Many believe that you can judge the quality of a decision by the success of the outcome…………’

But can you really?’

What if the person making the decision was reckless or had a high propensity for risk-taking, or was a gambler?

And what if the reason there was a successful outcome was mere luck?

What we need to think about is the role the decision or decisions that were made played in the outcome.

What do we know about the biases that may have come into play when a particular decision is being made?

In this episode, we also look at outcome, champion, and experience biases because they can all have a major impact on decision-making.

If you’d like to know more, read ‘You’re about to make a terrible mistake’ by Olivier Sibony.

This is a great journey into understanding how cognitive biases can distort our decision-making processes.

https://www.amazon.com/Youre-About-Make-Terrible-Mistake/dp/0316494984 

If you really want to improve your own decision-making, the London School of Economics (LSE) run a number of programmes and courses on the science behind decision-making under the leadership of Dr. Barbara Fasilo 

Think of this episode as the end of the first season, and the beginning of the second season.
We took a winding journey through critical thinking for the first 10 episodes, and the last episode's interview with Carl Davidson seemed a fitting place to wrap that theme up. 
That's why the first part of this episode provides a summary and some clear steps to use when adopting critical thinking into our lives.

However, people seem to enjoy what I've been doing and want more.
 It's also true that critical thinking is but one part of a much longer journey to try and 'free the world of dumb in all its many forms and manifestations'.

There is a model that says 'first we think, then we decide, and then we do'.
We're going to follow that path and part of the reason for this episode is to introduce the theme for the next season of The Free-Dumb Sessions. Decision-making.

I've always been clear that the Free-dumb Sessions' role is to provoke debate, awaken critical thinking, and help people ' break Free of Dumb’, in all its many forms, but what the hell is critical thinking anyway? 

How do we sort out the facts from the noise, the meaning from rumor, and the outright lies from the gossip?

At long last, this episode is a conversation with my guest and friend Carl Davidson.

Carl has spent most of his life trying to understand human behavior. His background is in psychology and sociology but he also is very fond of the anthropological approach to understanding others. An academic, a researcher, a policymaker, and - most recently - in the insights industry,  he is founder and director at Research First Ltd as well as an adjunct fellow at the University of Canterbury. Carl has written some nine books about research and thinking..

I’ve known Carl for a while, but we really got to know each other during lockdown (while coming together for virtual whiskey tastings - the whiskey was real, but we were socially distancing on Zoom -  while tasting)

At last, we have managed to synchronise our schedules to do this episode.

Good conversations deserve some time, so this is another longer episode than normal. 

In it, we talk about what critical thinking is, why it is so important to learn, and some tips and tricks to use when trying to sort out the facts from the noise. 

Carl mentioned some of his favorite books, websites, blogs, and music tracks.

What follows is a list of some of his faves:

BOOKS

• Winnie the Pooh by  AE Milne
• The Thought Gang By Tibor Fisher
• Friends by Robin Dunbar
• The Stupidity Paradox: The Power and Pitfalls of Functional Stupidity at Work by Mats Alvesson

INTRODUCTORY BOOKS ABOUT THINKING

• Thinking Fast and Slow by  Daniel Kahneman
• The Art of Thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli

WEBSITES

Arts and Letters Daily

https://aldaily.com/ 

PODCAST

The hidden brain

https://hiddenbrain.org/ 

BLOG

Bob Hoffman’s The Ad Contrarian

http://adcontrarian.blogspot.com/ 

MUSIC TRACK

The Rat by The Walkmen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mphTplbiivM

You can contact Carl at:

www.researchfirst.co.nz or,

https://www.linkedin.com/in/carldavidsonnz/ 

Carl Davidson - Forever curious