It’s not what we don’t know that will trip us up;
It is what know for certain, that just isn’t so.

is very difficult and very risky. And as the late, great Nobel Prize winner, Daniel Kahnemann taught us, humans are not ration and we do not behave logically.

In fact, when faced with challenging situations we revert to familiar patterns of thinking and behaviour, even when they are harmful to us.
It is only after the thinking and, typically after the action, that we convince ourselves that we are making a rational decision and behaving logically.
This happens because the thinking feels familiar.
And what’s worse is that we then find the data and interpret the facts to confirm what we have already decided is ‘true’
This is confirmation bias in action.
This is biology and physiology, not psychology.
Our brains are pattern recognising machines and they are hard-wired to take short-cuts.
Believe it or not, our brains are not designed to see the world accurately but to recognise patterns and to see what we expect (what we already believe to be true).

This is very tough for those people who consider themselves to be data-driven, rationalist who describe themselves as highly logical – they are just as vulnerable to acting on what ‘feels’ right as everyone else.
In fact, all action is an emotional response.

In our work, we use many psychometrics and most are highly validated, efficacious tools.
Most are very useful assessment tools and measure personality accurately.
But, what I particularly like about the HBDI is its application – applying insights not just uncovering them; it is about getting better outcomes through better thinking

To pressure-test my own thinking and improve my decision making, I find the image here very useful.
Pausing and reflecting on the prompts in this image helps counter the bias that distorts our thinking
This one slide is an antidote to the perceptual short-cuts that our biology convinces us are facts.
In fact, nearly every one of the prompts on this slide, gives me pause and forces me to reconsider my thinking and beliefs.