~ TATMIACDIASTATEAOOL:WE;DR;CL;EE ~ The Ability To Make Informed And Creative Decisions Is A Skill That Applies To Every Aspect Of Our Lives: Work Environments; Domestic Roles; Civic Lives; Economic Existence

~ I-O-C-O-I-COTUSFWWROOT-DC ~ Intelligence – Or – Confidence – Or – Intuition – Can Only Take Us So Far When We Reach One Of Those – Difficult Crossroads

~ WTTF-FTTOOCD-SOTJTLTT-B-S-WIMM-WNTRTT ~ We Tend To Fast-Forward To The Outcomes Of Complex Decisions – Skipping Over The Journey That Led To Them – But – Sometimes – When It Matters Most – We Need To Rewind The Tape

~ BR ~ Bounded Rationality

~ ‘GT’-MOTTTHBDTACD-MHBSETSA-TPBSOBO-GB-A-TU-TWROKTAW-CGP ~ “GroupThink” – Many Of The Techniques That Have Been Developed To Augment Complex Decision-Making Have Been Specifically Engineered To Steer Around – The Potential Blind Spots Or Biases Of – Group Behavior – And – To Uncover – The Wide Range Of Knowledge That A Well-Curated Group Possesses

~ E-L-TD-IA-S-OA-F:U-NTBR-SDFIPTWCSIIFC ~ Every – Long-Term Decision – Is A – Snowflake – Or A – Fingerprint: Unique – Never To Be Repeated – So Different From Its Peers That We Can’t Shovel It Into Formulaic Categories

~ MTAE-WWFOCOOLHC-WNTSIOIOT-WFE-TIWIUADBIRSPC-BTIW-T-ISATWTDBFTP-IAISP-TWOSCBT ~ More Than Anything Else – When We Find Ourselves Confronting One Of Life’s Hard Choices – We Need To See It On Its Own Terms – With Fresh Eyes – There Is Wisdom In Understanding A Decision Because It Resemble Some Past Crossroads – But There Is Wisdom – Too – In Seeing All The Ways The Decision Breaks From The Past – In Appreciating Its Singular Properties – This Way Of Seeing Can Be Taught

~ TBS ~ The Blind Spot

~ ITTUAPWMIV-IOIFUTPATRED-SODIBOO-PAT-OSMTRBTUWTAOTS-POMTRDILHTMSOATDI-BIIJAITRTHTHOUIYN-TUT ~ In Trying To Understand A Problem With Many Interacting Variables – It’s Often Impossible For Us To Perceive All The Relevant Elements Directly – So Our Decision Is Built Out Of – Proxies And Translators – Other Specialized Minds That Report Back To Us With Their Assessment Of The Situation – Part Of Making The Right Decision Is Learning How To Make Sense Of All Those Different Inputs – But – It Is Just As Important To Recognize The Holes That Have Opened Up In Your Network – The Unreliable Translators

~ WFAD-TI-M-I-V-PHATTPO-‘A’-V-A-MTDBOTE-B-FDTMRFY-IMSTEOP ~ When Facing A Decision – That Involves – Multiple – Independent – Variables – People Have A Tendency To Pick One – “Anchor” – Variable – And – Make Their Decision Based On That Element – But – For Decisions That May Reverberate For Years – It Makes Sense To Expand Our Perspective

~ ID-DACD-CHETTCOTI-TCOE-SC-IH-TIFHC ~ Influence Diagrams – Diagramming A Complex Decision – Can Help Elucidate The True Complexity Of The Issue – The Chain Of Effects – Sometimes Called – Impact Highways – That Inevitably Follow Hard Choices

~ D-EFDHIOUM-OC-A-TAOMTCWAMWAPLNIFTMTMSET-B-IIDTKOKVRTSTSAITI-A-TBWTDTVITGDPOEOTP ~ Diversity – Every Farsighted Decision Has Its Own Unique Map – Of Course – And – The Art Of Making Those Choices With As Much Wisdom As Possible Lies Not In Forcing That Map To Match Some Existing Template – But – Instead In Developing The Kind Of Keen Vision Required To See The Situation As It Truly Is – And – The Best Way To Develop That Vision Is To Get Different Pairs Of Eyes On The Problem

~ TMIEI-TDOPYA-TDODISSTIATAEWTDPBATTGHNRETTCAH ~ The Most Important Element Is – The Diversity Of Perspectives You Assemble – The Power Of Diversity Is So Strong That It Appears To Apply Even When The Divers Perspectives Being Added To The Group Have No Relevant Expertise To The Case At Hand

~ HG-T-TCTDTQ ~ Homogeneous Groups – Tend – To Come To Decisions Too Quickly

~ YCETDOAEG-WBIO-SBD-‘ER’-TEOTPBOTKTHTBTTD-IOLFTCGOSK-PWETSTUPOTC ~ You Can Enhance The Diversity Of An Existing Group – Without Bringing In Outsiders – Simply By Designating – “Expert Roles” – To Each Of The Participants Based On The Knowledge They Happen To Bring To The Discussion – Instead Of Looking For The Common Ground Of Shared Knowledge – Participants Were Empowered To Share Their Unique Perspective On The Choice

~ STEWTBWITBCYAR ~ Sometimes The Easiest Way To Be Wrong Is To Be Certain You Are Right

~ TIWIBAAMMOTSYATTN-B-TIAACKOWIITBSOTM-TPWYDHC-EBYDHTRSOSAY-OBSEOTSIFU ~ There Is Wisdom In Building An Accurate Mental Map Of The System You Are Trying To Navigate – But There Is Also A Crucial Kind Of Wisdom In Identifying The Blank Spots On The Map – The Places Where You Don’t Have Clarity – Either Because You Don’t Have The Right Set Of Stakeholders Advising You – Or Because Some Element Of The Situation Is Fundamentally Unknowable

~ APTRTCLTOTBAPSOML-NJBIAOTGHSTTTI-B-BTVAOTAHCYAASMYTAWYMBM-CUWNC-TUP ~ Asking People To Rate Their Confidence Level Turns Out To Be A Productive Strategy On Multiple Levels – Not Just Because It Allows Others To Gauge How Seriously To Take Their Information – But – Because The Very Act Of Thinking About How Certain You Are About Something Makes You Think About What You Might Be Missing – Coming Up With New Choices – The Undiscovered Path

~ OE ~ Optimal Extremism

~ MSSCFTTFOA-‘E’-P-FFT-C-C-W-ASWEPANGAMVIASIOFC-OC-TAMEPTTOTB-DE-O-W ~ Most Significant Social Change First Takes The Form Of An – “Extreme” – Position – Far From The – Centrist – Conventional – Wisdom – A Society Where Extreme Positions Are Not Granted A Meaningful Voice Is A Society Incapable Of Fundamental Change – Of Course – There Are Many Extreme Positions That Turn Out To Be – Dead-Ends – Or – Worse

~ SF ~ SuperForecasters

~ FTLV-YNTDOMSFC For The Long View – You Need To Draw On Multiple Sources For Clues

~ RCT ~ Randomized Controlled Trial

~ S-MUBAP-A-SPMUBD-M ~ Simulations – Make Us Better At Predicting – And – Successful Predictions Make Us Better Decision-Makers

~ SP-YB-OMWTGB-OWTGW-A-OWTGW ~ Scenario Plans – You Build – One Model Where Things Get Better – One Where They Get Worse – And – One Where They Get Weird

~ PM-ITTSIGTD-A-ITCTWBRFTFD ~ PreMortem – Imagine That The Subject Is Going To Die – And – Imagine The Causes That Will Be Responsible For That Future Death

~ RT ~ Red Teams

~ HCAOHBTIOPLIMW-ASOATITI-THTTEAMCFSEP-TOTBAET ~ Hard Choices Are Often Hard Because They Impact Other People’s Lives In Meaningful Ways – And So Our Ability To Imagine The Impact – To Think Through The Emotional And Material Consequences From Someone Else’s Perspective – Turns Out To Be An Essential Talent

~ AWOMUITFPTAMAYEOT-RFTDTL ~ Another Way Of Mitigating Uncertainty Is To Favor Paths That Allow Modifications After You’ve Embarked On Them – Room For Tinkering Down The Line

~ Supercomputers Have Started Taking On The Role That In Ancient Times Belonged To The Oracles: To Peer Into The Future

~ WLIAS-A-SATKUFTLV ~ We Live In A Short-Attention-Span Age That Keeps Us From The Long View

~ DGMSD ~ Diverse Groups Make Smarter Decisions

~ TLV ~ The Long View

~ WGTD? ~ Who Gets To Decide?

~ WITIO-D-IAIMG-THU-D-AAS-WOLSB ~ We Invented The Institution Of – Democracy – In All Its Many Guises – To Help Us – Decide – As A Society – What Our Laws Should Be

~ MIP-TIWO-MFCAAS-FT-WINWODO-CIEFUTT ~ Maybe It’s Possible – To Invent Ways Of – Making Farsighted Choices As A Society – Faster Than – We Invent New Ways Of Destroying Ourselves – Certainly It’s Essential For Us To Try