When you hear a CANCEL .. Whats the 1st word/thought that comes to your mind? That’s base rate neglect
BASE RATE NEGLECT
Example1: Sharma is a thin man like Golcha. He general dresses in ethnic and likes to watch Theater. Which is more likely a) a truck driver or b) professor of literature in Pune.
WRONG .. There are more truck drivers in India (about 2m) vs professors of literature (total professors across would be not more than 50k)
The detailed description enticed us to ignore the statistical reality ie base rate neglect
Example2: Lets take another example now.. A man is caught for petty theft. What is more likely? a) He is middle class man b) Bangladeshi refuge in India. You know the drill now .. Option A is more likely.
Example3: In medicine .. Base rate neglect plays an imp role. Doctors get trained on base rate.. If someone has Migraine then it is pointer to either Viral infection or Tumor. So most times doctors first rule out Viral Infection ie they check for the base rate instead of conclusion that it may be tumor.
Base Rate Neglect: If presented with related base rate information (i.e. generic, general information) and specific information (information pertaining only to a certain case), the mind tends to ignore the former and focus on the latter.
It is a cognitive error whereby too little weight is placed on the base rate of possibility and we focus on other information that isn’t relevant instead.
So lets come to our Daily Base Rate fallacy .. Any “cancel” is more likely to be save opportunity rather than a Switcher.
The illusion of control refers to people’s belief that they have INFLUENCE over outcome of uncontrollable events.
Example1: Every day shortly after noon at Gurgaon toll there is man in RED shirt, who waves his hands vigorously and gestures to shoo away. When people asked him what is he doing? He replies .. I’m keeping the Monkeys away. But people tell him they aren't any monkeys here. “Well I must be doing a good job then”.
Do you think he is doing a good job?
Example2: A researcher was investigating Acoustic/Sound Sensitivity & Pain. For this he placed people in glass sound booths and increased the volume until the subjects signaled him to stop. In experiment 2, he did the same thing but put a fake RED panic button in the room which participant could activate when the volume cross the pain threshold. The participant in experiment B could withstand lot more noise as they though they were in control.
Example3.. In casinos or dice games Throwing of dice, In public buildings .. Lift Door signs, Crossing a Traffic signals – stop buttons, Temp control in Eka in our Office..
And you? Do you have everything under control in your BoB? Probably less than you think. Rather, you are the man with the RED shirt due to such a large BoB and number of activities we are assigned to carry out.
Therefore, we will focus on the few things of importance (or ones which are proven) that we can really influence. For everything else: Que sera, sera.
Outcome bias .. Is a tendency that affects virtually everyone. We end up judging performance of any process or quality of any decision basis the outcome it produces..
A stock broker wanted to get 1000 new subscribers for his newsletter. He got his hands-on database of 100k people, start sending them a weekly newsletter with predictions.
To half, he said mkt will go up, other half down. Next week .. he sent newsletter to only where the got the prediction right.
He again suggested to half .. the mkt will go up, other half down. He contd this for 10 weeks. With number of newsletter sent declining by ½ every week. At the end of 10 weeks he had about 1800 people who had recd correct predictions for 10 consecutive weeks. He was a hero…. who had secret formula to get the prediction right.
If the broker now started charging a subscription for newsletter .. he was likely to get these people to subscribe. That’s outcome bias.
A Medical Representative was judging 2 chemists for customer service. Two drugs were equally effective in clinical tests, one was cheaper for the patient and the other would generate more revenue for the chemist.
First chemist prescribed the cheaper drug to save poor patient’s money. Despite these good intentions, the patient suffered from adverse side effects the entire night.
Second chemist prescribed the more expensive drug to generate more revenue for the clinic. Although the chemist had selfish intentions, the patient made a full recovery without side effects. MR rated the selfish chemist more positively than they did the well-intentioned physician.
Never judge a decision/performance purely by its result, especially when randomness and “external factors” play a role. A good result does not automatically indicate a good decision and vice versa
The only thing that INFLUENCES the output we produce is the intent & process we follow. We must focus on process as a whole.
Our Aspirations … To manage the entire CCT commercial. Service all sales, migrations, renewals for any one direct, reseller, education etc
Our Problem .. To few of us to manage our bob, we don’t want to get into ILLUSION OF CONTROL with such a large Bob