The Decision Education Podcast

Does Rich Eisen’s suit slow him down in the 40 yard dash? Rich Eisen, NFL Network and The Rich Eisen Show Host, and Les Snead, General Manager of the Los Angeles Rams, talk with our guest host, Annie Duke about how to balance using analytics with intuition and past experience to make fast in-game decisions, how an NFL franchise can best work together and pool their judgments and information, and the influence of emotions on gut feelings. You’ll also hear about resulting bias and how many fans feel about analytics-based decisions that result in bad outcomes.

How can we have better conversations with people who have different beliefs from us? Andrew Berry, General Manager of the Cleveland Browns and Alliance Board Member, joins our guest host Annie Duke, to talk about how decision-makers can benefit from getting comfortable with uncertainty, how the pandemic highlighted overconfidence and the illusion of control, what it means for general managers to have one foot in the present and one in the future, as well as three strategies to reduce bias. You’ll also hear about how the world might look different if we taught kids how to think instead of what to think.

How do we decide when to play it safe, and when to take the risk? Award-winning author, journalist, and professional poker player, Dr. Maria Konnikova, talks with our guest host, Annie Duke, about how poker parallels uncertainty in life, the hidden downside of avoiding risks, how to decide what to do next professionally, and how her fascinating career trajectory resembles a constellation more so than a straight line. She also reveals what you often need besides smarts and hard work to get where you want to go.

Join us for Season 2 of the Decision Education Podcast, launching in  Summer 2021! In this season, our guest host is Alliance co-founder,  best-selling author, and celebrated speaker, Annie Duke,  and we’re turning our attention to decision-making in the world of  high-performance sports.  These conversations with high-stakes sports  figures, discussing the biggest decisions of their careers, reveal  powerful and practical insights about the science of decision-making at  the highest level, for us all to use in our own lives.

How do we balance the tradeoff between spending more time on a decision and achieving more certainty about it? Best-selling author and decision strategist, Annie Duke, joins your host, Executive Director of the Alliance for Decision Education, Dr. Joe Sweeney, for a Bonus Episode of The Decision Education Podcast, recorded in May 2020. In this episode from our archives, Annie and Joe discuss things that fall inside and outside of our control in life, the ways in which we veer from rationality, the value of humbly holding our beliefs, parenting tips for the pandemic, how we can use mental time travel to help us cope with the present, and the illusion of uncertainty. You’ll also hear about why quitting can be a good thing.

World Chess Champion and human rights activist Garry Kasparov joins host Dr. Joe Sweeney to discuss decision-making on the chessboard, facing competition, making decisions in the right environment, importance of exploration, risks, and adapting education for the future.

Can we count on our feelings to guide our decisions? Dr. Paul Slovic, Professor of Psychology at the University of Oregon, joins your host, Dr. Joe Sweeney, Executive Director of the Alliance for Decision Education, to discuss the three pillars of the arithmetic of compassion, how our feelings change as we consider one vs. dozens of people in danger, and how flawed thinking could have impacted decisions about the use of nuclear weapons during the Cold War. You’ll also learn about the "warm glow of satisfaction" we get from helping people, why it shines brighter in some situations than others, and why, in certain contexts, we might not help someone in need, even if we can.

Dr. Barbara Mellers discusses mood's impact on cooperation, conflicts between desires and fairness, and the difference between how we should and actually make decisions. Topics include fairness perceptions, autonomy, and income inequality in decision-making, mood's influence on cooperative behaviors, response mode effects on preferences, improving decision-making through normative models, biases like overconfidence, and the value of nurturing diverse interests.

How can we draw the line between what is inside and what is outside the scope of our decisions? Eyas Raddad, Research Fellow and Decision Scientist at Eli Lilly and Company, joins your host, Executive Director of the Alliance for Decision Education, Dr. Joe Sweeney, to talk about the importance of building the right frames for our decisions, the common attributes of the very best decision scientists in the field, and the decision skills that you can bring to the table at work to support your team’s decision-making. Finally, Eyas leaves us with a valuable lesson on how to distinguish advice from our friends that simply feels good to us, from advice that truly helps us.

Making predictions is part of everyday life, but how can we guard against being overly confident in our predictions? Ted Seides, host of the Capital Allocators podcast and author of a number of successful books on asset management, joins your host, Executive Director of the Alliance for Decision Education Dr. Joe Sweeney, to talk about the uncanny power of premortems, the grave danger of overconfidence in the financial world, and qualities to look for when constructing an effective decision group. Ted also explains how paying close attention to your emotional state can dramatically increase the odds of making a good decision.