Why do smart, experienced leaders still make predictable mistakes - and why does knowing about cognitive bias rarely prevent them? In this episode, Matt Mulford, Capstone Project Director at TRIUM Global Executive MBA, explores how leaders can make better decisions under uncertainty by designing stronger decision processes.
Matt explains why our minds turn observations into simple causal stories and then search for evidence supporting the first explanation. Under pressure - or when credibility is tied to a particular view - this can quickly become confirmation bias.
In this episode, Matt discusses:
- Why awareness of cognitive biases rarely prevents them
- How decision hygiene reduces predictable errors
- Why leaders should delay sharing their preferred interpretation
- How to match the rigour of a decision process to the stakes
- Why decision quality and outcome quality are not the same
- How organisations can distinguish repeatable skill from luck
- What AI could mean for expertise and workplace learning
The conversation also examines how leaders can make better use of the intelligence distributed across their organisations, evaluate performance more fairly and avoid blindly copying the practices of successful companies.
If you want to improve the quality of important decisions without pretending uncertainty can be eliminated, you will enjoy this thoughtful and practical conversation. Listen in to learn how to test the first compelling narrative, involve the people closest to the relevant information and assess the decision process separately from the eventual outcome.
For show notes and bonus resources, visit www.PeopleLeaderAccelerator.com/podcast.
About The People Leader Accelerator Podcast
Our goal with this podcast is simple: to help people leaders navigate the messy, complex, and deeply rewarding work of leading teams and organizations with more clarity, confidence, and community.
Whether you’re the first HR hire at a startup or an experienced executive at a company with scale, you’ll find actionable insights you can use right away.
We can’t wait to share these conversations with you.
Welcome to the journey!
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