Category: Personal Choice

How To Benefit from Consensus and Diversity

Valeria Maltoni in her post ‘The Relationship of Value and Influence‘ addresses an important issue: while the best decisions require diversity, how can we get consensus in a very diverse group?

On one side, we tend to stick with people that are similar – and this is magnified by social media to a dramatic level: “While social media has enabled anyone to reach anyone else on the planet, the truth is that we tend to pay attention more readily to people who think and act like us. Nature has given us a compelling reason to do that — nobody survives alone. Humans band together, it’s our instinct.”

On the other hand, “Research has demonstrated that diversity enhances our ability to explore new ideas, allowing us to see a problem from different points of view. More variety in how people think about an issue is a strength“

However, “a meta-analysis of 108 studies and more than 10,000 teams# found that diversity hinders consensus“. How can we address this conundrum?

Valeria Maltoni suggests to have some diversity, but not too much, so as not to hinder the consensus-building mechanism. This may not be the best solution, and is definitely not applicable in some situations (e.g. democracy).

We need to make the effort to consider and learn from alternative views and include diversity in our intellectual consciousness. And we need to devise processes that fit with the requirements of decision-making in the specific situation, while allowing diverse viewpoints to be expressed. This is a major challenge for the collaborative age, as we can see daily. Specific research may be needed to provide new formats and tools for consensus building, that may include more direct voicing of opinions in a structured manner.

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How the Flip of the Digital Divide is Meaningful

Seth Godin’s post ‘The digital divide is being flipped‘ explains how the children of the rich are nowadays protected from the consequences of the screens, whereas the children of the poor are left to their addictive consequences.

I still remember a few years ago when digital divide was about the rich getting access to the wealth of internet while the poor (or the remote) couldn’t. It was a massive issue for governments who committed substantial resources to bridging the gap: “Privileged parents, those with time, education and money, were giving their kids access to the tools of the net while other kids were missing out on the wealth of interactions and information available online. The fear was that this gap would further magnify differences in opportunity.”

Nowadays, screens and internet access is almost ubiquitous, and the issue is rather not to get addicted to social networks, online games and other time-losing activities. Social network leaders are known to forbid screen access to their children.

The internet has moved from an incredible access to a wealth of information to a mass addiction machine. It does not need to be that way: what is important now is educating the younger generations about health rules when using screens and the internet, and how value can be extracted. This may need to be a new emergency for governments!

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How to Deal With Loneliness

I like this post by Om Swami on loneliness. “It’s a blessing if you can harness it and be inspired while reveling in it. If not, it is the root cause of persistent restlessness and emptiness.” In this post he quotes Matt Haig and some of this quote resonates.

Loneliness happens to most of us, at times. And it happens even though in our world we may have the feeling that it should happen less often thanks to the connections and constant opportunities for connection and entertainment. “In theory, it has never been easier to not be lonely. There is always someone we can talk to online. If we are away from loved ones then we can Skype them. But loneliness is a feeling as much as anything.”

How can we deal with loneliness? “I think the American writer Edith Wharton was the wisest person ever on loneliness. She believed the cure for it wasn’t always to have company, but to find a way to be happy with your own company. Not to be antisocial, but not be scared of your own unaccompanied presence.”

So, find a way to be happy with your own company!

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How Mediocrity Is About Giving Up When You Don’t Have To

I like this quote I noted in a post from Hugh McLeod from Gapingvoid in this post ‘How You Strive for Excellence‘: “[Mediocrity is] ‘People who Gave Up, When They Didn’t Have To“.

This statement is powerful and puts an interesting different view on mediocrity. Of course when it comes to giving up, the question is always when. Sometime it does not make sense to pursue something further, but too often people give up too early, not showing enough perseverance or grit.

When looking at mediocrity as giving up too early when people did not have to, reference is made to the fact that irrespective of the objective and the reality, and whether they could have been successful or no, those people gave up much too early, even when investment or suffering was much too low to justify it. And when I think about some examples I know, I find that this statement is right on target.

So, make sure you don’t give up when you don’t have to!

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How Life Is a Lot More Like Poker Than Like Chess

Following from previous posts ‘How Most of Our Decisions Are Bets‘ and ‘How We Constantly Underestimate the Role of Luck in Our Lives‘ I have received some reactions about the fact I was exaggerating wildly the role of luck in life.

Our education, vocabulary and most of the messages conveyed by role models would tend to demonstrate that success comes from hard work and commitment; and that success is deserved through an entitlement created by effort, rather than coming from luck – a terrible thought!

In her excellent book ‘Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts‘ Annie Duke makes a great comparison: life is much more like poker than chess. In chess, there is no unpredictability; rules are set, and it is only a competition between minds. In poker, there is luck, psychology and unpredictability.

Of course, hard work and dedication does help. I am not saying that it is not important. But believing that one is entitled to success because of hard work and dedication goes one step too far.

The more I think about it, the more I believe that the belief in success being owed to hard work, and that hard work entitles to success, is a society-stabilisation message conveyed through the previous ages.

A lot of what happens in our lives is down to luck. The bigger our decisions, the more they are bets in uncertainty. We need to concentrate on being more lucky, know how to catch opportunities, rather than believing that keeping our head down and working hard will be the only solution.

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How Most of Our Decisions Are Bets

Following on the previous post ‘How We Should Differentiate Decision and Outcome‘, Annie Duke (professional poker player turned business speaker and author) in her excellent book ‘Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts‘ affirms that actually most decisions are bets. This was quite striking for me at first, but after some thoughts I now see the rationale.

Most of the decisions we take in life are fraught with uncertainty. We almost never have full information, and we are at the mercy of wildly unexpected events (also called ‘luck’). Of course the degree of uncertainty differs from decision to decision, but for most of our life-changing decisions, uncertainty is quite high.

“World – class poker players taught me to understand what a bet really is : a decision about an uncertain future. The implications of treating decisions as bets made it possible for me to find learning opportunities in uncertain environments. Treating decisions as bets , I discovered , helped me avoid common decision traps , learn from results in a more rational way , and keep emotions out of the process as much as possible.”

“Thinking in bets starts with recognizing that there are exactly two things that determine how our lives turn out : the quality of our decisions and luck . Learning to recognize the difference between the two is what thinking in bets is all about.”

Looking at business or life decisions as bets gives quite an interesting edge to the process, which I find very worthwhile.

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How We Should Differentiate Decision and Outcome

Because of the role of luck in our lives we need to be able to differentiate the quality of our decision and its outcome. That’s a key lesson I learnt from an excellent book ‘Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts‘ by Annie Duke, a professional poker player turned business speaker and author.

We have a tendency to equate the quality of our decisions with their outcome. “Poker players have a word for this : “resulting”. When I started playing poker , more experienced players warned me about the dangers of resulting , cautioning me to resist the temptation to change my strategy just because a few hands didn’t turn out well in the short run“.

This distinction is profound and I do fall into this trap too. Like almost everybody: “ask any group members to come […] with a brief description of their best and worst decisions of the previous year . I have yet to come across someone who doesn’t identify their best and worst results rather than their best and worst decisions .”

I am committing to try to discern the quality of the decision versus its outcome, because I believe it is important when it comes to improving one’s decision-making ability.

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How Irrational Decisions Are Made Based on Single Indicators – Stop the Madness!

Performance Indicators are great inventions. They allow to assess quickly how we are doing. But of course, they need to be well chosen, accurately measured, and relevant. I observe so many instances of irrational decisions taken on a basis on a single unquestioned performance indicator that it almost becomes a pattern of modern life!

GDP is obviously one of the greatest culprits although it starts being questioned (see previous post ‘How Difficult It Is To Replace GDP by an Appropriate Wealth Creation Measurement‘). It informs the decision of governments and international institutions although its basis is shaky to say the least.

The Shanghai University Ranking is another one. This ranking is based on certain criteria which are not necessarily correlated to education quality (e.g. it is based on research publications etc.). However it is now been used as a reference worldwide and irrational decisions are being taken in many educational institutions with a view to increase their ranking in this particular list.

In today’s complex world, taking decision on the basis of a single indicator is inappropriate, moreover if this indicator is not reliable or representative. Multiple indicator decision-making should be enforced, if possible that show what kind of compromise is actually being decided.

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How Persuading Ourselves to Do Something Might Take the Longest

Seth Godin in his blog post ‘But why does it take so long?‘ makes the point that the time-frame to achieve various objectives can be very different. And that physical factors are not the limit when it comes to creative work: it is coordinating, persuading, pathfinding. Moreover, that what may take the longest of all is persuading ourselves to go for it.

I find this statement quite to the point: it is true that what often takes the longest in all projects is the decision to go for it. Self-persuasion is a major hindrance. Even more so when we have to persuade ourselves against the opinion of our environment.

The total time to achieve a project is thus too often driven by the time we need to persuade ourselves to go for it. Isn’t that a major issue in a world where projects need to be developed always quicker before they become obsolete? There is a pressure and a benefit to those that can persuade themselves quicker that it is worth trying the project.

This statement gives quite a useful insight on some critical success factors in today’s world. Let’s take less time to persuade ourselves before we go for it. Maybe experiment more at small scale before going for it at a large scale.. which beings us back to the lean startup and other considerations that aim at lowering the barrier for action.

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How Discovering and Developing One’s Passion Needs to be An Active Quest

In the never-ending debate about whether we should discover our passion and then work on it, or work and discover our passion in what we are doing, another piece of the puzzle is brought by the Quartz post ‘“Find your passion” is bad advice, say Yale and Stanford psychologists‘.

The gist of the thesis of this post is that “Your passion isn’t out there, waiting to be discovered. It’s not a mysterious force that will—when found—remove all obstacles from your path. In fact, psychologists argue in a new study that the pithy mantra “find your passion” may be a dangerous distraction.” “The directive to “find your passion” suggests a passive process. Telling people to develop their passion, however, suggests an active one that depends on us—and allows that it can be challenging to pursue. This, the psychologist says, “is a realistic way of thinking.””

The advice is thus to demonstrate a growth mindset and not wait passively for passion to uncover itself and develop by itself. I am very much in tune with this approach – although being passionate makes it easier to spend the hours, getting the best at it still requires enormous work and commitment. Having a growth mindset, taking advantage of the opportunities that surround us to develop our passion, experiment and discover more in detail what it is all about, is the way.

Discovering your passion in detail is certainly a way of active search and development, and of demonstrating a growth mindset. Passion is a process.

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How You Should See Your Work As Your Craft

Robin Sharma writes “See your work as your craft. Sweat the tiniest of details and push yourself to produce outright magic. For there your greatness lives.”

This excellent quote reminds us that we need to make sure that we put our entire attention and intent in whatever we produce, every day.

That it is important to be attentive to details and try to improve our production every time so that it really becomes a craft that distinguishes us. A craft that satisfies us and contents us.

A craft that makes us great.

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How To Do Your Best and then Let Go

Robin Sharma writes “Do your best then let go—and let life do the rest“. This strikes a chord with me as I have notoriously difficulties to let go after I have done my best.

I struggle mainly on two issues.

First, there is always this difficulty of knowing how much doing your best is really doing your best. There is always the risk of stopping too early, and not really doing anything remarkable; and there is the risk of spending too much time and effort to optimise the last bit, which is not really effective. Where should we stop ‘making our best’?

Second, I have difficulties being patient and letting go, waiting for the world to notice and to respond. Generally the response is good, but how much effort should be made in broadcasting our work, showing how we have made our best?

For the first aspect – where should we stop- it is probably a question of experience and knowing what the average person delivers in this context. On the second aspect – how to let go, well, I have to learn to be patient and reap better what the world returns.

What about you? How good are you at deciding when you have done your best and then letting go?

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