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Process matters more than analysis. Often a good process leads to better analysis. But the reverse is not true.
How to be a good decision maker?
Exploring alternative points of view, recognizing uncertainty, searching for evidence that contradicts your beliefs.
A process is important. Because only being aware of bias in our mental processes is not enough. We should correct it but it's very hard.
A method of using a process for making decisions:
Make a pros-and-cons list. But this approach has its shortcomings which are shown as follows:
The Four Villains of Decision Making
1. (When we encounter a choice.) Narrow framing: the tendency to define our choices too narrowly so that we miss options. Solution: Widen your options.
2. (When we analyze options.) Confirmation bias: the tendency to collect information that supports our preexisting attitudes,beliefs, and actions. Solution: Reality-test your assumptions.
3. (When we make a choice.) Short-term emotion: When we've got a difficult decision to make, our feelings churn and we intend to make wrong choice. Solution: attain distance before deciding.
4. (When we live with our choice.) Overconfidence: People think they know more than they do about how the future will unfold. Solution: prepare to be wrong.
The process help us overcome these villains and make better choices.
Then how can we overcome these villains and make better choices? Use the process of decision making named WRAP.
1. WIDEN YOUR OPTIONS
1.1 Avoid a Narrow Frame
This helps you to find a better way to make the goal. Do not always make "Whether or not" decisions and do not be stuck in a narrow frame. Try think about "Is there a better way" or "What else could we do".
Dodge "whether OR not".
Think about opportunity cost. For instance, if you choose to buy something cheaper, the extra money could be used to buy other things I need.
Using "Vanishing Options Test". Try to ask "You cannot choose any of the current options you're considering. What else could you do?"
Being stuck in a narrow frame is hard to recognize. But only when you are the one inside it. Try to be an advisor, help your coworker or your children have a wider view.
Then, where can you go looking for new alternatives?
1.2 Multitracking
Multitracking means considering more than one option simultaneously. It improves our understanding of the situations we are facing. It let us cobble together the best features of our options. It helps us keep our egos in check.
Push for "this AND that" rather than "this OR that". It is worth cultivating multiple options at the same time. Decisions with a couple of alternatives turn out dramatically better than decision with one.
Seek out options that minimize harm AND maximize opportunity, so we are more likely to uncover our full spectrum of choices.
Beware "Sham options". They are not the real options which other people can disagree about.
1.3 Find Someone Who's Solved Your Problem
When you need more options but get stuck, you should look for someone who's solved your problem. To find them, we can:
Look inside: Find your bright spots.
Look outside: From competitive analysis, benchmarking, best practices.
Into the distance: Via laddering up. The nature of laddering up is analogies*.
Note: To be proactive. By taking the result of your search and recording them for FUTURE USE - to turn active search into a proactive set of guidelines. Namely, encode your greatest hits in a decision ""playlist". 这里的意思是，平时注意收集将来会遇到的问题的解决办法，形成一个playlist，事到临头时能够及时解决。本质：化被动为主动。
*Analogies are always used by scientists. They make progress through analogies to similar experiments and similar organisms. Ladder up: Lower rungs show close analogies (low risk and low novelty), while higher rungs reveal more distance solutions (higher risk and higher novelty). In short, Why generate your own ideas when you can sample the world's buffet of options?
Then, how can we overcome confirmation bias which tempts us to collet only the information that supports our gut-level preference?
2.REALITY-TEST YOUR ASSUMPTIONS
Confirmation bias means hunting for information that confirms out initial assumptions (which are often self-serving).
We can make it easier for people to disagree with us. For instance, ask "What would have to be true for this option to be the very best choice?"
To gather more trustworthy information, we can ask disconfirming questions to surface contrary information. For instance, iPod buyers: "What problems does the iPod have?" Caution: Probing questions can backfire in situations with a power dynamic. We should use open-ended questions.
Check ourselves by considering the opposite of our instincts & testing our assumptions with a deliberate mistake.
2.2 Zoom Out, Zoom In
When we assess our choices, we will take the inside view by default. We will consider the information in the spotlight and use it to form quick impressions. What we've seen, though, is two things: zooming out and zooming in.
When we zoom out, we take the outside view, learning from the experiences of others who have made choices like the one we are facing. When we zoom in, we take a close- up of the situation, looking for "color" that could inform our decision. We should do both. Because Both give us a more realistic perspective on our choices.
To find right kinds of information: Zoom in and zoom out.
If you still have no idea, ask an expert. Warning: ask experts the past and the present, but not the future. Because they are good at estimating base rates but lousy at making predictions.
书中对“一味依赖数据是否有违人性？”的解答：「The advice to trust numbers isn't motivated by geekery; it's motivated by HUMILITY. We can't lose sight of people like us- people full of passion for their opportunities- spent their time trying something very similar to what we are contemplating. To ignore their experience isn't brave and romantic- " I'm not going to let some analysis stand in the way of doing what I believe." Rather, it's egotistical. It's saying, we set ourselves apart from everyone else. We're different. We're better. The humble approach is to ask, "What can I reasonably expect to happen if I make this choice?" Once we accept the answer- and trust it to make our decision- then we can turn our attention to fighting the odds.」
2.3 Ooch
Ooch means running small experiments to test our theories. Rather than jumping in headfirst, we dip a toe in. Where does this leave us? Armed with better information to make a good choice. So if we can know, there is no need to predict. Just Ooch.
Caveat: Ooching is counterproductive for situations that require commitment. Because you should not break your words.
3. ATTAIN DISTANCE BEFORE DECIDING
3.1 Overcome Short-Term Emotion
Fleeting emotions tempt us to make decisions that are bad in the long term. To overcome it, we need to attain some distance. There two methods:
10/10/10 method: if you make this decision, what will you feel 10 minutes after? Then 10 months after? Then 10 years after? Thinking like that can force us to consider future emotions as much as present ones.
By looking at our situation from an observer's perspective. For instance, ask "what would I tell my best friend to do?" Because Mere exposure(we like what is familiar to us) and loss aversion(losses are more painful than gains are pleasant) make us status-quo bias(do not want to change present situation), So when you get stuck in status-quo and fear to make change, let's attain a distance. Namely, 旁观者清。
3.2 Honor Your Core Priorities
Core priorities: long-term emotional values, goals, aspirations. For instance, what kind of person do you want to be? The goal is not to eliminate emotion. It is to honor the emotions that count.
If we want our choices honor our priorities, we need to Attain Distance Before Deciding. With some distance, we can quiet short-term emotions and look past the familiarity of the state quo. Besides, we can surface the priorities conflicts that underlie tough choices. Finally, we can spot and stamp out lesser priorities that interfere with greater ones. By identifying and enshrining your core priorities, you make it easier to resolve present and future dilemmas.
Always ask myself"Am l doing what I most need to be doing right now?" Set a timer that goes off every hour to remind yourself to do the most prior things.
In a word，找到目标和准则，每当遇到决定困境时，仔细想想什么才是内心想要的，最符合长远利益和幸福的。具体点就是，若做了这个决定，10分钟后会对我有什么影响，10个月后呢，10年后呢？瞬间孰轻孰重都将清清楚楚明明白白。目光长远的好处在此。所以，提前思考core priorities十分重要，不可等到事到临头匆忙混乱下做出可能会后悔的事。
4. PREPARE TO BE WRONG
4.1 Bookend the Future
The future is not a "point"- a single scenario that we must predict. It is a range. We should bookend the future, considering a range of outcomes from very bad to very good.
To prepare the lower bookend, we need ask"It is a year from now. Our decision has failed utterly. Why?" It is important that you pretend to be really in trouble and are faced with the failure. This method can raise the accuracy of prediction.
To prepare the upper bookend, like the previous one, ask"it is a year from now. We are heroes. Will we be ready for success?"
To prepare for what we can not be foreseen. We can use "save factor". Take complete measures supposed we have got in trouble. Because we might also err by failing to prepare for unexpectedly good outcomes. Then are we ready for it?
4.2 Set A Tripwire
当情况会发生缓慢的变化时，set a tripwire可以起到在关键时刻提醒的作用。比如温水煮青蛙，如果当时它有个温度计提示的话，就不会最终被煮熟了。
此外，partition can also act as tripwire。举例来说，有24块饼干，一份全部装在一个再密封的保鲜袋里，另一份是24个独立包装。实验表明，前者吃完用6天，后者是24天。因为分成更小份会迫使我们在是否吃下一小包时进行做一个清醒的决定。信用卡利用了这个现象，即允许我们超额使用金钱，这些钱还未被我们考虑如何分配。
最后，当感觉不对劲时，马上行动起来，不要犹豫，否则可能当情况恶化后，亡羊补牢为时已晚。这里的感觉是个比较模糊的tripwire，不像前两种可以有个明确的界线。
总之，tripwire告诉我们当我们在做某件事的时候，事情是会一直发生变化的，而我们是有机会在事态发展时做出决定的，而不是一味任其发展。
4.3 Trust Process
让对手对最终决定服气的方法：当你能出色地表述他们的立场甚至更加有道理时，即使他们最终结局是输给你，也将是和平无怨言的。因为你能做到以上这一点的话，能够让对手相信他们被尊重被倾听。
类似的，要让别人相信你做出了正确的决定，必须告诉他们自己承认并考虑过这个决定的负面影响，表明自己是基于理智和事实，并不是鲁莽地做出这个选择。
「We do not know whether the direction for ARTS and D'Arrigo will be successful. And that is okey: it is the way when we make a choice whether it will be successful. Success EMERGES(此词用得甚好，成功并不是依靠一两个绝妙决定可以一口气奠定的，而是在做出一步步或对或错的小选择时逐渐浮现出它的面貌的) from the quality of the decisions we make and the quantity of luck we receive. We can not control luck. But we can control the way we make choices.」
A good decision process keeps us run in the right direction.
总结做决定时要思考的几件事：
Run the Vanishing Options Test to see if you might be overlooking a great alternative.
Call someone who has solved your problem before.
Ask yourself, What would I tell my best friend to do?(Or, if you are at work, What would my successor do?) Gather three friends or colleagues and run a premortem(就是假装你正在经历将来可能的失败，你会怎么做).
「It would be hard to find a less inspiring word in the English language than "process".」每个决定是dx，process就是积分而得的面积. 对于cross section的意义对于每个dx来说，就像大海对应于水滴。它不会为单个的你而改变，却因每个的你而存在。就是这么的inspiring。
A good decision process make you confident, not overconfident. The real confidence comes from knowing that you have made the BEST decision that you could. Using a process for decision making doesn't mean that your choices will always turn out brilliantly, but it does mean you can QUIET your mind. You can quit asking, "What am I missing?" You can stop the cycle of agonizing.
Just as important, trusting the process can give you the confidence to take risks. Elderly men don't often regret things they didn't do. They regret not seizing opportunities. They regret hesitating. They regret being INDEICISIVE.
And being decisive is itself a choice. Decisiveness is a way of behaving, not an inherited trait. It allows us to make brave and confident choices, not because we know we will be right but because it's better to TRY and FAIL than to DELAY and REGRET.
Our decisions will never be perfect, but they can be better. Bolder. Wiser. The right process can steer us toward the right choice. And the right choice, at the right moment, can make all the difference.
Further reading:
Thinking, Fast and Slow.
Winning Decisions: Getting It Right the First Time.
Love Is Never Enough: How Couples Can Overcome Misunderstandings, Resolve Conflicts, and Solve Relationship Problems Through Cognitive Therapy.
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