Understanding, and breaking, our cognitive biases

5 Coun­ter­in­tu­itive Habits Of Tru­ly Authen­tic Lead­ers (Forbes):

“When you hold a cer­tain belief or uncon­scious­ly decide on some­thing, you’ll have a ten­den­cy to focus on and favor infor­ma­tion that sup­ports your belief or deci­sion, dis­card­ing any­thing that con­tra­dicts it. You do it with­out even real­iz­ing it. Psy­chol­o­gists call this con­fir­ma­tion bias. While this is a fun­da­men­tal­ly human foible to which nei­ther the bril­liant nor the prin­ci­pled are imper­vi­ous, unchecked in a leader or deci­sion-mak­er it could lead to dam­ag­ing – even cat­a­stroph­ic consequences…

Authen­tic lead­ers ask their advi­sors to always look for con­tra­dict­ing evi­dence and empow­er them to ‘speak truth to pow­er.’ “[To avoid con­fir­ma­tion bias] Every impor­tant argu­ment,” she explains, “should be accom­pa­nied by the rea­sons why it could be wrong…”

“Eter­nal vig­i­lance is a per­son­al ide­al that reduces the like­li­hood that our uncon­scious prej­u­dices are influ­en­tial in the things we do and how we con­struct our lives.”

Relat­ed reading:

• Mind Teas­er: Con­sid­er Linda
• Why Agile Minds Deploy Both Ratio­nal and Intu­itive Problem-Solving