You're about to Make a Terrible Mistake by Olivier Sibony

YOU'RE ABOUT TO MAKE A TERRIBLE MISTAKE by Olivier Sibony focuses on biases in business decisions and strives to address business leaders’ growing acknowledgment of the need to address this issue. In part one of his text, Sibony argues that we are predictably irrational and outlines “nine decision traps into which our biases drive us.” In the second part, he states that collaboration and process are essential to help organizations “produce choices that are less biased and more rational than our individual decisions would be.” And, in the third section, Sibony explores a leader’s role as a “design architect” and offers over three dozen practical techniques to consider applying. A key idea: give some thought to deciding how you will decide. 

Sibony’s writing is actually quite entertaining and even humorous at points.  After all, he has so many failed strategic decisions from which to draw! There is also plenty of critical thinking to take into consideration – one pattern is the “storytelling trap” where executives may believe that are checking the facts, but are actually seeking to confirm (instead of disprove) a story presented to them. In other cases, psychology students will be interested in examples of terms like “halo effect,” a “anchoring,” or “risk perception.” Each of the nine decision traps is explained in a chapter with case studies and then summarized in a “thirty second” one or two page overview.  

YOU'RE ABOUT TO MAKE A TERRIBLE MISTAKE is recommended by authors of business and psychology works such as Thinking, Fast and Slow, Grit, and Loonshots; consider pairing it with one of those (by Kahneman, Duckworth, and Bahcall, respectively) or with another leadership text -- maybe What’s Your Problem? by Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg.