Welcome back to 1% Better after a little while away ;)

This episode is one that I've been waiting to release for a few weeks. And here it is.

A lot in this one! So do enjoy....

We cover:

•Is Decision Making a Skill or a Competency
•The difference between a skill and a competency
•How emotions tie into decision making
•How to improve in Decision Making
•How Anne started to realise she was good at making decisions
•Having an interest in cognitive science and starting to understand the decisions making process deeper
•The grass is not really green….it’s how our eyes perceive it!
•Giving poker a go after her brother suggested she should give it a try
•Finding poker as a decision-making experiment
•In 2002, by chance, giving a talk to a group of students about poker and risk management
•For 10 years after, consulting in the space of decision making
•In 2012, leaving poker and fully focusing on consulting around decision making
•Do decision making skills tie into personality and genetics?
•Understanding how decision making aligns to the big 5 personality traits
•Open mindedness is very important to decision making – it can be developed.
•Decision Making is a teachable skill – it is not thought enough
•Decision Making in an absolute sense v a relative sense – this is a key question!
•Poker is always relative to the people you’re making decisions against
•Being very good at poker from the very start but this is due to the relative level of skills of the opponents
•Her brother was a world class player so getting coaching from him was impactful
•How her own decision-making rules and approaches started to form and develop
•Only after the 2002 talk, did Anne start to see the transferability of decision-making in poker can be used in business, life and other environments
•Poker started to expose cognitive biases – it exposed the cracks in our decision making
•Poker showed her how to become a better learner not just at the table but in life
•Talking about Risk and emotional control – the greater emotional state you’re in the greater the risk you could be willing to take on!
•Main biases:
1.The paradox of experience – in order to become better decision makers, we have to make decisions. The paradox is that
2.Resulting Bias – example…
What is your best decision in the last year?
What is your worst decision of the last year?
There is luck in how things turn out
3.There is a lose connection in the quality of the decision that worked out well and the one that didn’t
4.The Hindsight Bias Problem
I should have somehow known….
5.Memory Creep – we start to believe we did know it beforehand!
6.When we have an experience in our life, we tend to take bad lessons from it…
7.EG – Clinton strategy during the 2016 election – after the fact everyone said that her strategy was wrong and that everyone knew it at the time! But the fact was they didn’t……
•In real time, what should someone look out for to make a good decision?
1.Counterfactual Thinking – look at different outcomes that could have occurred – was it really likely that this bad thing occurred? The more we look at this in advance
2.What are the different ways it could turn out?
3.What are my preferences?
4.How likely are these things occur?
5.What is the upside and downslide of this happening?
6.Get other people’s perspectives on it – this is key!! Very often people see things more clearly than you!!
7.Get outside of your own mind – eg get data on the success of this type of decision – eg how many restaurants survive after 1,2, 5 years
•Get out of the inside view and into the outside view
•What role does luck play in decision making?
•If you’re a good decision maker, you’re increasing the chance and influence of luck
•You have to embrace and lean into luck to become more lucky
•Lean in and accept that luck exists. This is what’s it’s all about.
•Give luck a hug is great advice!
•The good luck that came Annie’s way after publishing her book – she can control this and that lead to luck!
•Not making a decision is making a decision
•Omission v Commission Bias – e.g. staying in an existing job or moving to a new role
•The value of positive thinking v negative thinking
•Naturally thinking in probabilities
•Key advice on how to make decisions faster and better
1.Make Better Decisions:
Being open minded and get more inputs on it
More information and improve the information you have – most of this in other people’s head!
If you want to know what people think, don’t tell them what you think first!!!
2.Faster – focus on impact and options:
What are the impacts of this decision – is it high or low?
Knowing the potential impact can lead to freeing you up to make the decision faster
EG – making a decision at a restaurant – knowing how much this decision had on their happiness….
The happiness test – what is the long term impact?
So think about the impact!!
For the options, if you can’t unwind this, then the decision might be more important
EG – Agile software – is there a two way or a one way door on this decision
•Do you use decision making in other areas of gambling?
•The metaskill is needed here….every decision you make is a bet!
•Annie asks you to check out the Alliance for Decision Education - https://www.alliancefordecisioneducation.org/

Check out more about Annie and go buy her new book: https://www.annieduke.com/books/

Website - https://www.annieduke.com/
Twitter @AnnieDuke