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FiveThirtyEight
A head coach botched the end of the
Super Bowl, and it wasn’t Pete Carroll
Interview - McKinsey Quarterly
Debiasing the corporation: An interview with Nobel laureate Richard Thaler
Article - McKinsey Quarterly
An agenda for the talent-first CEO
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Article - McKinsey Quarterly
Debiasing the corporation: An interview with Nobel laureate Richard Thaler
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Many decisions made in 2005, for example, might have been considered stupid five years later. But Thaler says, “They weren’t stupid. They were unlucky.” Here’s his advice for distinguishing between bad decisions and bad outcomes.
Better lucky than smart
Interview - McKinsey Quarterly
Debiasing the corporation: An interview with Nobel laureate Richard Thaler
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Dive deeper
According to Nobel laureate Richard Thaler, CEOs are as prone as anyone—maybe more so.
CEOs in hindsight
FiveThirtyEight
A head coach botched
the end of the Super Bowl,
and it wasn’t Pete Carroll
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The hindsight bias exaggerates the extent to which a past event could have been predicted beforehand. It’s among the most famous of decision traps, found in everything from investments
to medical decisions.
I knew it!
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Did you know it all along? Then you may be a victim of hindsight bias.
Genius after the fact
In this edition:
—Benjamin Morris, FiveThirtyEight
“
During the 2015 Super Bowl, the Seattle Seahawks’
Russell Wilson attempted a doomed pass, and the internet erupted in outrage.
In reality, the odds of success were nearly the same:
93.6%
running
93.3%
passing
Richard Thaler,
economist
Before [a decision] gets played out, the CEO will say, ‘Yeah, great. Let’s go for
that gamble.’ . . . [If] it turns out that a competitor came up with a better version . . . that we all thought was a great idea, then the CEO is going to remember,
‘I never really liked this idea.’”
“
“
One trading company would [make new hires] bet on everything. . . . They were trying to teach them what it feels like to size up a bet, what it feels like to lose and win.”
Thaler emphasizes diversity in how people think. “You go into a lot of companies where . . . they all think the same way. And [these companies] don’t learn.”
You want to be in an organization where somebody will tell the boss before the boss is about to do something stupid. . . . Don’t let the boss think that he or she knows it all. Figure out
a way of debiasing the boss.”
“
“
Anybody making repeated forecasts should [keep]
a record. If you have a record, then you can go back. . . . Keeping track will bring people down to earth.”
Manage up
Diversify
Train
Write it down
The main objection . . . seems to be: ‘But the risk of throwing an interception was too great.’ As evidenced by, you know, the fact that Wilson threw an interception.”