Avoiding Cognitive Biases in Workplace Decisions

In this episode of The Brainy Business podcast, host Melina Palmer and Dr. Gleb Tsipursky discuss how to avert everyday workplace disasters. They delve into the psychological underpinnings of decision-making, exploring why our instincts might not always lead to the best outcomes. Gleb shares a practical five-question framework designed to enhance decision-making processes and reduce the risk of costly mistakes. 

The discussion goes beyond theory, touching on real-world applications and the surprising role emotions play in our professional lives. Melina's relatable approach makes complex concepts approachable, and together with Gleb’s expertise, provides listeners with tools to think critically about their choices. Get ready to gain insights that could profoundly impact your career and organizational well-being. 

In this episode:

• Mastering Behavioral Economics to Avoid Workplace Disasters: Uncover the psychological insights driving decision-making in organizations.
• Understanding the Impact of Cognitive Biases on Business Decisions: Enhance your awareness of hidden mental shortcuts influencing strategic choices.
• Implementing Effective Change Management Strategies in Organizations: Harness powerful techniques to navigate and lead successful organizational transitions.
• Cultivating Emotional Intelligence for Engineering and HR Collaboration: Develop the essential skills for fostering harmonious and productive cross-functional partnerships.
• Leveraging the Benefits of External Perspective in Decision Making: Gain a competitive edge by embracing diverse viewpoints and external expertise.

00:00:00 - Introduction Gleb Tsipursky is introduced as a disaster avoidance expert and discusses his background in cognitive neuroscience and behavioral economics. 00:05:20 - Defining Workplace Disasters Gleb defines workplace disasters as anything that makes a significant negative impact on your bottom line, whether it's due to one big decision or a series of small decisions. He gives examples of disasters in careers and businesses. 00:08:27 - Recognizing Dead-End Jobs Gleb shares a tactic for recognizing dead-end jobs by considering the alternative and thinking about the long-term consequences of staying in the current situation. 00:11:01 - Sunk Cost Fallacy Gleb explains the concept of sunk cost fallacy, where emotional attachment to past investments leads to poor decision making in projects and people. He emphasizes the importance of acknowledging when you're wrong to address the situation effectively. 00:13:51 - Emotional Attachment and Decision Making Gleb discusses the primal urge to reward confident behavior, even when it's wrong, and the challenge of changing one's mind based on evidence. He emphasizes the importance of making decisions based on accurate reality and evidence. 00:14:18 - Impact of the Internet on Public Figures The conversation delves into the impact of the Internet on public figures, discussing how the breakdown of the media ecosystem has led to more leeway for leaders to deceive and double down on false statements. 00:16:50 - Influence of Gut Reactions The discussion explores the influence of gut reactions, emphasizing our natural inclination to believe the first thing we hear and the anchoring bias, which weighs heavily on the first piece of information we receive. 00:20:30 - Addressing Tribalism in the Workplace The conversation highlights the prevalence of tribalism in the workplace, citing examples of unconscious bias based on factors such as sports team affiliation, accent discrimination, and departmental rivalries. 00:21:08 - Importance of Overcoming Tribal Tendencies The importance of overcoming tribal tendencies in the modern, multicultural society is discussed, with a focus on diversity, inclusion, and equity efforts as a means to address inherent tribalism. 00:27:42 - Strategies to Combat Tribalism The conversation touches on practical strategies to combat tribalism in the workplace, including broadening the circle of empathy, adopting an outside perspective, and reframing team dynamics to foster a sense of unity. 00:29:04 - Understanding Incentives and Conflicts Gleb discusses how outsiders view situations, incentives for different departments, and conflicts arising from incentives. He emphasizes addressing incentives to align departments and prevent negative outcomes. 00:30:25 - The Impact of Incentives on Sales and Customer Service Gleb highlights the impact of incentives on sales and customer service. He explains how bad incentives can lead to conflicts and offers solutions to align incentives for better outcomes. 00:32:52 - The Role of Incentives in Customer Service The conversation delves into the impact of incentives on customer service, using an example from the airline industry. It illustrates how misaligned incentives can negatively affect customer experience and overall reputation. 00:38:09 - Addressing Emotional Motivators in Decision-Making Gleb shares a case study on addressing emotional motivators for engineers to drive change. He emphasizes understanding emotional needs to align incentives and achieve desired outcomes. 00:40:42 - Five Questions for Good Decision-Making Gleb outlines a five-question process for making good decisions and averts disasters. He emphasizes considering important information, dangerous judgment errors, seeking objective advice, addressing potential failures, and being open to changing one's mind. 00:43:53 - Revisiting Decisions Gleb discusses the importance of setting revision points for decisions. Revisiting decisions is crucial to avoid getting stuck with a bad decision. He provides an example of setting a revision point when contacting a client. 00:44:20 - Clear Revision Points Having a clear revision point helps in avoiding anxiety and rumination about a decision. It provides a sense of control and direction for future actions, preventing wasted time and resources. 00:45:02 - Conclusion

What stuck with you while listening to the episode? What are you going to try? Come share it with Melina on social media -- you'll find her as @thebrainybiz everywhere and as Melina Palmer on LinkedIn.

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Connect with Gleb:

• LinkedIn
• Disaster Avoidance Experts
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Check out and get your copies of Melina’s Books. 

Get the Books Mentioned on (or related to) this Episode:

• Never go with your gut, by Gleb Tsipursky
• Mixed Signals, by Uri Gneezy
• What Your Employees Need and Can't Tell You, by Melina Palmer
• The Power of Us, by Jay Van Bavel & Dominic Packer
• Getting to Sorry, by Marjorie Ingall and Susan McCarthy

Top Recommended Next Episode: Gleb Tsipursky Interview (ep 175)

Already Heard That One? Try These: 

• Anchoring & Adjustment (ep 11)
• Herding (ep 19)
• iNcentives: The N in NUDGES (ep 36)
• Uri Gneezy Interview (ep 273)
• Dominic Packer Interview (ep 304)

Other Important Links: 

• Brainy Bites - Melina’s LinkedIn Newsletter
• Free 8 video-based module course, “Wise Decision Maker Course,” and free “Assessment on Dangerous Judgment Errors in the Workplace”