourself. (“This is sure to fetch
thousands at the auction.”)
Affective Forecasting: Judging
your future emotional states
based on how you feel now. (“I
feel miserable about it, and I
always will.”)
Safety
Loss Aversion: Making a risk-
averse choice if the expected
outcome is positive, but making
a risk-seeking choice to avoid
negative outcomes. (“We have to
take a chance and invest in this,
or our competitors will beat us
to it.”)
Framing Effect: Basing a judg-
ment on whether a decision is
presented as a gain or as a loss,
rather than on objective criteria.
(“I hate this idea now that I see
our competitors walking away
from it.”)
Illusion of Control: Overes-
timating your influence over
external events. (“If I had left
the house a minute earlier, I
wouldn’t have gotten stuck at
this traffic light.”)
Illusion of Transparency:
Overestimating the degree to
which your mental state is ac-
cessible to others. (“Everyone
in the room can see what I am
thinking; I don’t have to say it.”)
Egocentric Bias: Weighing
information about yourself
disproportionately in making
judgments and decisions — for
example, about communica-
tions strategy. (“There’s no
need for a discussion of these
legal issues; I understood them
easily.”)
Temporal Discounting: Placing
less value on rewards as they
move further into the future.
(“They made a great offer,
but they can’t pay me for five
weeks, so I’m going with some-
one else.”)
Sunk Costs: Having a hard time
giving up on something (a strat-
egy, an employee, a process)
after investing time, money, or
training, even though the invest-
ment can’t be recovered. (“I’m
not shutting this project down;
we’d lose everything we’ve
invested in it.”)
featureorganizations&people
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Similarity Biases
“People like me are better than others.”
If you are like most people, you are highly moti-
vated to focus your attention on anything that portrays
you in the best possible light. This motivation affects
the way you perceive other people and groups. The sim-
ilarity biases are part of your brain’s natural defenses;
they promote and protect those associated with you —
including your family, team, and company. But they
also perpetuate stereotypes and prejudice, even when
counterproductive.
The two most prevalent forms of similarity bias are
ingroup and outgroup preferences. You hold a relatively
positive perception of people who are similar to you (the
ingroup) and a relatively negative perception of those
who are different (the outgroup). Even when you are not
aware of these two biases, they are reflected in your be-
havior. For example, as described earlier, you are more
likely to hire ingroup members — and once you hire
them, you’re likely to give them bigger budgets, bigger
raises, and more promotions.
Social neuroscience research has shown that people
perceive and relate to ingroup and outgroup members
very differently. In fact, merely assigning people to ar-
bitrary teams creates great liking for fellow members of
the team, less liking for members of other teams, and
greater activity in several brain regions involved in emo-
tions and decision making (the amygdala, orbitofrontal
cortex, and striatum) in response to ingroup faces.
Similarity biases affect many decisions involving
people, including what clients to work with, what so-
cial networks to join, and what contractors to hire. A
purchasing manager might prefer to buy from some-
one who grew up nearby, just because it “feels safer.”
A board might grant a key role to someone who most
looks the part, versus someone who can do the best job.
The bias is unfortunate because research (including that
done by Katherine Phillips) has shown that teams and
groups made up of people with varying backgrounds
and perspectives are likely to make consistently better
decisions and execute them more effectively.
The best way to mitigate similarity bias is to find
commonalities with those who appear different. You
can’t change your bias of preference for the ingroup,
but you can bring more people into that affiliation. Pay
attention (and bring your team’s attention) to the goals,
values, experiences, and preferences you share with the
outgroup. This causes the brain to recategorize these
individuals and thus create a more level playing field.
For hiring and promotion decisions, remove potentially
biasing information or features (name, sex, ethnicity)
from formal materials. Even though people can’t help
but be aware of ethnicity and gender in any face-to-face
encounter, the absence of formal written reinforcing
cues can help. Instead, cue similarity: Pepper the docu-
ments with references to the ways in which different
types of people contribute, or how someone is “one of
us.” Studies have found, for example, that considering
a man and a woman for promotions at the same time
leads to fairer treatment of both than considering either
person alone.
Expedience Biases
“If it feels right, it must be true.”
Expedience biases can be described as mental short-
cuts that help us make quick and efficient decisions.
As Daniel Kahneman pointed out in Thinking, Fast
and Slow, the human brain has two parallel decision-
You can’t change your bias of preference
for the ingroup, but you can bring more
people into that affiliation. Pay attention
to the goals, values, and experiences you
share with the outgroup.
featureorganizations&people
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making systems. “System 1” relies on information that
can be retrieved without much effort: Its associations
“feel right.” That’s what makes it expedient. When peo-
ple need to make decisions based on more objective, less
accessible information, the brain’s “System 2” has to get
involved. System 2 is slower, more difficult to engage,
and less pleasurable. It can be called upon to correct
System 1’s mistakes, but it requires more cognitive ef-
fort and concentration. Most people naturally tend to
favor System 1.
One very common form of expedience bias is the
availability bias. This is the tendency to make a deci-
sion based on the information that’s most readily acces-
sible in the brain (what comes to mind most quickly)
instead of taking varied perspectives into account. This
bias inhibits people from looking for and considering
all potentially relevant information. It can thus block
the brain from making the most objective and adaptive
decisions. The case of the lost investment described at
the beginning of this article shows the subtle, corrosive
influence of the availability bias.
Expedience biases tend to crop up in decisions
that require concentrated effort: complex calculation,
analysis, evaluation, or the formation of conclusions
from data. A sales rep or consultant who automatically
reverts to a few familiar solutions, instead of really lis-
tening to client problems, is probably suffering from an
availability bias. So is a doctor who assumes a new pa-
tient has a familiar condition, without more carefully
analyzing the diagnosis. These portrayals of expedience
bias are examples themselves, since they draw conclu-
sions without fully exploring the details of the sales
rep’s or doctor’s decision making.
Expedience biases tend to be exacerbated when
people are in a hurry or are cognitively depleted — ex-
hausted from stress and multiple decisions. To mitigate
the bias, you have to provide incentives for people to
step off the easier cognitive path. Create incentives for
them to challenge themselves and others, perhaps by
identifying their own mistakes, and foster a culture that
encourages this. For instance, you might relax a dead-
line to allow more time for considering alternatives, or
ask a sales rep to lay out the reasoning behind his or her
approach with a client, encouraging both yourself and
the rep to identify flaws in the logic.
You can also mitigate expedience biases by break-
ing a problem into its component parts. It may help to
involve a wider group of people and get some outside
opinions as part of the typical decision-making pro-
cess, as well as implementing a mandatory “cooling off”
period (10 minutes of relaxation or a walk outdoors) be-
fore making decisions under pressure.
Experience Biases
“My perceptions are accurate.”
The human brain has evolved to regard its own per-
ceptions as direct and complete. In other words, people
tend to assume that what they see is all there is to see,
and all of it is accurate. But this attitude overlooks the
vast array of processes within the brain that construct
the experience of reality. Your expectations, past expe-
riences, personality, and emotional state all color your
perception of what is happening in the world.
Experience biases are particularly pernicious when
they breed misunderstandings among people who work
together. If you hold a strong conviction that you see
reality as it is, you assume that anyone who sees things
differently must be either incorrect or lying. As social
neuroscientist Matthew Lieberman has noted, when
two people each think the other person is crazy, mean,
stupid, prejudiced, dishonest, or lazy, there is often an
experience bias at work.
It is very difficult to convince someone who has an
experience bias that he or she might be the one who is
mistaken. These biases are similar to visual illusions —
even if you logically know that it is an illusion, your in-
tuitive experience of it remains powerful. You may find
it easy to identify other people’s biases, but not your
own. (That’s known as the blind spot bias.) You might
also fall prey to the false consensus effect: overestimat-
ing the extent to which others agree with you or think
the same way you do. For example, if you prefer vanilla
to chocolate ice cream, you are likely to think that most
people have the same preference. People who prefer
chocolate, however, will also assume that they are in the
majority. In an organizational setting, this assumption
can lead to unnecessary conflicts, especially if leaders
assume that many others agree with their preferences,
and make decisions accordingly.
Experience biases often manifest themselves when
you try to influence others or sell an idea. On a sales
call, you might not realize that other people are less ex-
cited by your product than you are. When making a
presentation, you might forget that others do not know
the context. If you are a senior leader pushing for a ma-
jor organizational change, you might not see that others
don’t agree, or that they have legitimate concerns.
Experience biases respond to an organizational ap-
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proach, so put systems into place that minimize their
influence. For example, you can set up practices for
routinely seeking opinions from people who are not on
the team or project. Other techniques include revisiting
ideas after a break to see them in a fresh, more objective
light, or setting aside time to look at yourself and your
message through other people’s eyes.
Distance Biases
“Near is stronger than far.”
Proximity is a salient unconscious driver of deci-
sion making. Brain scan studies have shown that one
network in the brain registers all types of proximity —
conceptual proximity, such as whether or not you own
an object, as well as proximity in space and in time.
The closer an object, an individual, or an outcome is
in space, time, or perceived ownership, the greater the
value assigned to it.
For example, given the choice between receiv-
ing $100 today and $150 tomorrow, most people will
(quite rationally) wait a day to get the larger sum. But
when the choice becomes $100 today versus $150 three
months from now, the majority will choose the lesser
but more immediate payment — despite the fact that
there are very few other ways to earn a guaranteed 50
percent return on investment in three months. Thanks
to a distance bias called temporal discounting, the fur-
ther away in time the $150 is, the more its value decreas-
es. Psychologically, $100 is worth more than $150 when
time is a factor.
Distance bias often manifests as a tendency toward
short-term thinking instead of long-term investment.
It can also lead you to neglect people or projects that
aren’t in your own backyard — a particular problem for
global organizations whose managers must oversee and
develop business and human capital at great distances.
To mitigate this kind of bias, take distance out of
the equation. Evaluate the outcome or object as if it
were closer to you in space, time, or ownership. This
orients you to recognize its full value. Of course, you
will still consider time and physical distance as fac-
tors when making decisions. For example, as business
strategy writer Pankaj Ghemawat has pointed out, the
geographic and cultural distance of another country
should affect any plans you have to expand your busi-
ness there. And those elements should be consciously
considered in the decision-making process, without the
unconscious influence of a bias that might lead to an
inferior conclusion.
Safety Biases
“Bad is stronger than good.”
The fact that negative information tends to be
more salient and motivating than positive information
is evolutionarily adaptive. A hunter–gatherer whose
brain responds quickly to the threat of a snake would
be more likely to survive than one whose brain responds
first to the charm of its colorful markings. That’s why,
for most people, losing $20 feels worse than finding $20
feels good.
This principle manifests itself in safety biases such
as loss aversion. When considering a transaction or in-
vestment, regardless of the merits of the deal, you are
likely to be attracted if you perceive it as a way to avoid
a loss rather than as a potential opportunity to gain.
You may think of yourself as strongly oriented toward
winning, but your actions are likely more influenced by
the need to avoid losing, a very different concern.
It is difficult to manage for bias in
the moment you’re making a decision.
You need to design practices and
processes in advance.
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Another safety bias is the framing effect, first iden-
tified by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman in 1981.
When an opportunity is framed as a gain, people tend
to be relatively conscious of the risk involved. But if the
risk is framed as a way to avoid a loss, people are more
likely to ignore or justify it. This is true even when the
objective information is the same in both cases.
Safety biases can influence any decision about the
probability of risk or return, or the allocation of re-
sources including money, time, and people. These bi-
ases affect financial decisions, investment decisions, re-
source allocation, strategy development, or planning for
strategy execution. Examples include not being able to
let go of a business unit because of resources already in-
vested in the project and not being willing to innovate
in a new direction because it would compete with the
company’s existing business.
To mitigate safety bias, you can conduct conver-
sations that add psychological distance to the deci-
sion. Imagine that you are giving advice to someone
else rather than making the decision for your own
enterprise. When making decisions for others, you
can be less biased because the threat network is not
as strongly activated. Or imagine that the decision
has already been made, and you are seeing it from
a later point in time. Studies suggest that recasting
events this way, deliberately evoking a more objective,
distanced perspective, makes those events less emotion-
al and less tied to the self.
Managing for Bias
All of the mitigation strategies described in this article
engage the brain’s ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, which
acts, in this case, like a braking system helping you ex-
ercise cognitive control and broaden your attention be-
yond your own, self-specific viewpoint. As you identify
and mitigate biases in your organization, keep four gen-
eral principles in mind:
1. Bias is universal. There is a general human pre-
disposition to make fast and efficient judgments, and
you are just as susceptible to this as anyone else. If you
believe you are less biased than other people, that’s prob-
ably a sign that you are more biased than you realize.
2. It is difficult to manage for bias in the moment
you’re making a decision. You need to design practices
and processes in advance. Consciously identify situa-
tions in which more deliberative thought and strategies
would be helpful, and then set up the necessary conver-
sations and other mechanisms for mitigating bias.
3. In designing bias-countering processes and prac-
tices,encourage those that place a premium on cognitive
effort over intuition or gut instinct.
4. Individual cognitive effort is not enough. You have
to cultivate an organization-wide culture in which peo-
ple continually remind one another that the brain’s de-
fault setting is egocentric, that they will sometimes get
stuck in a belief that their experience and perception of
reality is the only objective truth, and that better deci-
sions will come from stepping back to seek out a wider
variety of perspectives and views.
Although more research and development needs
to be done on both the theory and practice of break-
ing bias, we believe that this approach can provide a
useful step forward. By reducing the unhelpful biases
that are at the heart of many organizational challenges
today, not only do you reduce the risk of catastrophic
loss — you redefine what it means for an organization
to win. +
Reprint No. 00345
Resources
Mahzarin Banaji and Anthony Greenwald, Blindspot: Hidden Biases of
Good People (Delacorte Press, 2013): Two influential researchers explain
many biases, including the ingroup and outgroup fallacies, with perspec-
tive and detail.
Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (Farrar, Straus and Giroux,
2011): Describes the fundamental theory of biases and their influence,
based on the brain’s two parallel operating systems.
Matthew D. Lieberman, Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect
(Broadway Books, 2014): Community perspective — seeing ourselves as
others would see us — is a powerful way of counteracting bias and other
harmful impulses.
Katherine Phillips, “How Diversity Makes Us Smarter,” Scientific Ameri-
can, Sept. 16, 2014: Why teams with people from different backgrounds
are more creative, more diligent, and more hardworking.
David Rock, “Managing with the Brain in Mind,” s+b, Autumn 2009: As
with biases, people bring cognitive responses to work, and they need to be
managed deliberately, not intuitively.
NeuroLeadership Institute Breaking Bias Research Project,
www.neuroleadership.com/talent-challenges/bias/: More information on
the SEEDS™ model and other research in this field.
More thought leadership on this topic:
strategy-business.com/organizations_and_people
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