Five Habits for Better Decisions: Debiasing with the TUNER Approach
Take the fear factor out of important decisions with a simple five step action plan to de-bias your decision-making process that we call the Decision TUNER.
Our pragmatic de-biasing approach consolidates existing research on reducing thinking errors in decision making. It is unique as it begins long before you take a decision and does not end once you have taken it. Use it, for example, to choose the right supplier, to make the right career decision, to take the best strategic next step for your organization, or to steer projects to success.
What Is Debiasing and Why Do You Need It?
Debiasing refers to systematic efforts to free your decision making from typical cognitive or social biases. It is a systematic approach to help you steer clear of recurring mental shortcuts that lead to bad decisions. What kind of errors are we talking about?
In a recent survey that we have conducted among more than a hundred experienced managers, the biases that the managers noticed occurred most frequently in their decision making were:?
How can you avoid these and further decision-making traps (see our overview at bias.visual-literacy.org) and make sure that you take rational decisions despite our tendency for hasty conclusions (what Kahneman calls “fast thinking” or “system 1”)? That’s what the next section covers.
The Decision TUNER Approach
Our Decision TUNER assembles five effective and complementary mechanisms to significantly reduce biases in your decision making.
To immunize your decisions against (cognitive and social) biases, follow these five steps and develop them as natural decision habits:
1.Track your decisions over time so that you know your own (or your team’s) specific weaknesses, biases, and preferences when you take your next decision. Trace your steps and periodically reflect on your decision scorecard or timeline. Try to derive your specific decision weaknesses or preferences from this analysis. If you notice, for example, that you tend to be overly optimistic, try to be extra careful or self-critical in your next decision. If you notice that you tend to avoid risks and hence miss out on lucrative opportunities, try to adjust your decision making accordingly and take more (calculated) risks. It always helps if you document and discuss past decisions with colleagues to better track your decision patterns.
2. Unlearn some of your acquired (sub-optimal) decision habits, by radically questioning (and reversing) your assumptions, preferences, and decision routines and by frequently confronting them with our changing reality (such as the different leadership needs of Gen Y and Z). This starts with actively trying to disprove your favorite assumptions and opinions (like making a U-turn) and ban sub-optimal decision procedures such as brainstorming. It continues with our step 3: seeking new views, frames, options, and perspectives on decision issues.
3. New views are the third key to de-bias your decisions. Make sure you seek novel angles, frames, and fresh options on a decision issue. Incorporate the opinions and experiences of (radically different) others. This will help you shed spotlights on neglected issues. So do as management guru Tom Peters said: Hang out with weirdos! Finally, try out a long- or mid-term perspective on your decision (what are its implications 10 months or years from now?) or change the (micro/meso/macro) level at which you look at an issue. Or alternatively: incorporate an overly optimistic and a pessimistic/worst case scenario into your deliberation.
4. Emotions can be the biggest enemy of a good decision. Hence, keep your feelings in check when making an important decision and try to reflect on your emotional state before making a far-reaching decision. Keep cool and visualize your emotions (on a scale from 1 to 10) as a first step and reflect on how they may impact your decision-making process. Be aware of the fact that emotions (i.e., anger, fear, sadness, frustration, pride, jealousy) can affect your decisions, especially your propensity to take or avoid risks.
5. Revise, correct, or finetune your decisions whenever you see that they have not been optimal initially. You may not always de-bias your decision in the heat of the moment, but there are many ways to decide in way that creates more options (to adapt the decision at a later point). Keep that in mind by sequencing your decision process instead of deciding everything at once (so that you can still change course). This is known as the ‘cybernetic imperative’ by Heinz von Foerster: Always try to decide in a way that creates more options for you, rather than eliminating most of them.
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So, don’t get stuck in your current decision-making style or old habits and assumptions, but tune your decision process so that it fits the requirements of the situation. Use our decision TUNER checklist below for that and let us know in the comments what makes your decisions better and bias-free.
To Dig Deeper
We have developed simple, visual decision tools for each TUNER step, contact me if you're interested in the TUNER toolbox and check out these useful resources:
T: On the benefits of tracking decisions:
U: On how to unlearn old habits:
N: On the importance of new views and on reframing issues:
E: On the impact of emotions (and their regulation or check) on decision making and risk taking:
R: On making your decisions revisable:
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3 年Excellent framework for leaders to avoid predictable mistakes. Thank you Martin