- 4 habits of mind and characteristics of thought that account for the frequency of our failures
- The slowness of our thinking (streamlining thinking process causes us to omit key variables)
- Our wish to feel confident and competent in our problem solving abilities (lack of ability to critically reflect on our decisions)
- Our inability to absorb quickly and retain large amounts of information (humans don't gather enough information to form new models efficiently)
- Our tendency to focus on immediately pressing problems (ignore problems our solutions will create, lack of second (12th) order thinking)
- Humans ignore causal links and consequences, focusing on short term solutions that implicate the long term effects
- Frequent hypothesis testing and critical questioning vital
- People tend to regulate the situation and not the decision process
- Efficient problem solving revolves around complexity (interconnectedness of different variables), dynamics (autonomously moving) and intransparence (never fully aware of all information, engage in problem with information available to them)
- Defining goals is first step in problem solving and then gather appropriate level of information
- Convert unclear goals by ranking goals by urgency, viability and probability of success
- Must distinguish between delegating and dumping responsibility
- Must rank and delegate when we have more than one goal but when we solve one we may create another
- Must go beyond just causal relationships but to abstract relationships as well, we must know the hierarchy as well and think in analogies - exploring the unknown via the known
- Reductive hypothesis - analyze the final "piece" of a problem and reverse these effects in order to find the true cause of the problem or situation
- Strategy is a system of makeshifts, changing as circumstances change
- "Good" participants in the game have made considerably less decisions early on and asked many more questions than "bad" participants
- Humans terrible at understanding the power of compounding. Don't be fooled by the term "deceleration" - this is still growth and can compound massively over time!
- Laymen and professionals both face distortionary forces in decision and assumption making
- Don't overgeneralize on local experiences. Rather, use sequential hypothesis to continuously ask questions, test and adapt
- Must first define goals, then build a model/strategy and then begin filling this model with information until we are comfortable to form a final conclusion
- Planning - condition element, action element and result element
- Can't be too unqualified, must take circumstances and exceptions into account (don't use "always", "never", etc.)
- We have to study the consequences of our measures in order to find opportunities to correct our incorrect behavioral tendencies and assumptions about reality
- Humans are inclined to maintain the illusion of competence by failing to reflect on their decision and problem solving approaches
- Often redirect our thinking from actual goals to the goal of preserving a sense of our competence
- We cannot teach common sense but we can put ourselves in positions where a clear sense is required, which will help us to develop a common sense for future encounters of a similar kind
What I got out of it
- Great book which looks at the fallibilities of our thinking and decision making process and how to improve it