We all make decisions. Some of them are large and many of them are small. Few of us understand that the process we use to make those decisions is more important than the analysis we put into the decision.
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Think of the last major decision you made.
Maybe it was an acquisition, a large purchase, or perhaps it was whether to launch a new product.
赔率是三件事进入了这个决定：（1）它可能依赖了一些关键高管的见解;（2）它涉及某种事实收集和分析;（3）它可能以某种决定过程笼罩 - 是否正式或非正式 - 将分析转化为决定。
Now how would you rate thequalityof your organization’s strategic decisions?
If you’re like most executives, the answer wouldn’t be positive:
In a recent McKinsey Quarterly survey of 2,207 executives, only 28 percent said that the quality of strategic decisions in their companies was generally good, 60 percent thought that bad decisions were about as frequent as good ones, and the remaining 12 percent thought good decisions were altogether infrequent.
How could it be otherwise? Product launches are frequently behind schedule and over budget. Strategic plans often ignore even the anticipated response of competitors. Mergers routinely fail to live up to the promises made in press releases.
The persistence of problems across time and organizations, both large and small, indicates that we can做出更好的决定。
“I have no use whatsoever for projections or forecasts. They create an illusion of apparent precision. The more meticulous they are, the more concerned you should be. We never look at projections.”
— Warren Buffett
如果我们努力提高我们的决定的质量，那么开始的最佳地点是看组织的决定。关于官僚机构的一个有趣的事情是，他们制定流程来限制最严重的人可以在各个层面做的损害。那是他们提出了减少最坏的人可能拥有的影响的机制。是的，这也限制了人们也可以产生的积极影响。谈到决策时，组织默认为收集数据和分析决策。
The widespread belief is that analysis reduces biases. But does it?
Is putting your faith in analysis any better than using your gut? What does the evidence say? Is there a better way?
Dan Lovallo and Olivier Sibonyset to find out。
Lovallo is a professor at the University of Sydney and Olivier is a director at McKinsey & Company. Together they studied 1,048 “major” business decisions over five years. The results are surprising.
Most business decisions were not made on “gut calls” but rather rigorous analysis.然而，他们的决定差。简而言之，大多数人做了我们认为我们应该做的所有手人：他们提供了大量的详细分析。
Yet this wasn’t enough. “Our research indicates that, contrary to what one might assume,good analysis in the hands of managers who have good judgment won’t naturally yield good decisions.”
[预测]由对特定结果有兴趣的人组合在一起，有一个潜意识的偏见，其明显的精确度使其变得沉思。他们提醒我马克吐温的说法，“一个矿井是一个骗子所拥有的洞。”美国的预测往往是一个谎言，虽然不是一个故意的，但最糟糕的是，因为预测者往往认为他们自己。“
— Charlie Munger
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Lovallo and Sibony didn’t only look at the analysis, they also asked executives about the process used to make decisions.
Did they, for example, “explicitly explore and discuss major uncertainties or discuss viewpoints that contradicted the senior leader’s?”
So what matters more, process or analysis? After comparing the results they determined that “过程似乎不仅仅是分析 - 六倍。”
这一发现并不意味着分析不重要，因为仔细看看数据显示：在我们的样本中几乎没有决定通过非常糟糕的分析来支持。为什么？因为一个无偏见的决策过程的事情将确实是雪貂的分析差。反向不是真的;除非决策过程给予公平听力，否则超级分析是无用的。
说明大多数组织的弱点anizations make decisions, Sibonyusedan interesting analogy: the legal system.
Imagine walking into a courtroom where the trial consists of a prosecutor presenting PowerPoint slides. In 20 pretty compelling charts, he demonstrates why the defendant is guilty. The judge then challenges some of the facts of the presentation, but the prosecutor has a good answer to every objection. So the judge decides, and the accused man is sentenced.
That wouldn’t be due process, right? So if you would find this process shocking in a courtroom, why is it acceptable when you make an investment decision? Now of course, this is an oversimplification, but this process is essentially the one most companies follow to make a decision. They have a team arguing only one side of the case. The team has a choice of what points it wants to make and what way it wants to make them. And it falls to the final decision maker to be both the challenger and the ultimate judge. Building a good decision-making process is largely ensuring that these flaws don’t happen.
Simply understanding our cognitive biases doesn’t make you immune to them. It’s not enough. A disciplined decision process is the best place to improve the quality of decisions and guard against common decision-making biases.
Still curious?Readthe ultimate guide to making smart decisions。