You're Not So Smart: Misguided Use of Rules of Thumb

• A quick solution appeals to our sense of immediate gratification. But, with few exceptions, quick and dirty thinking creates a false sense of truth and can be outright dangerous, especially when a Tectonic Decision is at hand.

• Quick and Dirty Thinking is one of the Seven Deadly Stupidities.

Herbert Simon was a Ph.D. economist who is credited with creating the concept of a heuristic in the 1950s. The word “heuristic” is derived from a Greek word meaning “to discover.” A heuristic is a problem-solving strategy or method that uses a practical approach to find a solution. It is a rule of thumb or a simplified approach to solving a problem, rather than using a systematic or algorithmic method.

Source: VeryWell/Cindy Young

Our brain utilizes heuristics to estimate things and drive behavior. For example, deciding who will win the election in your county based on the lawn signs in your neighborhood, to vote “innocent” as a juror because the defendant is well-dressed and good-looking, or to avoid air travel out of fear of harm, despite the fact that you are two thousand times more likely to die in an automobile accident than a plane crash.

Heuristics are everywhere, and we all use them. Daniel Kahneman is a Nobel-prize winning behavioral economist who built on the work of Simon in this area. In his best-selling book Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman describes two types of thinking that happen inside our brains:

When we talk about avoiding bad decisions, we want to avoid heuristics and avoid System 1 thinking. But why?  There are volumes written about how heuristics introduce bias into decision-making. Take the following example of a biased decision made based on a heuristic:

Source: YoungPost

No heuristic being used here. Instead, a rigorous System 2 thinking process is in action and is fully engaged. You may say, “What do you have against heuristics and System 1 thinking?” Plenty, especially when it comes to preparing for Tectonic Decisions because heuristics invite bias into the process and bias is the Black Death of decision-making.

We develop biases based on our experiences. If our experience with teenagers working behind the counter at McDonalds has been unpleasant, we may develop a bias and assume most or all teenagers are unpleasant as waiters, parking-lot attendants, etc. 

In the example above, TigerMom is pushing a bias-driven decision through System 1 emotional brain thinking. TigerMom is making an emotionally motivated decision based on a heuristic. “I turned out fine and I went to Uptown so JuniorGirl should do the same.” 

As was discussed previously, don’t take the advice of family when it comes to Tectonic Decisions. Listen and consider the advice, but most advice from family is driven by System 1 emotional brain thinking and is heavily biased.

If there is one consistent point across all chapters in this book, it is the following:

Do everything possible to avoid bias entering the process for a decision. Without bias, your chances of making a good decision increase dramatically.

But how do we clear away bias in the decision-making process? Let’s start with “How to Root Out Bias from Your Decision-Making Process” by Thomas C. Redman in the Harvard Business Review in 2017:

Redman goes on to describe how we have the tendency to make a decision, then go back and assemble supporting data. It’s just faster and easier this way. The problem is that we all have built-in biases, and we need to recognize this when faced with an important decision like applying to college. The hard part here is that each of us as individuals is poorly qualified to make most Tectonic Decisions.

For example, if you have a heart condition, you’re not the person making the Tectonic Decision about what medicines you should take. Remember, a Tectonic Decision is one that is important, but infrequent, which usually means it can affect the trajectory of your life. It would be too big of a decision for you to select the medicines, so you rely on a cardiologist since, several times per day, the cardiologist makes medicine selections for people with heart conditions. The decision for the cardiologist is important, but not infrequent, so to the cardiologist, it is not Tectonic.

This should move us toward setting a rule for decisions and avoiding the stupidity of quick and dirty thinking:

If it feels like you are making a Tectonic Decision, stop.  Step back and engage System 2 thinking by gathering data and expert opinions to formulate the correct approach to the decision-making process.