The Secret Life of Decisions: How Unconscious Bias Subverts Your Judgement

Businesses face an increasingly complex, ambiguous and uncertain environment which their leaders need to navigate skilfully, often making decisions with less than full knowledge or experience. Sadly, business literature and, in some cases the media, are filled with examples of successful leaders who have made terrible decisions they have lived to regret. The Secret Life of Decisions shows how easy it is to make errors of judgment; how your previous experience can, rather than helping you, trap you into decisions that are misguided, unhelpful ... plain bad. Meena Thuraisingham explains the basis for your unconscious bias, how to challenge the way you think and approach complex decisions, and how you can develop the skill to sustain and build your performance as a leader, one decision at a time. Examining these challenges she frames her arguments around five fundamental choices every leader needs to make: what is our mission? Who to pick as your team? Which stakeholders should matter? What must change? What are the risks? In navigating through the complexity that these five choices imply and making the best judgements in the circumstances, leaders must recognise how personal biases, filters, preferences, and beliefs can work invisibly to trip up even the most experienced and derail even successful companies. The Secret Life of Decisions is an essential read for decision makers; those who advise them and anyone concerned with science of decisions and their impact.