Blogs by Steve Lounsberry

Confidence Over Doubt & The Anchoring Effect

In another installment exploring Daniel Kahneman’s book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, we’ll look at two more heuristics (mental shortcuts) that influence our thinking and behavior. CONFIDENCE OVER DOUBT Emotion suppresses ambiguity and doubt by constructing coherent stories from mere scraps of data. Logic is our inner skeptic, weighing those stories, doubting them, and suspending judgment.…

How Judgments Happen

Over the last few months, we have been examining Nobel Prize winning author, Daniel Kahneman’s book about human biases called Thinking, Fast and Slow. In it, he outlines heuristics (mental shortcuts) that influence our thinking and behavior. We’ll take a closer look at 3 more heuristics today. JUDGMENT Our emotion relies on its intuition; the…

Confirmation Bias & The Halo Effect

We have been exploring an intriguing book about the biases of our intuition: Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman.  In it, we learned that we assume certain things automatically without having thought through them carefully. Kahneman calls those assumptions heuristics (mental shortcuts that ease the mental load of making a decision) and certain heuristics lead to muddled thinking and…

Cognitive Ease & Coherent Stories

In last month’s blog we took a deep dive into a book about the biases of our intuition: Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman.  In it, we learned that we assume certain things automatically without having thought through them carefully. Kahneman calls those assumptions heuristics (mental shortcuts that ease the mental load of making a decision)…

Managing Complexity – Part 2

In Part 1, we defined complexity and explored its effect on organizations and teams. Now, let’s take a look at complexity in the individual sphere. For individuals, complexity is defined as exceeding our capacity for uncertainty (Complexity Capacity). Several things are valuable to understand about complexity in individuals. First, humans have a basic drive seeking…

Managing Complexity – Part 1

Managing complexity is a challenge! The pace of life continues to increase creating something called complexity growth. Greater amounts of information can overwhelm us with detail and information overload. Greater speed of information causes more reactive behavior responses increasing our stress. Greater connectivity to larger and wider networks creates information overload coming from more places. Complexity can be…

Notes on Chris Voss’ Negotiation Tips

In this 7 minute video, Chris Voss (Chief FBI negotiator) explains three tips on negotiations. Three Voices Mirroring The “F Word” in negotiations = “FAIR” THREE VOICES There are essentially three voice tones available to negotiators: The late-night FM DJ voice The positive/ playful voice The direct or assertive voice. Forget the assertive voice, except…

Thoughts on Tactical Empathy

I am reading one of the most useful books I have read in a long time. NEVER SPLIT THE DIFFERENCE by Chris Voss and Tahl Raz A short excerpt… IRRATIONAL HUMANS Through decades of research with Tversky, Kahneman proved that humans all suffer from Cognitive Bias, that is, unconscious—and irrational—brain processes that literally distort the way…