Smart People (and Powerful Countries) Can Make Bad Decisions

HOT READS FOR THE PRACTITIONER

Title: Blunder

Competencies: self-development, leadership, adaptability, stress 

Who benefits: leaders, managers, professionals, those seeking personal growth

Consultant Usage: great material for incorporation into leadership training, any feedback situation, must read for executive coaches

What’s it about? I am overjoyed.  This is my second “don’t miss” book on my summer reading list (see earlier review of Stumbling on Happiness).  The “over” part of overjoyed is that in addition to this being a well-written book explaining a complex topic in understandable language – my favorite kind – is that I see so much of myself in this book.  It is like 360-Degree feedback without people involved.  Now the question is “Will I use anything I just learned about myself?”  Which again is central to 360-Degree Feedback.  But I digress.

This book is amazing because it is a book on psychology written by a historian.  It is also amazing since so much of the book applies to not only the psychology of the individual, but to the psychology of a nation. 

This book is about making judgment calls.  And now I understand why decisions I have made earlier in my life and in my career went awry!

Much of the rest of the review is by the author, not me.  It isn’t because I am lazy (oh I am, but that is not the reason in this case), but that the author’s list of why smart people make bad decisions is so clear that you can readily decide if this is a book for you (or as a gift for someone you know really needs it – and if someone gives you the book, think “360” feedback!).

The seven cognition traps to avoid:

1. Exposure Anxiety: fear of being seen as weak
2. Causefusion: confusing the causes of complex events
3. Flat View: seeing the world in one dimension
4. Cure-Allism: thinking that one-size solutions can solve all problems
5. Infomania: an obsessive relationship to information
6. Mirror Imagine: thinking the other side thinks like you do
7. Static Cling: the refusal to accept that circumstances have changed

While it does not qualify as a blunder, it might be a mistake to pass up this informative and well-written book.

Catch you later.

[tags]360 degree feedback, blunder, blunders, best laid plans, adaptability, decision making, judgment, cognition traps, bill bradley, william bradley,  bradley[/tags]

Bill Bradley

Bill Bradley (mostly) retired after 35 years in organizational consulting, training and management development. During those years he worked internally with seven organizations and trained and consulted externally with more than 90 large and small businesses, government agencies, hospitals and schools.