Managers seem to have an almost universal problem with sophistication bias. What does this mean? Sophistication bias is where people overlook simple, but effective, solutions in favour of more complex or “sophisticated” alternatives. In every case, this creates unnecessary additional work and complexity, but in…
I live in Western Australia where shark attacks are a thing. They’re rare, but the human behaviour around them is fascinating – and it’s taught me about how poorly we often deal with remote – but scary – risks. On a typical summer morning, there…
A common issue amongst managers is attribution bias. We all do it. This is where we judge others by their actions, and ourselves by our intentions. For example, if someone on our team fails to meet a deadline, we might default to thinking it’s because…
Are you hard on behaviour but soft on people? You should be. Here’s why 👇. Most people most of the time are trying their best. When people stuff up, it’s rarely out of malice. Remember Hanlon’s Razor: “never attribute to malice that which is adequately…
Turkish Olympic shooter Yusuf Dekic reminds me of a common problem in management. So many of us overcomplicate things, because of sophistication bias… This is when we ignore simple solutions in search of something more complex, innovative or clever. As a result, we – wrongly…