Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. Brothers Chip and Dan share their experiences and research insights to communicate ideas. Chip is professor of Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. Dan is a consultant to Duke University’s Corporate Education program.
Hard to believe that I read Made to Stick, their first book over 15 years ago. And it has been 12 years since reading Switch, their excellent follow up book. I am considering re-reading both since they are still powerful reminders of what we can be, even today.
Decisive was wonderful reading. Chip and Dan are delivering deep insights into bias. More importantly, they tackle the long held belief that Ben Franklin’s “weigh up the pros and cons and go with the winner” actually fails our decision making repeatedly.
Chip and Dan share their approach, known as the “Four Villains of Decision Making” that is much more effective. This is accomplished by framing choices in very narrow terms.
Many simply seek information or individuals who support an existing bias. This results in short term emotions, which leads to overconfidence. This can be easily identified with confirmation bias or perhaps implicit bias.
Chip and Dan move this forward by decision making methods broken down into four Decisive sections: Widen Your Options. Reality-Test Assumptions, Attain Distance before deciding, and Prepare to be Wrong. Many will find greater insights within their four methods.
1. Widen your options
There are rarely ever just two choices. So, widen your options to consider opportunity costs among many others. Then seek out those who had the same decision to make. In fact, a good decision-maker will seek out options and gathering data about the choice to be made.
This helps deter confirmation bias. Chip and Dan provide the example of multi-tracking. Graphic Designers will develop final designs after receiving feedback on their drafts. Seeking out others allows you to gain knowledge and experience from those how solved similar choices.
2. Reality-test your assumptions
How can you test your assumption? Simple, conduct experiments. Within the business choice for opening a restaurant is a well known example. Is it an acceptable choice to invest or start a new restaurant when the success rate is less than 60% over the first 3 years?
The outside view ignores everything that is special about our situation. All entrepreneurs have reason to believe, at the beginning, that they will succeed.
pg 303
When looking at options for a new restaurant consider what will it take for this option to be successful. At the same time you may consider what data would be strong enough to change your mind. Are these options grounded in reality?
3) Attain distance before deciding
Move away from short-term emotional choices. Another excellent example of confirmation bias. This key lesson is simple: define your core priorities.
We’ve all heard that we should sleep on it, and this is true. I read in another book that “You can always tell the man off tomorrow if it is such a good idea.” Consider that it’s easier to give a friend advice than yourself, what would you tell a friend to do? If you were replaced, what would your successor do? For example,
Chip and Dan are sharing the well known story of Intel. By the 1980s Intel memory chip business division was struggling against Japanese companies. CEO Andy Grove considered “What would my successor do?” As a result of this thinking, he closed their memory chip business and invested in the microprocessor division. Intel became a powerhouse. In this chapter we also learn about Suzy Welch’s 10/10/10 tool for emotional sorting:
To use 10/10/10, we think about our decisions on three different time frames: How will we feel about it 10 minutes from now? How about 10 months from now? How about 10 years from now?
pg. 411
4. Prepare to be wrong
Many businesses utilize postmortems. However, a premortem analysis is a solid technique. Imagine one year from today asking your team: “The project was a disaster, what happened?” This analysis allows for hindsight and provides for better answers.
Decisive shares how Kodak may have made the right choice in the 1980s to not enter digital photography. However, by the mid 1990s they missed and are now out of business. Their premortem could have observed when digital photography impacts the market above 10%, Kodak would reconsider launching a digital brand.
I am also appreciating their honesty. Making decisions based upon their four ideas will not guarantee success or that it was the right choice. Chip and Dan acknowledge this honestly and upfront. Their analysis references Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow and Nudge by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein. Actually, it is certainly better to make a choice and be wrong, rather than delay. However, by having a greater range of options coupled with less bias will increase your ability to in-fact, make a successful choice.
In conclusion, Decisive you will make many decisions every day. Some are more important than others. Chip and Dan provide a solid foundation to arrive with choices that you can implement with greater certainty.