Is this really possible?
What is it?
If you google the term debiasing, Wikipedia tells you that this is "the reduction of bias, particularly with respect to judgment and decision making.” And that “there are three general approaches to debiasing judgment and decision making, and the costly errors with which biased judgment and decision making is associated: changing incentives, nudging, and training.”
As you might imagine I’m a believer in training. Otherwise, I would have chosen the wrong job. And in a sense, this whole newsletter was all about training – or, to be more precise – about awareness, which is the first step of proper training. I also like the concept of nudging very much. This idea became popular in 2008 by a book by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein (“Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness”). A nudge is, according to the authors, a method of influencing people's behavior without resorting to prohibitions and commandments or changing economic incentives. In contrast to the homo economicus model, the nudge concept is based on a more realistic view of human beings. People are not always in a position to make the optimal decision. Research shows that human beings behave differently in many situations than the theory of rational utility maximization predicts. And that is why I’m not so sure about incentives (and along with this: punishments) as a means to effectively fight biases.
But that’s just my opinion. And with this last article of the “Bias Breakers” series I would be interested to get your view on this!
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So, what’s your thinking around that?
What are your own experiences? I would really love to learn from your stories how you fight biases and thinking errors, personally as well as for your teams (if you are a leader) or for your business (as executive).
This newsletter started with a reference to Richard Thaler, and it ends with one: we are all humans, not “econs”. And to be human, apparently, we now and then have to make all those little (and sometimes big) mistakes I've been writing about. This is what makes us much more likeable than any cold algorithm-based decision-making machine. Speaking of which: I find it very interesting to see what’s coming with AI and its often praised “decision supporting features”. Not sure where this will go. I have the vague feeling that sooner or later AI will also show biases. After all, it is fed by us with our data. And now the question is: what will happen then?