# 54: Are You Guilty Of These 3 Cognitive Biases In Decision Making?🧠
Hello,
Spring is my favorite season of the year. That's when the tiny green plants sprout up, & trees start budding again.
Seeing the greenery emerging from the ground after months of biting cold and a barren winter is lovely. I cheer on this comeback story. Every year!
It reminds me of the change yet again - the promise of brilliant growth and brighter days ahead (where I grew up, it was summer throughout the year & I feel at home when it's warm)!
Happy Spring 🌱
This newsletter will take you about 4 minutes to read.
I. Spotlight: Are You Guilty Of These 3 Cognitive Biases In Decision Making?🧠
Our hunter-gatherer ancestors are huddled around a campfire when they suddenly hear the nearby bushes rustling. They have two options: investigate if the movement was caused by small prey such as a rabbit, or flee, assuming there was a predator such as a saber-tooth tiger. The former could lead to a nutritious meal, while the latter could ensure survival.
What call do you think our ancestors would have made?
Evolution ensured the survival of those who fled the scene on the margin of safety rather than those who made the best decision by analyzing all possible scenarios. For thousands of years, humans have made snap decisions in fight-or-flight situations. In many ways, the human race learned to survive by jumping to conclusions.
“In the modern context, such survival heuristics become myriad cognitive biases,” said Eric Colson, Chief Algorithms Officer at Stitch Fix. Let’s look at the most common biases or shortcut decisions that influence organizational leaders and how decision intelligence can come to their rescue.
(Photo by Michael Dziedzic on Unsplash)
The top 3 biases that plague organizational leaders
Today, an average individual makes 35,000 decisions every day—from which side of the bed to get out of to which company to acquire. However, numerous biases plague each of these decisions.
“Our irrational behaviors are neither random nor senseless,” said Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational. “We make mistakes systematically and predictably because that’s how our brains are wired.”
While dozens of cognitive biases can trick us, here are the three most wanted.
II. Industry Roundup:
1. Survey: Analytics Leadership Annual Executive Survey 2023
20 pages | Wavestone - New Vantage Partners | Randy Bean, Tom Davenport
This is an annual data leadership pulse survey I’ve been tracking for years. It gives a good sense of how enterprises are getting value from data & analytics. This year, the survey found that 85% of participating organizations held the CDAO/data leadership role - a sign of maturity for this critical role across industries. However, as seen in earlier years, just 24% of leaders claim to have built a data-driven organization. Check the results to find out why.
2. Article: Bill Gates’ predictions about our future with AI
04 minutes / Yahoo / Grace Mayer
Bill Gates’ penned a letter on the future of AI, where he shares why developing AI is "as fundamental as the creation of the microprocessor, the personal computer, the internet, and the mobile phone." He calls out three sectors that are likely to be most impacted: workforce, healthcare, and education. Gates paints scenarios that could play out in each of these areas and the risks we should watch out for.
III. From my Desk:
1. Talk: Session on Data Storytelling at DataCamp RADAR 2023
1 min | DataCamp
DataCamp’s annual 2-day event, RADAR, brought together 25K+ attendees. The free event had insight-packed talks. I was happy to see the overwhelmingly positive feedback for my session. Hearing from the attendees that the talk was inspiring and actionable made the hours of prep all the more worthwhile! Check out the LinkedIn post for session feedback and the link to all the RADAR event recordings.
2. Workshop: Empowering NPOs to Deliver Impact With Data-Driven Decisions
1 min | Penn State University - Nittany AI
In April, I’ll be conducting an AI workshop in partnership with Penn State Nittany AI Alliance to help Non-Profit Organizations (NPOs) become data-driven. Organized as a series of keynotes, panel discussions, and breakout sessions, we’ll help NPOs discover impactful organizational problems to solve with the help of data & analytics. I’ll share more details and learnings from the event.
3. Guest Lecture: Data Storytelling at Ramapo College of New Jersey
1 min | LinkedIn
Recently, I ran a guest lecture at Ramapo College, NJ, on the topic, "Data Storytelling: The Secret to Delivering Business Impact with Analytics". It was great interacting with the Data Science students who were curious about the industry and had a lot of questions about storytelling. I covered 3 key themes in this talk. Check out the LinkedIn post for more details.
Can AI now read your mind? This research is scary…🤯
Thank you for subscribing and reading the newsletter. I appreciate your attention,
Ganes.
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I’m Ganes Kesari. I publish ‘Data-Driven Future’ to help understand how data shapes our world, explore key trends, and explain what they mean for you today. I speak and write to demystify data science for decision-makers and organizations.
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