News

By David Mantica

Humans have not evolved for knowledge work and we must fight against our evolutionary setup to effectively function in a complex business world. Understanding this can help us manage stress and work environments, and ultimately execute tasks with value. Our brains have evolved for survival and efficiency and they operate based on preset assumptions and habits. Our values and beliefs turn into thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, which can lead to trouble when dealing with complexity, uncertainty, and rapid change. To overcome this, we need to break through these preset concepts and think critically about complex situations.

System 1 / System 2 Thinking

"Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Nobel Prize-winning author Daniel Kahneman is a good reference to understand how our brains process information. It explains that we tend to use stereotypical heuristic patterns to make decisions, which can limit our creativity and critical thinking. To overcome this, we need to engage in system two thinking and feed our brains properly over long periods of time. However, society's focus on short, efficient information bites can lead to habits of system one thinking, which can hinder deep thinking and effective performance. It’s important to think about system two thinking and learning how to get into a deep thinking mode to effectively navigate complex situations.

The First Trick

People initially judge others based on their perceived trustworthiness and competency, which can be a problem when making assumptions based on appearances. Imagine how our ancestors would assess others based on their ability to hunt and their potential threat to the group. However, this initial judgment can be hard to break, and it can lead to problems in how we view and work with others.

Emotional Response

Our brains are divided into three high-level portions: the brainstem, the limbic brain, and the cerebral cortex. The brainstem regulates essential bodily functions like breathing and heartbeat, while the limbic brain is responsible for our emotional response, which is often the initial reaction to stimuli. The cerebral cortex is responsible for processing information and analyzing complex situations.

Our initial perception of a situation or person is often followed by an emotional judgment, which can be influenced by our assumptions and beliefs. These judgments are processed in the limbic brain and can be distorted by emotional biases and previous experiences. It's essential to understand these emotional distortions and manage them effectively to make rational decisions and avoid unnecessary conflicts.

By being aware of how our brains operate, we can manage our emotional responses effectively, especially in situations that require complex and critical thinking. Understanding the emotional distortions and cognitive biases that can influence our decision-making can help us make more rational decisions, manage stress, and work effectively with others.

Emotional Intelligence

The limbic portion of our brains is responsible for the initial emotional response, which can be fight, flight, freeze, or fawn, and is focused on survival and efficiency. This can cause us to react quickly without fully processing information or thinking things through. However, taking time to slow down and think can help us manage ourselves appropriately and avoid emotional responses that could negatively impact our work. Developing emotional intelligence, including self-awareness, can also help us better manage our emotional responses and work more effectively with others. We need to take time to think and avoid the urge to react quickly in high-intensity situations, in order to avoid making mistakes based on emotional distortions.

Negative Self Talk

Our self-talk is constantly playing in our heads and can lead to negative assumptions about ourselves, such as "I'm no good" or "I'm not smart." These thoughts can trigger our fight, flight, or freeze response, releasing hormones like cortisol and adrenaline that can lead to stress-related illnesses like headaches and digestive issues. We need to be aware of our negative self-talk and learn to manage it, using techniques like meditation and positive thinking. Stress-related illnesses can impact our electrical centers, including our brain, heart, and digestive system, and can have long-term negative effects on our overall health.

Fear vs Seeking Systems

It’s important to focus on one's strengths instead of weaknesses in leadership roles. This shift in perception can lead to better engagement with team members and positive reciprocation. Techniques such as positive thinking and meditation can help manage it.

Growth mindset, which involves believing in the ability to learn and grow and recognizing that others can change as well. It is suggested to avoid stress-related chemicals such as cortisol and adrenaline and instead focus on natural chemicals such as dopamine and oxytocin associated with a growth mindset. Reflect on a time when you felt psychological safety and energized at work and to employ the growth mindset in both short-term emotional responses and long-term cognitive responses. 

Power Corrupting

Power can cause individuals to only consider things through their own lens and view themselves as special, leading to narcissistic behavior. This can become more insidious the deeper the individual's power gets. To combat this, individuals in positions of power should focus on passing responsibility onto others and valuing and viewing others, rather than solely seeing themselves.

Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance refers to the difference between what is really going on and what we are seeing. Our brains can have a different perception of reality based on our individual experiences and filters. The way we perceive someone or something can change based on various factors, such as background, physical appearance, or even something they say that may be offensive to us. We need to be aware of our own filters and biases and work towards overcoming them in order to better understand the reality of the situations around us.

Affective Forecasting

When the brain goes into deeper thinking, it tends to focus more on negative impacts, overestimating their duration and intensity. This is illustrated by the example of losing a job, where people tend to overestimate how bad it will be and how long it will last.

Two specific cognitive biases related to effective forecasting: time discounting and immune neglect. Time discounting refers to the tendency to value the present more than the future, even when thinking deeply about something.

Immune neglect refers to the tendency to believe that if we haven't been impacted by something in the past, we won't be impacted in the future.This can lead to complacency and a lack of preparation, using the example of companies having layoffs but employees not preparing because they believe they are immune to the impact. These cognitive biases can have significant impacts on our decision-making and should be taken into consideration when making predictions and planning for the future.

Loss Regret Aversion

Loss regret is a deep-seated fear that is tied to the brain's need for survival. The fear of change and loss is very strong, even if the change has a high probability of success. People would rather not do anything and not fail than take action and risk failure. This fear of failure distorts the available data, making it difficult for people to react to it appropriately. This cognitive bias is particularly relevant in project management, which involves a lot of change and loss. By understanding this bias, people can work through it and develop effective influencing techniques to overcome it. Additionally, recognizing this bias in oneself and others to avoid being stuck in situations for too long due to fear.

Social Proof

Social proof, which is commonly used in marketing but can also impact judgment in the development lifecycle. Social proof is the idea that if many people are doing or using something, it must be important or special. Examples include assuming a restaurant is good if it's crowded and buying people to stand in line to create the appearance of importance.

Reciprocity

Reciprocity, which is the feeling that when someone does something for us, we should return the favor. This concept can be positive for building relationships based on give-and-take, but it can also be used negatively as a manipulation technique, such as in politics with lobbying and campaign support.

Confirmation Bias

Confirmation bias, which is a cognitive bias where people tend to seek and interpret information in a way that confirms their preexisting beliefs or hypotheses. Protecting oneself from confirmation bias when conducting research, and suggests that cognitive diversity can help to counteract this bias.

Train Your Brain

There are techniques for managing stress and negative self-talk, as well as books like "Thinking Fast and Slow" and "Chatter" that can help with cognitive distortions. There’s importance in cognitive diversity and there are science-based techniques available to work through these challenges.