Some common decision traps

Just to get this into the discussion, here’s a list of common decision traps which add up to the single maxim, “slow down and think for yourself.”

• Plunging in: Beginning to gather information and reaching conclusions without any thought to what problem you’re really trying to solve and what alternatives you should be considering.
• Frame Blindness: Working on the wrong solution because you didn’t take time to define the right problem.
• Frame Stickiness: We see our situations through one frame at a time. Once we lock into a frame, we tend to stay there. Most problems should be examined through more than one frame.
• Lack of Frame Control: Failing to proactively frame the problem in multiple ways; being duly influenced by the frames of others.
• Incrementalism: making small and often meaningless changes to previously considered alternatives and thinking it’s a new alternative.
• Jumping at the first possible solution.
• Over-valuing alternatives presented by others, particularly by “experts.”
• Overworking the problem so that when you finally get around to choosing, one or more of the alternatives are now gone.
• Sunk Costs: Protecting earlier choices, even if they were bad choices, even if the conditions under which they were good choices no longer exist.
• Bias in favor of recent events.
• Bias in favor of vivid experiences/memories.
• Anchoring. Picking a starting point from which to work.
• Shortsighted Shortcuts. Relying on “rules of thumb”, convenient information, or readily available facts.
• Confirming Evidence: Knowing what you want to know and then seeing what you want to see in the information you gather.
• Overwhelming Yourself With Information. Confusing your decision making by gathering more information than you need to discriminate between doable alternatives. “Past a certain point, more information will make you increasingly confident about your knowledge, but may do little to improve the accuracy of your predictions. (Russo 124)
• Misplaced confidence: Being too sure of yourself, your instincts, and your past experience. Or, being unduly cautious in evaluating probabilities outcomes.
• Shooting from the Hip: Believing you can keep all the alternatives and information in your head-winging it-rather than following a systematic procedure when making a final choice.

Many decisions involved multiple actors. To those types of decisions can be added an additional trap known as “group think”. Confusing density of intelligence and expertise with good decision making. Having a lot of smart people involved doesn’t necessarily mean a good decision unless you manage the process. Within that context, groups can fall victim to some additional traps, which include:

• Cohesiveness: members of a group know and like each other and value group harmony over a quality decision.
• Insulation. Relevant decisions made elsewhere are not shared.
• High Stress: High importance, complexity, tight deadlines, and high uncertainty create great stress.
• Strong directive leadership: The leader indicating up front what he/she wants as an outcome.
• Self-censorship: people avoid speaking up against majority opinion for fear of ridicule or because they don’t want to waste the group’s time.
• Pressure put on people who disagree with the majority
• An illusion of invulnerability

kah

Technorati Tags: Decision Making, decision traps