What are some strategies to avoid overconfidence in strategic thinking?

One of my favorite ways to close a "skull session" is to either take all the flip charts down or erase the white boards and ask, "But what if we're wrong?" This invites all kinds of dissenting voices (those that had grown increasingly faint through the day). I would even end meetings in a similar fashion. Concluding the meeting 10-15 minutes early and posing the question is key. Soon, the team is trained on this and diversity of thought becomes the norm. When this happens, that's when you know you have created an environment of unconditional belonging where independent thinkers can contribute to the fullest. And I guarantee the outcomes will be more robust and "show-ready."

I have specific colleagues and friends who function as "gut checks" to my thinking. The trick is building a level of trust with the other person. They have to trust you to receive the feedback as much as you have to trust them to give it. It's hard to give honest negative feedback (unless you're a jerk) so most people don't do it. We prefer the easy path. That's especially true when the other person has a much different set of life experiences. Ironically, that's the kind of perspective you need the most!

Actively seek objective, credible feedback and diverse perspectives to counter confirmation bias and blind spots. Before finalizing strategies, invite honest critiques focused on weaknesses. Question confidence if contending views spark defensiveness. Test assumptions through experiments. Build structured frameworks to minimize subjectivity in decisions. Establish processes for regular external evaluation of ideas. Feedback providing necessary ballast against self-skewed logic is key to avoiding overconfidence perils. With sound, balanced insight challenging your own, you can correct blind spots, exposing missed risks and opportunities. If pride makes it hard to acknowledge merits of counterarguments, more humility is needed.

Punto importante de un líder es precisamente NO SER UN JEFE, es decir, no solo tu voz debe ser la que se escucha, y el don más grande de un ser humano es el de Escuchar... Esto va de la mano con la humildad del Lider, es tener esa capacidad de conocer de primera mano la opinión, ideas, criterios, sugerencias, aportes de tu equipo, pues por eso se llama así, EQUIPO... Escucha, que varias cabezas piensan mejor que una

Really well put William! I have similarly experienced the power that seeking diverse and different perspectives brings to the development and culmination of powerful solutions and progression.

In my experience as a financial planner, uncertainties abounds all the time. Embracing it has also made me realise that putting much confidence in a thing or a plan is destructive and can lead to low productivity. Especially when all goes to naught. I will definitely suggest that embracing uncertainty can do you a lot good than harm. You will think on your feet, it will help you reach out for help when stuck, it will also lead you to open door you never would have guessed was opened for you and was waiting for you to come in. Uncertainty is the real deal towards life and factoring it in here and there leads to more creativity.

Cultivating a growth mindset - is about adopting a particular attitude and approach towards challenges, setbacks, and personal development. Here's an elaboration on how it relates to strategic thinking: - Embracing Challenges - Opportunities for Learning and Development - Persistence and Resilience - Adaptability and Flexibility - Continuous Improvement

Se suele asumir que la incertidumbre es algo malo del entorno, mi forma de pensar es que si estás en un entorno sin incertidumbre huye, porque ese sector está muerto. La incertidumbre es la forma que tiene de decirnos que está activo, con vida propia y listo para darnos batalla. Por supuesto todos queremos un trabajo fácil, pero sin esfuerzo no hay recompensa, la clave para triunfar ante la incertidumbre es la calma y tener claros nuestros objetivos hasta el final, saber adaptarnos pero jamás perder de vista nuestra meta.

Completamente de acuerdo, realizas un plan estratégico pero contemplando siempre la incertidumbre del plan para poder afianzar tus estrategias

Pensamiento estrategico Lo primero que tiene que haber es una base de trabajo, objetivos definidos que se puedan cumplir, por muy peque?os que sean, digamos que quieres pintar tu casa, lo primero que tienes que saber es ?primero necesito pintar la casa? la estrategia indica en exceso de confianza que si, pero lo primero que debe ocurrir es: revisar paredes para saber si el yeso esta anclado adecuadamente a. la pared, o si hay humedad o no, habiendo checado eso entonces, se hacen las reparaciones necesarias, después se hace el calculo de pintura, nada se puede hacer al azar, todo se tiene que calcular, los pasos que se den se tienen que medir, si no se hace asi, lo presupuestado o calculado puede tener una posibilidad mayor de fracaso.

I've done a few dozen pre-mortems for large projects. They can be very helpful, but not as an individual exercise. That was my rookie mistake. The point of a pre-mortem is to foster a conversation among teammates about what might go wrong and how to address them now (vs later). Now when I do them, I lay out the questions for the pre-mortem in a single shared document. I convene the team, assign someone to take notes, then facilitate the conversation. Our team is much more likely to get (and stay) aligned when we agree about the biggest risks and how to address them.

Pre-Morten analysis is the key to avoid some consequences of to optimistic decision making and allows you to guide and avoid any lack of vision of your decision, it allows you to be critical before your project even start and foreseen the action to be taken before they even happen. This gives your team empowerment and vision on the action to be taken.

I've sometimes referred to this as "accelerated hindsight". They say hindsight is 20/20, so the idea is to put yourself into that mode as early as possible. Also, even when it's hard to imagine in advance how a failure will happen, it's still useful to just imagine what might fail and how other components might be affected. At minimum, accelerated hindsight can probably anticipate tools and procedures you might want to have in place to survey and summarize bad situations, to notify affected parties or relevant management, to reset things to a stable state, and to ask some initial debugging questions.

Realizar un 'análisis pre-mortem' es imaginar escenarios donde nuestra estrategia fracasa. Identificar posibles razones de fracaso nos ayuda a prevenir problemas y riesgos que podrían afectar nuestra estrategia. Esta técnica evita el exceso de confianza y optimismo, donde se sobreestima lo positivo y se subestima lo negativo

One thing I found useful throughout my career journey is the injection of wisdom in our real workplace scenarios. I love the quote of Carol Tavris: "Doubt is not the enemy of justice, over confidence is". Accordingly, I think we need at the first place to practice humbleness as a key value. Then we have to consider more analytical approach in evaluating the proposed decisions, especially scenario planning and pre-mortems tools. It is a human nature that we became saturated with expected positive outcomes when we are overconfident, so it is vital to seek a neutral feedback. In addition, I follow this sequence to ensure that the risk of being too optimistic is eliminate: analyze -conclude -evaluate and feedback - reflection -final proposal.

Seeking feedback takes strength as you need to be open minded in order to benefit from them. Feedback are a great source of progress when given generously and taken wisely. Empathy and generosity are the basis for a feedback and allow to do so much progress it is the path to a better auto knowledge. Important is always to give a concrete and recent example of the point to be improved or reinforced this will always be more effective.

Indiscutiblemente la retroalimentación es parte esencial del buen andar de los planes estratégicos, siempre y cuando estemos abiertos a recibir las opiniones dejando el ego de lado, así de simple

A veces entendemos que hacemos todo bien.. solo a través de la retroalimentacion sobre nuestro performace es que se logra identificar puntos débiles, amenazas, oportunidades y nuestras Fortalezas.

Seeking Feedback is another way to avoid overconfidence as to seek feedback promotes personal and career growth. Feedback is about active listening, meticulous analysis, and thinking of the best possible solution to do inorder to improve. It provides positive criticism and allows one to have an insight as to what everyone can change to improve their focus and results within a given project.

La retroalimentación de tus pares o superiores siempre es importante para conocer diferentes puntos de vista de tu desempe?o y el estar siempre abierto a ello te ayudará a crecer como persona y profesionalmente pudiendo analizar aspectos que creías adecuados.

No hay nada de malo en cambiar y en adaptarse, infinidad de empresas han fracaso por la incapacidad de asumir un error por parte de la alta dirección. Se suele pensar que decir me equivoqué es un signo de debilidad, cuando es una de las cosas más admirables que se pueden hacer. Si estás llevando a cabo una estrategia que ya no funciona en el escenario en el que te encuentras debes asumirlo, analizarlo y volver a plantearte el problema para encontrar la mejor solución. El esperar que se solucione solo siguiendo la misma estrategia es signo de debilidad. Adaptarse, escuchar, aprender y dirigir así se consigue el éxito en todos los ámbitos de la vida

Siempre hay que estar abierto a hacer una revisión periódica de las decisiones y estrategias planteadas para conocer si fue una decisión adecuada y si no, es válido modificar decisiones y estrategias generando un ambiente dinámico y de aprendizaje que te ayudará a mejorar en futuros casos

Muy importante revisar las decisiones y sobretodo tener la capacidad de reconocer que esas decisiones han sido erróneas. Algo muy valioso también es compartir con nuestros equipos la toma de decisiones y escuchar sus opiniones para poder tomar las decisiones teniendo en cuenta las variables y propuestas de nuestro equipo. Tomar decisiones nunca es fácil, pero hay que asumir la responsabilidad de tomarlas cuando eres el líder, es lo que se espera de nosotros, al igual que asumir los aciertos y fallos de estas decisiones. Obviamente no se podrán tomar decisiones a la ligera, pero hay momentos en los que debemos tomarlas de una manera ágil.

It is crucial to establish clear metrics for success before implementing a strategic decision. Defining measurable outcomes and criteria provides a tangible framework for evaluating the effectiveness of the chosen strategy. This proactive approach not only helps in steering away from overconfidence but also enables a more accurate and objective assessment during the regular review process, enhancing overall strategic thinking.

Most strategic decisions might be expensive to reverse. However, they can be catastrophic to the organization if they aren't. Looking backwards afterwards and reflecting upon them will either help you tweak them or determine it's time to cut your losses. I do this a lot with my investment decisions.

Read history. All kinds of history are filled with overconfident actors, mistakes, and strategies that never worked quite right. Whether political history, military history, or business/labor history, seeing how others have succeeded and failed in the past is often a valuable way to check your overconfidence and reinforce your ability to challenge assumptions. No one example from history will provide you a checklist to strategic success, but reading it widely will accumulate wisdom for you that will help you recognize when you are going too far or when you might need to ask harder questions of yourself and your team.

To overcome overconfidence bias, employ adjustment and sensitivity analysis. Firstly, adjust your initial confidence levels by considering past accuracy. Reflect on prior judgments and recalibrate your certainty accordingly. Secondly, conduct sensitivity analysis by exploring different scenarios and their potential outcomes. Evaluate how variations in assumptions impact conclusions. This method encourages a more nuanced perspective, fostering a balanced and realistic appraisal of situations. Combining adjustment and sensitivity analysis enhances decision-making by mitigating the impact of overconfidence bias.

One additional way to avoid overconfidence in strategic thinking and decision making is to perform a PESTEL analysis and identify those high impact trends that weren’t there just a few months/years ago, or were just weak signals. This shall bring some humility in strategic thinking.

La fiducia-benevolenza gioca un ruolo sia nell’impegno affettivo che nella l’impegno calcolato, così come fiducia-competenza è legata alle due dimensioni dell'impegno.

Adding on to BJ Armtstrong’s superb recommendation - understand and accept the human factors in a strategic net assessment. History is replete with examples where leaders engaged in conflict that defied any reasonable Ends-Ways-Means analysis. Barbarossa made no sense. Putin’s “Special Military Operation” made no sense. Unless you believed what they said, which was widely dismissed as madness. Prepare for the enemy’s MLCOA, MDCOA - but be flexible, and invest deeply in educating the NCO and commissioned officer corps.