Thinking books · Decision making · Chip & Dan Heath, 2013
Decisive — the big ideas
Four common ways decisions go wrong, and a practical counter for each.
Free — no account needed to read
The big ideas
Narrow framing is the first failure: most decisions are posed as "whether or not" when they should be "which of several". Asking what you would do if none of these options existed usually produces a better one.
Confirmation bias is countered by reality-testing — running a small real trial — rather than by more discussion.
Short-term emotion is countered by distance: what would you tell a friend, what will you think in ten years.
Overconfidence is countered by setting a tripwire in advance: a specific signal and a date for reconsidering.
Practise it — no need to have read it
Take a decision framed as yes or no. Write three more options, including what you would do if both current options were forbidden.
A hint: Then design the smallest real test of your favourite, rather than arguing about it.
Where it shows up in real life
- Job offers
- Whether to start or stop something
- Team decisions
Described in our own words with the source named — never quoted, and not a substitute for reading the book.
Thinking methods from this book
- Widen, test, distance, prepare — Four counters to the four ways decisions usually go wrong.
- Sort by cost of reversal — Spending your deliberation where undoing would be expensive.
The thinking it builds
- Decision Thinking — Make better decisions under uncertainty
- Creative Thinking — Generate possibilities and new approaches