Actionable strategies and techniques that are easy to understand and apply in real life.
The human brain has this remarkable cognitive capacity to perform at levels far beyond what we consider as our natural abilities, but it’s not without its limits. The cognitive biases that enable the brain to prioritize and process large amounts of information quickly also gets in the way of our productivity. These mental shortcuts are the brain’s way to conserve energy and work more efficiently. But they also lead to many thinking errors.
Thinking traps are the biggest cause of leadership ineffectiveness. When leaders don’t pay attention to how they think, make decisions and the impact it has on the organization and its people, their actions—however well intended they may be—cease to produce the desired effect. Making good decisions isn’t just about making the right choices, it’s also about being able to recognize and eliminate bad ones. Effective leaders make good decisions by paying attention to their errors in thinking and taking steps to reduce them.
Leaders are ordinary human beings who make mistakes from time to time. While some mistakes are insignificant or have minor negative consequences, others might be potentially harmful and damaging to the organization and its people. Most of these mistakes are unintentional—they stem from thinking errors, applying shortcuts and not using the right mental models. When leaders don’t pause and reflect, they make poor choices and terrible decisions which hurt the productivity of their people and performance of their entire organization.
Most problems we face at work involve people. We think we know others, how they think and what drives them. But most of the time we’re wrong. You can’t be empathetic towards others and lead with your beliefs and notions. To build empathy at work, you have to be less wrong when judging other people’s behaviors and actions. You have to stop making assumptions about their circumstances and motivations. You have to step into their shoes to understand what they’re really thinking.
How do you deal with uncertainty? How do you handle unexpected events? How do you react to change? Do you panic and avoid dealing with the situation or do you look at the situation with curiosity, explore alternative ways to move forward and pivot, if need be? The ability to think on your feet and solve problems by quickly moving between different ideas is the key to creativity at work. Mental agility is necessary to innovate, embrace change, and thrive in the face of uncertainty.
Philosophical razors in day-to-day life serve as critical thinking tools to eliminate noise, strip away unnecessary parts and better understand the problem at hand thereby enabling you to make better decisions. Like cognitive biases that lead to thinking errors and arise due to the ability of our mind to apply shortcuts, razors are mental tricks that enable better judgment but aren’t right 100% of the time. When used appropriately though, applying razors can be extremely valuable.
Communicating effectively with others is a crucial element to get work done. When we don’t pay attention to the cognitive distortions that impact our thinking, we communicate in a manner that makes collaboration difficult. Without being self aware and catching ourselves with those occasional errors in thinking, biased views and irrational thoughts make us form an inaccurate view of reality and stick with it thereby impacting our behaviors and actions.
We work in environments that aren’t optimized for solid decision-making. We also have irrational or negative thought patterns from time to time. This leads to habitual errors in thinking which creates an inaccurate view of reality. Combating cognitive distortions during high stakes decisions or events where irrational thoughts have long term implications requires self awareness and practicing good habits of the mind which enable you to make conscious decisions as opposed to letting your brain run on autopilot.
We do not conform to cultural and behavioral expectations around us that exist, but to a version we believe exists. Stuck in a vicious cycle of pluralistic ignorance, we continue to support the very behaviors we deem bad. Call it peer pressure, fear of rejection, our desire to fit in, or simply the fear of standing out, we think one thing and do another because we are deluded about other people’s real views and feel compelled to adhere to that delusion.
Ostriches bury their heads in the sand when they sense danger assuming that the danger will pass if they just avoid it long enough. We humans are no different. When dealing with unpleasant information, or information that challenges us in a way that we don’t want to be challenged, we pretend the information doesn’t exist. We bury our heads in the sand just like the ostriches.
Our life is nothing but a sum total of our decisions. From health to relationships to professional and personal growth, our decisions form an integral part of our overall well-being. An understanding of why you make bad decisions will profoundly enhance the success of all your future decision-making by preventing you from making choices you end up regretting
Availability heuristic which optimises for efficiency is error prone as it exaggerates the probability of an event based on ease of recall. Learning when we can rely on efficiency and when we need to be accurate can help us in making better decisions. Apply the right strategies when deciding on the likelihood of something happening again or determining how the future would turn out
Snap judgments without careful consideration rules our workplaces and our lives. Fundamental attribution error or attribution bias makes us attribute a person’s behaviour to their character without taking into account the limitations and constraints within which the person might be operating
What do we do when things do not turn out as intended? Applying Hanlon’s razor can open our mind to seek alternate views instead of assuming bad intention, shift our perspective from a negative frame of mind to a positive one, from shutting down communication to actively engage and blaming others to finding solutions together
When confronted with information that challenges your personal narrative, are you curious about the new information and use that to update your beliefs or do you give in to confirmation bias and find ways to reject the evidence that contradicts your assumptions and look for information that strengthens your point of view
While making decisions, how often do we optimize for long term gain at the cost of short term pain? A good process for making decisions requires second order thinking which unravels the implications of our decisions by thinking about its consequences in the future
Thinking opposite of what we desire is not natural. Inversion mental model provides an objective way to explore the problem by thinking the opposite of what we seek. Going beyond our limitation requires questioning our existing beliefs and assumptions to uncover new possibilities and establish a better perspective to our original question with greater clarity and understanding.
Given a complex solution with multiple assumptions and a simple solution with less assumptions, which one will you choose? Occam’s razor is a problem solving principle and a mental model that’s highly relevant in fast moving and highly competitive work environments. Learn why simple is hard and how simple solution to a problem is usually the correct one
Do you start with the limitations or think of the possibilities. First principles thinking embraces a new mindset that shifts our thinking from exploring variations of existing solutions to creating a new recipe from the fundamental truth. Learn how it is the most powerful form of thinking to keep you one step ahead and plan and build for the future
