- [Instructor] Reducing workplace bias.
The choice-supportive bias is the tendency
to see one's past decision-making as more effective
than it was.
The choice-supportive tendency reflects an inability
to accurately reflect on your past behavior,
especially your decision-making,
blinding you to how you can be more adaptive
through more effective actions.
The lesson and meditation will help you consider
your past actions and decisions more accurately,
thus reducing denial and increasing responsibility.
The choice-supportive bias is the tendency
to remember one's choices as better than they actually were.
People don't like to admit they're wrong,
or even worse that they were wrong.
Unless you are facing the fallout of a poor decision
in the immediate moment,
it is likely that previously poor choices
can be explained away.
And even when facing negative consequences in the moment,
we can always find a good reason,
i.e., create a good story as to why our choice made sense
at the time.
As we have seen in the hyperbolic discounting bias,
we live in the present
and predicting the future is difficult.
As a result, most of our long-term predictions
are likely to be inaccurate
and hence strewn with biases and rationalizations
to reassure ourselves that we are not stupid,
but are effective and successful.
The choice-supportive bias
often involves invoking a whole variety of factors
that were not predictable
at the time of making your decision.
So you can attribute your choice's failure
as a function of the weather, world events,
other people's actions,
and a whole variety of factors outside your control.
The problem is that choices ideally are made
with some consideration of the possible effects
of choices outside your control.
For example, your hiring of a controversial spokesperson
sparked more pushback than you've expected.
You then defend that decision
by painting the opposition you're getting
as misinformed, bias, driven by other agendas, and so on.
That may all be true,
but you still underestimated the reaction
no matter how illogical it might seem to you.
The problem with the choice-supportive bias
is that you are not accurately reviewing
your decision-making process,
which potentially has some longterm effects.
"Rationalizing is faulty, defensive thinking,
motivated by the desire to retain self-respect.
It serves this purpose, at least temporarily,
by enabling us to avoid facing issues
and to excuse our failures," Norman Leslie Munn.
You don't want to excuse your failures.
You want to identify them, understand and adapt.
You don't want to avoid facing issues.
You want to identify them, understand and adapt.
Often the evaluation of past choices is done very minimally,
if at all, but critical evaluation
of a decision-making process is important
in order to learn how decisions
could be made more effectively.
A critical analysis of past decision-making
will lead to more mindful and effective future decisions.
Cognitive biases, like the choice-supportive bias,
can turn reason into rationalization.
In trying to justify your decisions
rather than critically analyzing them,
you are being led by your ego rather than critical thinking.
Moreover, one rationalization can lead to another
as you try to defend previous decision-making
rather than analyze and understand it.
Meditation.
"People can rationalize in funny ways
to hold onto their dreams and needs," Jesse Plemons.
"The sad but amusing side of rationalization
is thinking that you are brilliant
while you are acting foolishly," Gilbert Beers
and Ron Beers.
"Reasoning is man's most useful tool
for making adaptations at high levels,
whereas rationalizing is man's most useful tool
for preventing just that," Florence Meredith
and Warren Southworth.
One of the biggest problems with human beings
is that we have the capacity
and apparently, the need to minimize emotional comfort.
As a result, it is hard to face up to decisions
or any behavior, which subsequently is shown to be flawed,
irrational, or unsuccessful.
However, the effective leader knows that it is reason
and critical thinking that must prevail,
not wishful thinking.
Critical thinking, not wishful thinking.
A successful organization cannot be run on rationalizations.
A successful organization cannot be run by catering
to the needs of emotional comfort of individuals.
A successful organization
faces up to reality, not storytelling.
A successful organization must identify
and eliminate cognitive bias and rationalization.
People can rationalize in funny ways
to hold onto their dreams and needs.
Rationalization sacrifices the truth for emotional comfort.
To realize your goals,
you must distinguish between dreams and reality.
The sad but amusing side of rationalization
is thinking that you are brilliant
while you are acting foolishly.
It's always important to do a reality check
when you think you are brilliant,
because you might be acting foolishly.
It's not amusing when it's you and your organization
who are deluded in their thinking.
Cognitive bias is the bridge between reality
and emotional comfort.
Don't think you are brilliant
when you are acting irresponsibly.
Don't think you are brilliant
when you are just seeking emotional shelter.
You are brilliant when you are not deluded in your thinking.
You are brilliant when you don't allow emotional discomfort
and cognitive bias to distort reality.
Reasoning is man's most useful tool
for making adaptations at high levels,
whereas rationalizing is man's most useful tool
for preventing just that.
High level adaptation
is based on reasoning, not rationalization.
High level adaptation is based on the truth,
not emotional comfort.
High level adaptation is not about ego,
it is about we-go,
as in together we seek to find the reality
through critical thinking.
The more people that are involved
in the assessment of previous decisions,
the less likely it is that decision will be hijacked
for the protection of one or two individuals.
Always take time to review previous decisions with honesty,
integrity, critical thinking, and other people.
People can rationalize in funny ways
to hold onto their dreams and needs.
The sad but amusing side of rationalization is thinking
that you are brilliant while you are acting foolishly.
Reasoning is man's most useful tool
for making adaptations at high levels,
whereas rationalizing is man's most useful tool
for preventing just that.
Reducing workplace bias.