Humans are funny creatures. We often seem rationale in how we approach the world and the decisions we make. But the reality is, people are not designed to make rational decisions. We have many subconscious routines that drive our processes for coming up with answers to the questions we face.
I just finished reading Michael Lewis’ The Undoing Project. Every one of the books by Michael Lewis has been a great read, but this one has blown my mind. I walk around unable to stop relating its lessons to everything going on around me. Behavioral economics is a field with practical application to just about everything in business.
This book gets my highest recommendation for anyone who has to deal with people or decisions (I think that’s everyone?).
I don’t write many reviews because everyone’s taste in books is different. Books I would recommend to one person may not be right for another. But here at my BoxThoughts, I can’t help but think it’s the perfect place to recommend this particular book.
Why are you recommending this? you ask.
Simple, because it’s a book about how people respond to situations. Looking to move people to a new office? This book has a message about it. Looking to negotiate a new lease? This book has a message about it. Designing a change management program? This book has a message about it.
At heart, the Undoing Project teaches us that people do not respond rationally in all situations. There are many times when they respond based on feelings or intuition or pure guesswork even when they could stop to correctly solve the problem.
Psychology is a field that anyone designing strategy should study. If you do not understand how people respond to new situations or how people participate in your decision-making process. Even people trying to help can accidentally cause issues by the way they work. Give us what we think is a clear cut situation, we may just come up with the wrong answer without even realizing it.
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