Posted by Luke in 
Courtesy of tijmen
I want to talk to you about biases and how they effect your judgement.
Identifying Bias
A bias is a way of thinking that you are accustomed to that sits in your head. It’s main features are that it forces you to make decisions through it. Hence:
- When you make decisions that contain bias you get the same result… again and again.
- When you are not aware of a bias you have no idea it’s affecting your outcomes
- The reality of what you are doing is obscured by your biases
- A bias is built into your decision making processes
The classic example is that of the football team. If you follow a certain team, no matter how biased you think you are or aren’t… you will always side against the decisions made to that team… even though they may be right. I have a friend who follows the ‘Collingwood’ football team in Australian rules. No matter what I say during a game he is ready to kill me if I suggest that the umpire was right. Do you know people like this?
How do Biases effect me?
The main way a bias effects you is that it makes you have impared judgement. Once I was sitting in a meeting where I had to work out who to ‘let go’ as they say. When the conversation came up about the person I suggested, everybody agreed. I suggested the ‘least’ qualified to be removed. At the time I justified my decision by saying that the person should have gone because they didn’t meet the criteria of the organisation. Can I say it was a big mistake? That person was the best person I have ever had working for me and I have not settled on another person since. ‘Qualified’ people have come and gone but most of them have given me headaches. I learned through this experience that my judgement was affected by ‘qualification’ bias!
In your case you have different biases that live in your mind that act as a template for how you make decisions… this is part of what the late Geoffrey Vickers called ‘the art of judgement’. How do you know when you are operating under a bias? Let’s have a look.
Types of Biases
It is impossible to label all of the biases as I know them. But here is one I encounter more often than any others… hindsight bias. Let’s look at this story:
I recently moved out of a house in another suburb because it had asbestos roofing… I didn’t want my children to get sick. After I moved they changed the roof and fixed the asbestos problem. I should have stayed.
Note: This is hindsight bias. You have identified a problem, noted the solution but failed to take into account the moderating variable you weren’t aware of. What is this moderating variable? It’s the fact thay you didn’t realise the roof would fix the problem. If you knew that… and were certain of it… you probably wouldn’t have moved. How then can you justify a choice you weren’t aware of… it wasn’t a choice at all! Here is another example.
I have played the poker machines 200 times in a row. The chances of me winning are much higher next time I pull this lever… after all you have to be in it to win it!
This is the Gambler’s Fallacy. I have met entreprenuers with this condition, sales people and many, many others. It’s the idea that previously random events decrease in their probability which each new cycle of the event. People stuck in this fallacy are likely to believe in things like ‘lucky’ streaks or use some item of clothing that brings them luck. Former Australian Cricket Captain used a red rag in his pocket for good luck when he was batting. Now for one more example:
I met a woman once who bought a loaf of gold bread. When I asked her why she told me that she was collecting them and would one day sell them on ebay.
Quite often we make purchase choices without realising that afterwards that we actually have no need of the item we just bought. The ultimate goal of the purchase is justified through the bias. This is post-purchase rationalisation or post-hoc (meaning after the event) rationalisation. We do this when we are facing a messy problem. We create stories to justify our actions. A final example of biases in action:
I was worried about having burn-out. So I looked up burnout on the web and it was confirmed… I have burn-out.
What’s so bad about this? The person in question has only looked for confirming evidence of their bias. They have not really looked up evidence that suggests the contrary. What if they have something else? They call this one: Confirmation Bias. You are seeking information that only confirms your position… not denies it. When you do this you can become narrow minded. It can develop into all kinds of mental problems and make you frame your problems in such a way that you will not be able to see around them.
Other types of bias
The ever helpful Wikipedia resource lists a bunch of other biases which you can read about here. The main type of biases I have mentioned here are probably the most common ones I have seen. The main point of what I have said here is that these things live with us. In a later post I will talk about surfacing hidden biases and learning to develp yourself from them.
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