Help Clients Avoid Disasters

Through Science-Based Decision-Making

Be Confident!

“Where Are You From?”

Presentation Overview

• Introduction– 3 Guarantees

– 3 Take-aways

– Choose your decision

• Avoiding disastrous decisions– Presentation

• Avoiding disasters after a decision was made– Presentation

– Group activity

• Q&A

3 Guarantees

• You will realize something about yourself you did not realize before

• You will learn something about other people you did not know before

• You will have at least one no-cost action step you can take away and apply today to save you money, time, and stress

3 Key Take-Aways

• Our emotions are central to decision-making, but they may steer us wrong in systematic and avoidable ways

• We must master our own problematic mental patterns to avoid disasters

• Effective decision-making tools combine intuitive and analytical thinking modes

Speaking Testimonial

• “I will never approach decision making the same way again. You gave me some wonderful insights on cognitive biases and how they influence our decisions. I plan to use your premortem process with my team, and our board.– Teresa Trost, Executive

Director, Community Shares of Mid Ohio

Consulting Testimonial

• “We contacted Gleb to acquire some insights in how to motivate scientific people to ‘sell’ themselves... Gleb used his researched-based approach to behavioral psychology to engage us in a conversation that provided several very helpful insights into how we communicate with our people. We were using far too much business-speak that was not connecting emotionally with our people.”– Mark Matson, VP of Human

Resources, EWI

Choose An Upcoming Major Decision

Empathy Gap

Emotions and Reason:

Elephant and Rider

How Does Our Mind Work?

System 1

Elephant - Autopilot

• Subconscious

• Automatic

• Habits

• Fast

• Intuitive

• Emotional

System 2

Rider - Intentional

• Conscious

• Mindful

• Attention

• Slow

• Reasoning

• Logical

Knowledge is Power:

Beware Cognitive Biases

Dealing With Cognitive Biases

Put a

NUMBER

on it!

Web App: Making the Right Call on

Significant Decisions

• Free online tool to “put numbers on it” http://bit.ly/2mrMZi6

• Example: Hiring decision

Preventing Disasters Once

Decision Made

Premortem vs. Postmortem

Premortem: Steps 1 and 2Step 1

Gather stakeholders in meeting

• Ensure a mix of people:

– expertise on topic

– authority to make decisions

Step 2

Explain the exercise

• Describe all steps

Premortem: Step 3Ask all to imagine a future where the project definitely failed.

• Ask each participant to write possible reasons for failure ANONYMOUSLY– Encourage reasons that

might be seen as rude or unpopular

• Facilitator gathers written comments and reads them aloud

Premortem: Step 4

Discuss all reasons that were brought up

• Pay particular attention to those that seem rude, unpopular, and/or dangerous to careers

• Estimate the probability of each reason for failure ANONYMOUSLY– Option 1: percentage probabilities

• Ex: 80% likely

– Option 2: use categories• highly likely

• somewhat likely

• unlikely

• very unlikely

Premortem: Step 5 and 6

Step 5

Decide on several failures that are most relevant

• Brainstorm ways of preventing these failures from occurring.

Step 6

Project leader revises project plan based on the feedback, and, if needed, repeats the exercise.

Premortem: Group Activity

• Consider how your

chosen decision

might go wrong

• Brainstorm ways of

addressing this

problem

Invest in Avoiding Disasters

Thank You!

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky

gleb@intentionalinsights.org

Website glebtsipursky.com

Twitter twitter.com/Gleb_Tsipursky

LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/dr-gleb-tsipursky-89ab4b23/

Put down email to get two free tip sheets:

• Avoiding Disastrous Decisions

• Avoiding Disaster Once You Make a Decision

PowerPoint of this presentation

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