Chapter 2.

COURAGE, CREATIVITY, & BALANCE

DECISION CHECKLIST
The COURAGE to be RATIONALL
Advisor role, process goal, hope
CREATTIIIIVE PROBLLEM STRUCTTURIIIING
Stimulus variation, force fit
(observation, conversation, checklists)
The COURAGE to be RATIONAL
• Values – Think of alternatives
✔ Stakeholders, +/-, future, self-
worth, community
• Alternatives – Think of values, causes, resources

• Facts –
✔ Uncertainties, risky alternatives
BALLANCED EVALLUATTIIIION
Rough sketch, divide-and-conquer CREATIVITY in PROBLEM STRUCTURING
• Screening – Universalizability

• Fact Table – Testability,

sampling, comparison, uncertainty
• +/- Table – Dominance

• 1-to-10 Table – Sensitivity

✔ Control, get information, diversify,

BALANCED JUDGEMENT
maintain options, share risk
• Decision Tree/Table
COMMIIIITTMENTT
One-sentence justification

The three secrets of wise decision making are courage, creativity, and
balance in the management of complexity. The courage to be rational
faces up to complexity in order to get the problem solved; creativity
adds to complexity in order to achieve a more complete understanding
of the problem; and balanced judgment evaluates complexity in an even-
handed manner in order to reduce it to a choice of the single best
alternative.

The warning signs of a need for greater courage are emotionality and
resistance in response to challenging information. The paths toward
greater courage are hope that a rational process will lead to the best
outcome, appropriate emotional distance from the decision outcomes,
and process orientation.

The warning signs of a need for greater creativity are coming up with
no more ideas or coming up with the same ideas over and over again.
The paths toward greater creativity are stimulus variation to vary ideas
and force fit to turn the resulting new ideas into truly creative ones.

The warning signs of a need for more balanced judgment are a feeling of
information overload, simplistic thinking, and vacillation. The paths
toward more balanced judgment are external memory and priming as
supplements to working memory and educated guesses and analysis into
subproblems to simplify the problem in ways that eliminate the
unimportant and retain the important.
The Three Secrets of Wise Decision Making Chapter 2. COURAGE, CREATIVITY, & BALANCE

At various points in the book, our guide below will summarize key concepts, wearing
a thinking cap that will make clear which of the Three Secrets is involved.

• The Courage
to be Rational

• Creativity

• Balanced
Judgement

Curiously, the Three Secrets seem to be secrets to different people. Balanced

judgment seems to be a secret to decision makers without formal training, since they so
often try to evaluate decisions “in their heads” without formal analysis. Courage seems to
be a secret to decision scientists, since they rarely mention it. And, while both decision
makers and decision scientists recognize the importance of creativity, neither offers
much in the way of suggestions for promoting it.

Rationality is a matter of direction in thought. Rational decision making begins with

fact and value premises and proceeds from there to a logical conclusion as to which
alternative is to be preferred. Creativity is a matter of richness of thought. Creative
decision making considers broad ranges of alternatives, bases for evaluating those
alternatives, and events that might affect their value. Judgment is a matter of balance in
thought. Judicious decision making weighs the various fact and value considerations in
proportion to their importance.

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 Chapter 2. COURAGE, CREATIVITY, & BALANCE

Instances of insufficient courage to pursue a rational course are all too common, for
example, stubborn resistance in parents, bosses, and political leaders to evidence of
weaknesses in a course of action they've advocated. Failures in creativity are also
common, as indicated by the frequency with which we learn about better alternatives after
we have already committed to a decision. Failures in judgment are also common, for
example, failures of young people to attach proper importance to planning for their
working years, failures of adults to attach proper importance to planning for retirement,
and failures of society to attach proper importance to planning for the next generation.

Why are we so often less than wise? What inclines us to decide irrationally? What
keeps us from being more creative? What accounts for biased judgment? Finally and most
importantly, how can we correct each of these deficiencies? This chapter begins to
answer these questions.

Motivational concepts, specifically cognitive conflict, will play a key role in our
attempt to understand courage, creativity, and balance. High-conflict decisions are “hot”
decisions; low-conflict decisions are “cold” ones, and the various decision tools can be
seen as either increasing or decreasing cognitive conflict. It's level of cognitive
conflict that distinguishes rational decision making (“warm”) from both disinterest
(“cold”), on the one hand, and panic (“hot”), on the other. Also, within rational decision
making, creative thinking increases cognitive conflict, and judgment decreases it. In the
end, we’ll have to add the concept of hope to that of cognitive conflict in order to
distinguish rational decision making from decision avoidance. However, cognitive
conflict is the best place to start.

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 Chapter 2. COURAGE, CREATIVITY, & BALANCE

Cognitive Conflict

Cognitive conflict (or “cognitive dissonance”, Festinger, 1957) is related to both

(a) the amount of uncertainty about the consequences of various alternatives and (b) the
importance of those consequences (Berlyne, 1965, Ch. 9). For example, a path out of a
forest that branches into three paths should result in more uncertainty, and hence greater
cognitive conflict, than a path that branches into two paths. And either amount of
uncertainty should result in greater cognitive conflict if we're trying to escape a forest fire
than if we're going for an afternoon walk. The relationships among cognitive conflict,
importance, and uncertainty can be expressed in the following equation:

Cognitive Conflict = Importance x Uncertainty

If importance is zero (we don't care where we’re going), no amount of uncertainty
will produce cognitive conflict, and if uncertainty is zero (there's only a single path with
no branch), no amount of importance will produce cognitive conflict (terror, perhaps, but
not cognitive conflict).

As cognitive conflict increases, emotional arousal increases; and as arousal increases,

attention narrows (Easterbrook, 1959). At low levels of conflict, attention is broadly
diffused and quickly turns to other matters. We aren’t sufficiently interested in the
decision problem and easily get distracted. At moderate levels, attention is properly
concentrated on the task, and we're most open to problem-relevant information. We're
interested, engaged, or challenged. At high levels, we develop tunnel vision to the point
where we're likely to ignore important considerations. We're too highly motivated
and experience panic. It's moderate levels of conflict that are most conducive to good
decision making.

We work best on decision problems that stimulate “warm” interest. If we feel “cold”
about a decision, we aren’t likely to give it enough thought; and, if it's a “hot” decision,
we’re likely to try to get it resolved too quickly. The Importance-x-Uncertainty equation
is useful to keep in mind, for it can make us more sensitive to the factors that determine
level of conflict and also suggest ways to increase or decrease it—ways to turn the “heat”
up and ways to turn it down.

If uncertainty is too low, we can “turn the heat up” and become more focused on the
decision problem by spending some time thinking about what may be wrong with what
we're doing, that is, risks associated with the current course of action and risks associated

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 Chapter 2. COURAGE, CREATIVITY, & BALANCE

with alternative courses of action. A famous story involving Alfred P. Sloan, Chairman
of

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 Chapter 2. COURAGE, CREATIVITY, & BALANCE

the Board of General Motors during its “Golden Age”, illustrates the valuable role that
cognitive conflict can play in successful decision making (Drucker, 1974, p. 472).
At one point in a meeting of General Motors’ Board of Directors, Sloan is reported to
have said, “Gentlemen, I take it we are all in complete agreement on the decision here.”
Everyone around the table nodded assent.
“Then,” continued Sloan, “I propose we postpone further discussion of this matter
until our next meeting to give ourselves time to develop disagreement and perhaps gain
some understanding of what the decision is all about.”
The cognitive conflict encouraged by Sloan indeed led to deeper thought—and
ultimately to rejection of his proposal! If Sloan hadn’t placed such positive value on
disagreement, the Board would probably have gone on to make a decision they'd later
have regretted. For thinking about risks associated with the current course of action,
stimulus variation, discussed in the section on Creativity, can help. In particular,
imagining that your decision has had an unfortunate outcome can help you think of
deficiencies (Jones, Yurak, & Frisch, 1997).
So, if uncertainty is too low, we can “turn the heat up” by adding alternatives through
creative thinking, as well as increasing uncertainty about existing alternatives by thinking
about what's wrong with preferred alternatives and what's good about non-preferred
alternatives.
If it's importance that's too low, we can “turn the heat up” and become emotionally
more engaged in the problem by imagining that the solution is due tomorrow, rather than
next month, that the responsibility for the solution is entirely ours, rather than partly
someone else’s, or that the consequences will occur to us directly, rather than to someone
else.
If uncertainty is, on the other hand, too high, we can “turn the heat down” and
become less narrowly focused on some portions of the decision problem to the exclusion
of others by using external memory, heuristics, or decomposition to reduce complexity.
These methods are all discussed in the section on Judgment.
If it's importance that's too high, we can “turn the heat down” by distancing ourselves
emotionally from the problem in a variety of ways. We can prepare to accept the worst
that could happen. Or we can imagine that the problem is someone else’s and that we're
giving advice to them. Even though the decision is really yours, ask yourself, “How
would I advise someone else making this decision?” Just as it’s easier to see irrationality
in others than in ourselves, it’s easier to be rational about someone else’s decisions than

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 Chapter 2. COURAGE, CREATIVITY, & BALANCE

our own. Discussing the problem with someone else is yet another way to achieve
distancing.

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 Chapter 2. COURAGE, CREATIVITY, & BALANCE

If the heightened importance is a consequence of time pressure, we can relax artificial

deadlines we’ve set for ourselves, find ways to relax genuine deadlines that are externally
imposed, find extra time between now and the deadline, or place less importance on the
immediate deadline and more on long-term deadlines. One trick for distancing yourself
from a problem is to regard it as “practice” for a more important problem you’ll have to
deal with later. This focuses attention more on long-term benefits and less on short-term
consequences and takes some of the pressure off, enabling you to perform better and
increasing the chances that you'll achieve both the short-term and the long-term benefits.
A good way to relax inappropriate self-generated time pressure is to pour yourself a cup
of coffee before sitting down to work on a decision problem. Not only is a more relaxed
approach to time likely to improve the quality of your decision, but it can also,
paradoxically, reduce the time required—the opposite of “Haste makes waste.”

Process orientation is a particularly important way to reduce both importance and

uncertainty. Process orientation is redirecting attention from the outcomes of the decision
to the decision process, itself. For example, if you focus too much on how much you
might gain or lose, you could put off making an investment decision longer than you
should. If you worry too much about how the other person might react, you could put off
dealing with an interpersonal problem too long. If, instead, you ask yourself whether
you've given adequate thought to the values involved and the courses of action open to
you, whether you've checked information sources adequately and sought the perspectives
of others, and whether you've put this information together systematically, you'll soon
realize that you're ready to make a sound decision and will be more likely to act on it in a
timely fashion.

Process orientation is holding yourself responsible more for making a good decision
than for achieving a good outcome. The idea is to place greater importance on being
rational, fair, and a good decision maker than on being “right” about the outcome.

To the extent that we evaluate ourselves on the basis of the process we're engaged in,
we both reduce importance and shift it to events over which we have greater control and
about which there need be less uncertainty. By reducing both importance and uncertainty,
process orientation enables us to tolerate greater complexity in working on a decision
problem and achieve higher quality solutions. Process orientation seems to be important
in the personalities of creative people (MacKinnon, 1962). The comfort creative thinkers
experience with complexity was well described by Eric Fromm (though in the gender-
biased language of his time), “Thinking man is necessarily uncertain.” It was described in
an even more positive way by Tennyson in his poem “Ulysses”:

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 Chapter 2. COURAGE, CREATIVITY, & BALANCE

Yet all experience is an arch where-thro’

Gleams that untravell’d world, whose margin fades
Forever and forever when I move.

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 Chapter 2. COURAGE, CREATIVITY, & BALANCE

Hold yourself responsible for being rational and fair

and making good decisions, and good outcomes
will be more likely to follow.

The next three graphs summarize what has been said to this point about cognitive
conflict and decision making. They show how various levels of cognitive conflict are
related to the problem identification, problem structuring, and evaluation phases of
decision making. In each graph, conflict is represented on the vertical axis, and time, on
the horizontal axis. The two dotted lines on each graph represent the range of cognitive
conflict that stimulates interest in the decision maker. Above this range, the decision
maker’s response is panic, and, below this range, it is boredom. Rational decision making
occurs within the range that stimulates interest.

The way to read the first graph, for example, is to see that conflict is moderate (3.0)
during the problem identification phase, increases (to 6.0) during the problem structuring
phase, and declines (to 1.0) during the evaluation phase. Because the initial level of
conflict is above the lower dotted line, it's not so low as to create boredom (as in the
second graph), and, because it's below the upper dotted line, it's not so high as to create
panic (as in the third graph). The decision problem thus generates interest and is
responded to with appropriate problem structuring and evaluation.

In addition to an optimal level of cognitive conflict, the courage to be rational requires

hope. The fourth graph shows how hope fits into the overall picture. The hand that says
“Stop!” represents emotional resistance to thinking about this decision problem,
resistance that stems from the absence of hope that such thinking would do any good.

The final graph, on the next page, summarizes methods for enhancing courage,
creativity, and balance. The hand that says “Go!” represents emotional openness to
thinking about this decision problem brought about by the presence of hope that such
thinking will lead to the best outcome. “EM” refers to external memory, discussed later.

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 Chapter 2. COURAGE, CREATIVITY, & BALANCE

INTEREST
Interest. An intermediate level of conflict generates
interest. This is followed by creative thought during
10 problem structuring, which increases conflict, and
judgment during evaluation, which decreases it. At
8
the end, a single alternative has been chosen,
conflict has been brought below the range of
CONFLICT

interest, and the decision maker’s attention turns to

4
other matters.
2

0 IDENTIFICATION STRUCTURING EVALUATION

BOREDOM Boredom. The level of conflict is never great

enough to generate interest and stimulate thought, so
10
there's no problem solving activity. For example,
8
the teenager who plans on being a rock star is not
interested in even talking about other career
possibilities.
CONFLICT

PANIC Panic. The level of conflict is so great that it

produces discomfort. As a consequence, there's a
10
desperate attempt to reduce this discomfort. There's
8 no problem structuring but simply hasty evaluation
to reduce intolerable conflict. For example, a person
fleeing a burning building takes foolish things and
CONFLICT

4
leaves important ones behind and may persist in
trying to escape by a blocked route.
2

0 IDENTIFICATION EVALUATION

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 Chapter 2. COURAGE, CREATIVITY, & BALANCE

DEFENSIVENESS Defensiveness. Even though the level of conflict

may not be unacceptably high, unbiased problem
10 solving does not occur, because personal threat
8
closes off options; and defense mechanisms, in a
distortion of evaluation, reduce conflict to the point
6 where the problem is not seen as interesting.
Because the problem is not solved, however, it may

CONFLICT
4
reappear from time to time, reawakening conflict
2 and reactivating the defense mechanisms. For
example, a person never interprets correctly others’
0 AVOIDANCE responses to his abrasive behavior and thus never
corrects the behavior.

Methods for increasing hope, summarized to the right of the forward-pointing finger
in the diagram, are discussed in the next section of this chapter, on the Courage to be
Rational. Methods for increasing complexity and cognitive conflict, summarized next to
the upward-pointing arrow, are discussed in the section after that, on Creativity. And
methods for decreasing complexity and cognitive conflict, summarized next to the
downward-point arrow, are discussed in the final section of this chapter, on Judgment.

With an understanding of conflict motivation and its importance, we now look more
closely at each of the three secrets of wise decision making.

MAINTAINING RATIONALITY

10

8
CONFLICT

To lower uncertainty, use EM, priming, heuristics, decomposition.

To lower importance, own process, find time.
6

4
2
 To increase hope, consider resources.

To raise uncertainty, use stimulus variation.

To raise importance, own outcomes, "lose" time.

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 Chapter 2. COURAGE, CREATIVITY, & BALANCE

DECISION CHECKLIST
The COURAGE to be RATIONALL
Advisor role, process goal, hope
CREATTIIIIVE PROBLEM STTRUCTURIIIING
Stimulus variation, force fit
(observation, conversation, checklists)

• Values – Think of alternatives

✔ Stakeholders, +/-, future, self-
worth, community
RATIONALITY
• Alternatives – Think of values, causes, resources

• Facts –
✔ Uncertainties, risky alternatives
BALLANCED EVALLUATTIIIION
Rough sketch, divide-and-conquer

• Screening – Universalizability

• Fact Table – Testability,

sampling, comparison,
uncertainty
• +/- Table – Dominance

• 1-to-10 Table – Sensitivity

✔ Control, get information, diversify,
maintain options, share risk
• Decision Tree/Table
COMMIIIITTMENTT
One-sentence justification

Secret One: The Courage to be Rational

“When people are required to make major decisions, defensive avoidance

is probably the most pervasive defective pattern as well as the most
difficult to prevent or correct.”

Janis & Mann, 1982, p. 61

So far, we've been talking about reactions to different levels of conflict motivation—
and ways to turn either “cold” boredom or “hot” panic to “warm” interest. However,
neither boredom nor panic is irrational, because neither involves active avoidance. The
difference between rationality and irrationality appears to be more than a difference in
conflict motivation.

Recognizing Lack of Rationality

While, in rational choice, cognitive conflict is reduced by processes of reasoning, in

decision avoidance, it's reduced by processes of rationalization. We ordinarily think of
the beliefs that reduce uncertainty as serving a representative function (Katz, 1960). Let’s

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 Chapter 2. COURAGE, CREATIVITY, & BALANCE

call these beliefs representational beliefs. They can be thought of as the mental equivalent
of a

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 Chapter 2. COURAGE, CREATIVITY, & BALANCE

photograph or a tape recording, representing reality in a relatively unbiased fashion. For

example, right now I experience little uncertainty about where my car is. I believe that
it’s in the garage. Beliefs of this kind enable us to select courses of action that are
adaptive. If I want to go somewhere in my car, I'll go out to the garage. We're interested
in representational beliefs being accurate. If my car isn’t in the garage, I want to know
that, and I want to know it soon. We value accuracy in representing such beliefs, since
they're able to serve their representative function only if correct.

The cognitive conflict we experience when representational beliefs are challenged

serves as a stimulus for unbiased problem solving that improves the accuracy of these
beliefs and leads to better decision making. Falsification of such beliefs requires changes
that we have some hope of being able to make, and so we tend to respond to such
falsification rationally. If you tell me that my car isn’t in the garage, I have some hope
that I can do something about the situation, and so I perceive the message as helpful. I
don’t get angry with you. I don’t need to put off looking in the garage. I don’t need to
seek out like-minded people to discuss reasons for believing that my car is, indeed, in the
garage. I go out and check to see whether my representation corresponds to the reality it’s
assumed to represent.

Not all beliefs are representational beliefs, however, as similar as they may appear on
the surface. Some are self-enhancing beliefs, functioning primarily to reduce cognitive
conflict in a way that enables us to feel good about ourselves (Katz, 1960). The belief that
our country is the best country in the world, the belief that “I'm O.K., you're O.K.”,
various philosophical and religious beliefs, and various political beliefs aren’t beliefs that
people are eager to put to the test. Our feeling is that we know that they're right, that
there's no point in putting them to the test, or even that it'd be wrong to put them to any
test. The fact that people are reluctant to put some beliefs to a test suggests that they,
curiously, don’t really believe these “beliefs”, themselves! After all, what harm could
come from testing a correct belief and showing others that you’re right?

The following experience concerning a televised town hall discussion on beliefs in

the supernatural provides a good illustration.

At the end of the program, one of the believers said, “The trouble with you
skeptics is you’re so negative!”

I replied, “I’ll make a positive offer. None of us has said that any of your
claims is false; all that we've said is that you haven’t given us enough
evidence to justify rational belief in them. If any of you has a phenomenon

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 Chapter 2. COURAGE, CREATIVITY, & BALANCE

you’d like to be able to convince others of, give me a call at the

University,

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 Chapter 2. COURAGE, CREATIVITY, & BALANCE

and I’ll be happy to help by designing a demonstration that should get the
serious attention of skeptics.”

Immediately after we went off the air, a number of believers crowded

around me to take me up on my offer, and, over the next several days,
believers who'd been watching the show called me at the University, some
ten in all. In every case, the pattern was the same: As soon as it became
clear that the procedure I outlined allowed not only for the possibility of
confirming their beliefs but also equally, in an unbiased manner, for
the possibility of disconfirming those beliefs, they abruptly lost interest.
Not one followed through on my suggestions. All, apparently, were simply
looking for facts to support beliefs they'd already become committed to—
and, apparently, weren't very confident in!

A delightfully transparent example is that of a child who believed that he had a magic
ring that would grant any wish when he rubbed it. He never tried it, however, because, if
it didn’t work, he knew he could no longer believe that he had a magic ring! Irrational
beliefs are about “magic rings”—beliefs we want to keep, whether correct or not.

“Magic rings” take many forms. Today, confronted by the increasing scarcity of
water and arable land, the alarming loss of species, and a human population that doubles
every
40 years and seems to be becoming more violent, many turn from the complex solutions
that science requires to simplistic solutions based on wishful thinking—fad cures,
astrology, cults, hate groups or simply the belief that “technology” will magically
solve our problems. In the long run, these head-in-the-sand “solutions” can lead only to
greater problems, for ourselves and our children.

Let’s be clear that it isn’t the statement of the belief that’s rational or irrational, and
it’s not even its truth or falsity. The statement, “I’m smart enough to get into med school”,
could be rational or irrational, true or false. It’s rational if the person who makes it is
willing to define it clearly and put it to a test, and it’s rational whether or not it eventually
passes that test. A belief is rational if it's accepted or rejected on the basis of the degree to
which it conforms to observation. A belief is not rational if it's accepted or rejected on the
basis of the degree to which it conforms to the believer’s self-concept, lifestyle,
or feelings. Although belief in the paranormal, for example, needn’t be irrational, for
many the primary function of these beliefs is to provide them with friends, topics of
conversation, and activities that enrich their lives. Falsification is the great threat that it is
because it could change all this. How can I say that I don’t believe in space aliens and

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 Chapter 2. COURAGE, CREATIVITY, & BALANCE

continue to belong to the Close Encounters Club? The value of “magic rings” is not in
granting wishes but in making us feel good about ourselves.

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Irrational thought may respond to cognitive conflict in either of two ways (Janis &
Mann, 1977). It may reduce the perception of importance in the importance-by-
uncertainty equation by shifting the responsibility onto someone else or procrastinating,
which is, in effect shifting the responsibility onto one’s future self. It may also reduce the
perception of uncertainty by bolstering, conducting a biased search for information that
supports the belief and avoidance of information that challenges it. Whether it's
importance or uncertainty that's reduced in these ways, reality is distorted and cognitive
conflict is reduced prematurely, taking away the stimulus to the continued thought that
could lead to genuine problem solving and sound decision making.

Shifting responsibility ranges from the “Now look what you made me do!” of the
child to blaming everything on “the government” to the Nazi’s claim that he was just
“following orders.” (See Milgram, 1974.) In shifting responsibility, we reduce importance
by disowning the decision. Failure can’t affect our image of ourselves if the failure isn’t
ours.

Procrastination shifts responsibility from the present self to the future self. A fellow,
who knows better, said that he'd quit smoking as soon as he got his Ph. D. Then he said
that he'd quit as soon as he got tenure. Now, though he has both his Ph. D. and tenure, he's
still smoking! What makes procrastination work is our profound tendency to discount the
future. As anticipated events recede into the future, they seem to diminish in importance.
This is particularly true for negative events (Brown, 1948; Wright, 1974; Wright &
Weitz,
1977).

We don’t ordinarily shift responsibility or procrastinate when representational beliefs

are involved. If someone tells me that my car isn’t in the garage, I’m not going to say,
“The Police Department should be doing something about it” and then do nothing myself
(shifting responsibility); and I’m not going to say, “I’ll do something about it as soon as I
get a chance” (procrastinate). I’ll do something myself and now, because I have some
hope that it will make a difference.

Whereas shifting responsibility and procrastination reduce importance, bolstering

reduces perceived uncertainty by biased thinking that's directed toward strengthening
whatever alternative we're committed to (“sweet lemon” thinking) or weakening other
alternatives (“sour grapes” thinking). We can accomplish this by devoting more thought
to either the positive features of the alternative we're committed to or the negative
features of competing alternatives (Montgomery, 1983). Fortunately, with practice, we
can learn to catch ourselves when we do this.

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One warning sign of bolstering is an excess of reasons pointing in the same direction.
The weaker the belief, the more reasons it seems that people feel they need to support it.
“Methinks the lady doth protest too much.” This is not the case for representational
beliefs. I have only two reasons for believing that my car is in my garage: I put it there
every night that I'm home, and I remember having put it there tonight. If someone casts
doubt on the validity of that belief, I’m not going to try to come up with additional
reasons.

A special form of bolstering is seeking social support for one’s beliefs. When we're
insecure, we tend to seek the support of peers or authority figures. This isn't true for
representational beliefs. If someone tells me that my car isn’t in my garage, I’m not going
to seek out like-minded people and discuss reasons why the car must be in the garage.

Any of these defense mechanisms can easily be confused with rational responses to
conflict. After all, not everything is our responsibility; not all of the decisions we’re
responsible for need to be made immediately; and many of the decisions we make involve
little uncertainty that they were the right decisions. In fact, similar appearing mechanisms
were suggested earlier for achieving an optimal level of cognitive conflict. The critical
difference is between

• Rigid beliefs erected to block out cognitive conflict, so that we won’t have
to engage in serious decision making (cognitive “red lights”) and

• Hypothetical stances we experiment with to reduce cognitive conflict just enough

so that we can engage in serious decision making (cognitive “green lights”).

To use another metaphor, it’s like the difference between using a key to lock a door
and using the same key to unlock it. The difference is in the purpose, not the tools.

The best overall test for irrationality is the response to challenging information.
“There's no sense in talking about it any more!” “I've been through all that, and it's just
not worth our spending any more time on!” “Don't be silly!” “I don't want to talk about
it!” “We don't do things that way around here!” “I can see right now that that won't
work!” “I don't want any experiments!” “There's really no other alternative!” “I find this
whole discussion upsetting!” People who make statements like these are clearly not
making any effort to come up with new ideas—nor are they encouraging others to do so.

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The person thinking rationally will respond with interest

to challenging information, whereas the person
thinking irrationally will respond with emotion
and resistance.

A critical test of the courage to be rational, then, is a willingness to put our beliefs or
values to a test—in the language of scientists to maintain testability or falsifiability
(Anderson, 1971). The statement that I have $20 in my pocket is testable; the statement
that I have “enough” money in my pocket is not. The first tells you something about the
world and can provide the basis for a sound decision. The second may tell you something
about me, but it tells you little about how much money is in my pocket. Rational beliefs
are open to falsification; irrational beliefs aren’t. People with “magic rings” are reluctant
to leave open any way in which their belief in them can be put at risk.

A famous illustration of non-falsifiability involves the reaction of an end-of-the-world

cult to the failure of their prophecy (Festinger, Riecken, & Schachter, 1956). The
members of the cult had sold all their worldly belongings and had gathered in the home of
the leader to await the end of the world, which was predicted for midnight. These beliefs
seemed to be eminently testable. The world would either end at midnight, or it wouldn't.
If it did, their belief system would be confirmed; if it didn't, their belief system would be
disconfirmed.

Tension mounted as midnight approached—and continued as the clock ticked beyond

midnight, then well beyond midnight. Finally, the leader finally broke the silence. “Our
faith has saved the world!” she proclaimed. The cult then set out—with their faith
strengthened by the failure of their prediction—to seek new converts (the defense
mechanism of seeking social support for beliefs). The belief that the world would end at
midnight was testable, but their belief system was not!

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Some warning signs of insufficient courage to be

rational are:
(a) shifting responsibility,
(b) procrastinating,
(c) seeking social support for beliefs,
(d) avoiding falsifiability,
(e) actively seeking ideas that strengthen your
position or avoiding those that weaken it,
(f) reacting with excessive emotionality when
challenged.

A good way to test for the courage to be rational when you're making a decision is to
ask yourself the following question:

Would I be willing to commit to and actually follow

through on whichever of the alternatives the analysis
indicates is the best?

If you find yourself balking when applying this test to any alternative, there may be an
important “hidden” value that you haven't yet taken into account. Often such hidden
values relate to how we feel about ourselves, and often they're values that we'd prefer not
to think about. Sometimes hidden values are relevant to our decision and should be taken
into account, and sometimes they're irrelevant and should be ignored. The only way to tell
is to identify them and think about them.

We turn now to a pattern of irrational decision making that's sufficiently important to

warrant separate treatment.

Escalating Commitment. We've all had the experience of having made a decision
that's now going badly and of being inclined to invest even more into the failing effort in

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order to turn the bad decision into a good one. We call this “throwing good money
after bad” or

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“escalating commitment” (Staw, 1976; Staw & Ross, 1987). The United States' conduct
of the Vietnam War seems to fit this pattern well. If we'd known how badly the Vietnam
War was going to turn out, we'd never have gotten into it, in the first place; yet, once we
were in, failure led us to invest increasingly more lives and dollars. Up to a point, at least,
the clearer it became that the investment was a bad one, the more we invested.
This is precisely what's meant by the term “escalating commitment”. The principal cause
of increased commitment in such cases appears to be an unwillingness to admit to
ourselves or others that the initial decision was a bad one.

This pattern is also called the “sunk costs effect.” Rationally, the costs that have
already been incurred are irrelevant to the decision, since they're the same no matter what
we decide to do next. They're “spilt milk” or “water over the dam”. Irrationally, however,
they reflect on our competence as decision makers—and that's why we try so hard to
justify them, by turning the bad decision into a good one.

The second-highest-bidder auction provides a dramatic demonstration of escalating

commitment (Shubik, 1971). A dollar bill is auctioned off to the highest bidder, but,
unlike other auctions, this auction requires that both the highest bidder and the second-
highest bidder pay their bids. Usually, in such auctions, the highest bidder and the
second-highest bidder each wind up paying more than a dollar, and yet only one of them
gets this much in return. How can people be so irrational?

Both bidders were probably drawn into the auction thinking that they'd stop before
they reached a dollar. We’ve all had the experience of having gotten ourselves into a bad
situation as a result of a poor initial decision. The question here is, What do we do now?
Even when the bids have gone beyond a dollar, the second-highest bidder hopes, for
example, by bidding 5 cents higher, to get the dollar and thereby cut losses by 95 cents.
The feeling is, “I’ve invested too much to stop now!”

One corrective for escalating commitment is to reduce cognitive conflict by reducing

importance. You can do this by setting limits on commitment in advance, while you're
still distanced from the decision, and informing others, who are even more distanced, of
that commitment. Or you can discuss the decision to continue with persons who have no
investment in the alternative (Bazerman, 1994). In competitive situations, another
corrective is to view the decision from the other party’s perspective; if it looks equally
attractive from the other perspective, something has got to be wrong (Shubik, 1971).

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Hope

So how can we avoid irrationality? As we've seen, rational decision making requires
(a) an optimal level of cognitive conflict and (b) hope. Cognitive conflict is motivational;
hope is directional. They are the sails and compass of the ship of the intellect. If cognitive
conflict is too low, like an under-canvassed ship you'll make little progress. If cognitive
conflict is too high, like a ship under a heavy press of sail you'll be in danger of failure. If
there's little hope of reaching an acceptable destination, you'll sail around the harbor and
never get anywhere.

We've already considered cognitive conflict and ways to reduce high conflict. Those
techniques, from distancing to decomposition, remain relevant and are important in
maintaining rationality. To these, we now add ways to increase hope realistically.

What “hope” means here is the belief that a rational, unbiased approach to decision
making is likely to result in the best outcome (Janis & Mann, 1977). Such a belief is
justified to the extent that we have good problem-solving skills, we have adequate
resources, and similar problems have yielded to rational approaches in the past. Reading
this book should increase your problem-solving skills, and having this book (or, at least,
the checklist on the inside front cover) available for ready reference can add to your
resources for solution possibilities. For example, knowing how to break difficult problems
down into simpler sub-problems should quite realistically increase your confidence that
you can solve difficult problems rationally. Developing relations with others with whom
you can discuss important problems can add another resource. Finally, practice, especially
on simpler problems or analogous problems that are emotionally less threatening, can
strengthen your skills and enable you to accumulate successful experience in dealing
rationally with difficult problems.

To resist irrationality:
• Reduce importance

• Reduce uncertainty

• Increase hope

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(There seems to be a form of procrastination that isn't a form of defensive avoidance,

at all, since challenging information doesn't lead to emotion and resistance. In such cases,
the remedy is to increase conflict by increasing importance and uncertainty.)

The above suggestions come close to describing the behavior of expert decision
makers (Shanteau, 1988). Those who are recognized within their professions as expert
decision makers go about making decisions in ways that appear to be consistent with the
following attitudes.1
• We don’t have to make decisions by ourselves.

• We don’t have to be right on the first try.

• We don’t have to be exactly right, even in the end.

• We don’t have to be able to think about

everything at once.
• We can learn from our mistakes.

Expert decision makers seldom work in isolation. They work with a group or, at least,
obtain feedback from others. Expert decision makers don’t expect to get everything right
at first, but are willing to make adjustments, realizing that making corrections is more
important than being consistent. Expert decision makers are more concerned about being
“in the ball park” and avoiding large mistakes and less concerned about being exactly
right. Expert decision makers almost always use some form of decomposition (discussed
in the section on Balanced Judgment). Expert decision makers learn from their mistakes,
rather than rationalize or defend them. (Shanteau, 1988). All these attitudes should give
expert decision makers greater hope.

Hope seems to be important in the personalities of creative people (MacKinnon,

1962). Creative people tend to be highly self-confident. The independence of judgment
that characterizes creative people seems to be well described in the opening lines of
Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If”:
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt
you, Yet make allowance for their doubting
too....

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1. Reprinted with permission of Elsevier Science from Shanteau, J. (1988). Psychological

characteristics and strategies of expert decision makers. Acta Psychologica, 68, 203-215.

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Openness in decision making, commitment in decision implementation. Benjamin

Franklin said that we should keep our eyes open before marriage and half closed
afterwards. Our behavior is generally in agreement with this principle in that we're less
likely to entertain irrational positive illusions when making important decisions but more
likely to do so once the decision has been made and we're carrying out the plan we've
decided upon (Taylor & Gollwitzer, 1995). We remain uncommitted until we've
evaluated the alternatives, but then, once we've chosen an alternative, we commit to that
alternative. This seems appropriate. After all, once we've engaged in a thorough, rational
process of decision making, there comes a point when we should have little hope of doing
better— we've already done the best we can. The time has come no longer to be “sicklied
o’er by the pale cast of thought” but to act! This is the time when optimism is
appropriate; it’s a time when you want a clear vision of success. It’s the time to “Go for
it!”, to “Just do it!”.

We are most likely to be successful if we are

uncommitted during decision making and
committed afterwards.

Of course, we must always maintain some openness to the possibility that the
decision should be re-evaluated. Conditions may have changed, or we may have
overlooked something important, in the first place. A good practice is to evaluate progress
toward your goals at regular intervals.

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DECISION CHECKLIST
The COURAGE to be
RATIONALL Advisor role, process
goal, hope
CREATTIIIIVE PROBLLEM
STTRUCTURIIIING Stimulus variation,
force fit (observation, conversation,
checklists)

• Values – Think of alternatives

✔ Stakeholders, +/-, future, self-
worth, community
•
•
Alternatives – Think of values, causes, resources

Facts –
CREATIVE PROBLEM STRUCTURING
✔ Uncertainties, risky alternatives
BALLANCED EVALLUATTIIIION
Rough sketch, divide-and-conquer

• Screening – Universalizability
• Values
•
•
Fact Table – Testability,

•
sampling, comparison,
uncertainty
+/- Table – Dominance
Alternatives
•
•
1-to-10 Table – Sensitivity

•
✔ Control, get information, diversify,
maintain options, share risk
Decision Tree/Table
Facts
COMMIIIITTMENT
One-sentence justification

Secret Two: Creativity

“...It is no failure to fall short of realizing all that we might dream.

The failure is to fall short of dreaming all that we might realize.”

Dee W. Hock, President

VISA
Bionomics Annual Conference, 1994

Wise decision making requires creativity, in addition to the courage to be rational.

When Solomon was confronted by two women each of whom claimed the same infant as
her own, he suggested that the infant be cut in half and divided between them! The real
mother objected, saying that she'd rather give up her baby to the other women than have it
killed. Solomon then knew who the real mother was and gave her the baby.

Creative thinking, it's widely agreed, is the generation of ideas that (a) are new and (b)
satisfy some standards of value. To say that half of 8 is 4 satisfies the standards of correct
arithmetic but is not new and is, therefore, not creative. To say that half of 8 is 100,

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though new, satisfies no standards and is, therefore, also not creative. However, to say
that half of

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8 is 0 (when cut horizontally!) or 3 (when cut vertically!) is both new and satisfies some
external standards and is thus, in some small measure at least, creative.

Decision problems are structured in terms of alternatives, values, and events, and it's
important that we think creatively enough to have considered all important alternatives,
taken account of all important values, and anticipated all important events. If not, our
decision will be less likely to result in a good outcome.

Recognizing Lack of Creativity

Why is it so hard to think creatively? Frequently, on learning the solution to a

problem, we ask ourselves, “Why didn’t I think of that?” We actually knew enough to
solve the problem, but somehow we never made use of the information we had.

Two forces tend to close our minds to new ideas. One we've already had a look at,
fear of new ideas. The other, and the focus of this section, is inability to come up with
new ideas. Even when we're doing our honest best to come up with creative ideas, it can
be difficult to do so. If we can learn to sense when we're unable to come up with new
ideas and know what to do about the problem, we should become more creative.

There are two indications that we're having difficulty coming up with new ideas,
despite genuine effort: coming up with no more ideas or coming up with the same ideas
over and over again.

There are two warning signs of inability to come up

with ideas:

• Coming up with no more ideas or

• Coming up with the same ideas over and

over again.

The remedy for inability to come up with new ideas is stimulus variation. The
openness of creative thinkers to experience is a general openness to stimuli, and even the
most creative thinkers seem to benefit from specific stimulus variation techniques.
Indeed, virtually all of the stimulus variation techniques that we'll consider were

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originally developed by recognized creative thinkers to enhance their own already

exceptional abilities.

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Automatic Processes

The time has come for a “one-minute course in cognitive psychology”. If we take a
moment to distinguish between automatic and controlled cognitive processes (Shiffrin &
Schneider, 1977; Shiffrin, 1988), the discussion of both creativity and balanced judgment
in the rest of this chapter will make better sense.

To get a feel for the difference between controlled and automatic processes, consider
the two lists below:
List A List B
Left Left
Right Right
Right Right
Left Left
Right Right
Left Left

Starting with List A, try to report aloud the position (left or right) of each word.
Ignore the meaning (left or right) of each word. List A is easy, because controlled
processes, which are attempting to carry out the instructions to report the position of each
word, and automatic processes, which tend to read each word aloud, select the same
responses. All the “rights” are on the right, and all the “lefts” are on the left.

List B is more difficult, because controlled and automatic processes are in conflict.
Now, you can't perform the task correctly by simply reading the words. Some
decisions are like this, where our “better self” tells us to do one thing, but our habitual
self inclines us to do otherwise. Even in the many cases that are not this clear cut,
controlled and automatic processes have different roles to play in decision making, and
it's worth learning how to get the best out of each.

Controlled processes. The most dramatic limitation of the human intellect is the
limited capacity of working, or active, memory. Working memory is the “desk top”, or
“workbench”, where we do our thinking. It's where controlled, or effortful, processing
takes place. It's where, with some effort, we hang onto a telephone number that we've just
looked up. Working memory is to be contrasted with long-term memory, where our own
telephone number and others that we use frequently reside effortlessly. For items to be
retained in working memory, they have to be attended to frequently, so that they stay
active. If we're interrupted on the way from the telephone book to the telephone, we're

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likely to forget the number we've just looked up and are holding in working memory—
though not our own number, which resides securely in long-term memory.

Our capacity for controlled processing is quite limited. The longest string of unrelated
numbers the average person can hold in working memory is about seven, the so-called
“magical number seven”, and the longest string of unrelated words the average person can
hold in working memory is around five, a “mental handful”. One credible line of thought
even has it that the number of truly independent thoughts we can entertain at one time is
actually closer to three (Broadbent, 1975)!

Automatic processes. A quite remarkable design feature has the effect of greatly
expanding the capacity of working memory. This is thinking in terms of patterns, or what
cognitive psychologists call “chunks”, laid down in long-term memory (Miller, 1956). For
example, the following number is much longer than the magical number seven, yet it's
quite easy to regenerate on the basis of what's held in working memory:

1234567891011121314151617181920

The reason is obvious: it involves a well-learned pattern.

Patterns laid down in long-term memory provide working memory with a shorthand
for thinking about the complex problems that reality throws at us. We could easily hold
the following three chunks in working memory: “letters”, “digits”, “months”, and then,
on some later occasion, translate them into 26 letters + 10 digits + 12 months = 48 items!
Chunks provide our intellect with seven-league boots, enabling us, for example, to
summarize a three-hour movie in a single sentence: “Schindler began by using Jewish
prisoners as cheap labor to save money but, in the end, spent all the money he had to save
what had become ‘his’ Jews.”

Yet chunking isn’t without its costs. Since chunking is based on associative patterns
in long-term memory, thinking in chunks inclines us to think in familiar directions and
disinclines us to think creatively. Because perspectives are based on automatic processes,
they are difficult for an individual to change. Associative paths tend to take us back over
the same old ideas, “like a broken record”.

Another mechanism, in addition to associations, tends to keep our thoughts going

around in circles and returning to familiar ideas instead of moving on to creative ones.
This is priming (Posner, 1978; Ghiselin, 1952; Szekely, 1945; Maier, 1931;
Silviera,

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1971). Priming is an effect that's intermediate in duration between the long-term memory
of associations (lasting indefinitely) and the short-term memory of attention (lasting only

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seconds). Once ideas have been activated in working memory, they tend to remain in a
ready, or primed, state for a few days, so that our thoughts come back to them more
readily. This is the basis for the old trick that goes: If “folk” is spelled “f-o-l-k”, and the
president's name “Polk” is spelled “P-o-l-k”, how do you spell the name for the white of
an egg?

These two mechanisms, associations among ideas and priming of individual ideas,
working together as they do, can create an intellectual box that it's difficult to see our way
out of. Often, when we've lost something, we first look in all the places that it can
reasonably be and then, unable to think of others, revisit the places we've just tried!

As an example, consider the following problem:

A father and his son were driving a sports car down a mountain road on a
lovely autumn day, when suddenly the car spun off the road and crashed.
The father was killed immediately, but the son was still alive, though
seriously injured. He was flown by helicopter to the best hospital in town,
where the hospital's top surgeon, summoned by cellular phone from a
hunting trip, was already waiting. On seeing the injured man, the
neurosurgeon said, “I can't operate on this boy! He's my son!”

How can this be?

This sentence is here to give you a chance to stop reading and work on the problem if
you wish to. If you're ready for the answer, here it is: The surgeon is the boy's mother!
Working against the problem solver is the stereotypical associative connection between
being a surgeon and being male. Also working against the problem solver is the fact that
maleness was primed by the words “father”, “son”, “his”, “he”, ”hunting trip”, and
“man”. Associations and priming have created a box of maleness from which it's difficult
to escape. (The fact that even women’s rights activists have difficulty with this problem
suggests that the difficulty is not motivational but cognitive.)

Priming and associations are generally helpful. They wouldn't have been likely to
have evolved otherwise. They free attention to deal with novel problems. As Pascal said,
“Habit is the hands and feet of the mind.” One of the things that distinguishes good
problem solvers from poor problem solvers, however, is the ability to realize quickly
when familiar approaches are not getting them anywhere. Expert problem solvers are
more ready to abandon the old path, and start searching for new ones (Shanteau, 1988).
Good problem solvers and decision makers are not bound by a single pattern but are able
to move from pattern to pattern.

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To be good decision makers, we must be able to

explore different perspectives.

Stimulus Variation

How do we get off “automatic pilot”, break out of associative boxes, and enlarge our
view of reality? In the association lie both the problem and the solution. Depending on
how we use them, associations can keep us from new ideas or lead us to them. So long as
the stimulus situation stays the same, associations will tend to keep us in the box.
However, if we change the stimulus situation, this same mechanism can get us out of the
box (Stein, 1974, 1975; Keller & Ho, 1988; Pitz, 1983). The basic principle is: To change
ideas, change stimuli. If we keep stimuli changing, we’ll keep our thoughts moving. This
simple principle is the basis for a variety of techniques for suggesting new perspectives
and stimulating creative thought.

To change ideas, change stimuli.

The techniques of stimulus variation have been referred to, collectively, as a

technology of foolishness (March, 1972). Ordinarily, we think about problems in

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reasonable ways, using the patterns and perspectives that have served us well in the past,
being “sensible” and “intelligent” and “adult”. And, ordinarily, this leads quickly to

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solutions. However, occasionally we come up against a problem that fails to yield to

reason. Even for decisions where the best thing to do is what we'd immediately consider
reasonable, it can still be worthwhile to look beyond the “reasonable” possibilities to
make sure we haven’t overlooked a better way.

Why would Columbus sail west to go east? Why would foresters allow forest fires to
burn in order to preserve the health of the forests? Why would a masseur intensify pain
in order to get rid of it? Why would an expert in jui jitsu accept the force of an
opponent’s blow, rather than oppose it? What initially seems counter to reason is often
what's later seen as creative.

The difficulty in coming up with creative solutions is that the answer may be in a
place we aren't accustomed to looking and wouldn't think it worthwhile to look. Before
the germ theory of disease and the adoption of aseptic procedures, it was difficult for
medical researchers to conceive of the possibility that the cause for childbed fever might
be the enemies of disease—themselves, the physicians—who carried germs to the
mothers on unwashed hands (Leeper, 1951). Today, it's difficult to see the love we feel
for innocent, bright-eyed, smiling babies as a major cause, by way of overpopulation, for
some of humanity's greatest ills—starvation, disease, and violence.

When “reasonableness” fails us, the key is not in places where we might reasonably
have placed it; reasonable attempts to bring childbed fever under control had failed;
building more homes and increasing the efficiency of food production haven't solved our
housing or food supply problems—we've no choice but to take the path of “foolishness”.
(In reading this sentence, it's important, or course, to understand that “reasonableness”
isn't always reasonable and “foolishness” isn't always foolish.) It's precisely because
association isn't a rational process that it can lead where reason can't and can thus get us
out of the box. In this chapter, we'll see how positive affect, observation, creative
conversation, taking breaks, and checklists can do this. In later chapters, we'll have a
look at stimulus-variation methods more specific to thinking creatively about values,
alternatives, and uncertainty, though the ones considered here always apply. In the end,
of course, reason must be employed to evaluate where stimulus variation has gotten us,
but that's a topic for the last section of this chapter, on Balanced Judgment.

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Force Fit

Stimulus-variation techniques simply activate a portion of long-term memory that

wouldn't likely be activated by rational processes searching “intelligently”. As a
consequence, they generally don't produce creative ideas; they usually produce foolish
ones. What's required to get from the foolish ideas to creative ones is force fit (Gordon,
1961). Force fit is simply an attempt to turn a foolish idea into a workable solution. Force
fit treats foolish ideas as stepping stones to creative ideas, first, looking at the problem
from the fresh perspective provided by the foolish idea and then searching for a
connection between this idea and the problem criteria.

It takes force fit to get from foolish ideas to

creative ones.

I often use what I call the “World's Worst Creative Thinking Technique” to
demonstrate the power of force fit. First, I ask each member of the audience to write
down a word. What makes this the World's Worst Creative Thinking Technique (and
distinguishes it from the techniques to be described later in this section) is that the words
the audience writes down can bear no efficient relationship to the problem I'm about to
pose, since no one in the audience yet knows what that problem is. Finally, I pose a
problem, call upon members of the audience for their words, and, by means of force fit,
the audience and I use each word to come up with potential solutions to the problem. It's
surprising how well this technique works, considering that all that it has going for it is the
basic mechanism of stimulus variation and force fit, without any attention to efficiency.

As an example that's pretty close to the World's Worst Creative Thinking Technique,
consider a person using a checklist in trying to come up with an idea for a way to mount a
compass. The compass had to be mounted in the cockpit of a small sailboat in such a way
that it could be easily removed when not needed and stowed out of the way. Looking
through The Last Whole Earth Catalogue, he came across a picture of a fish net. A fish
net is certainly foolish as an idea for a way of mounting a compass—but it can be forced

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into a better one. With the fish net and the problem criteria as stimuli, he searched
associatively

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for some idea that would connect the two and came up with a fishing reel. A fishing reel
wouldn't work either, but the device that attaches a reel to a fishing rod by means of a bar
and rings could be adapted for attaching the compass to the centerboard trunk.

Not satisfied with this, however, he continued. He next came across a picture of an
ax. An ax, also, is foolish as a solution to this problem; you can't mount a compass with
an ax. However, force fit led from the ax to the idea of a pocket knife, which is like an ax.
Something like a pocket knife, with the blade on the compass and the receiving part on
the centerboard trunk could work.

He then thought of inverting this arrangement, with the centerboard trunk as the
“blade” and something on the compass to receive it. This line of thought led to a very
satisfactory solution: mount the compass on a four-inch length of one-and-one-half inch
rubber hose by means of two stainless steel bolts, then slit the bottom of the hose
lengthwise, so that it would snap over the centerboard trunk. This arrangement was easy
to make, easy to use, rustproof, and non-magnetic. And it cost only seventy five cents!

Creative ideas virtually always come in the guise of fools. For this reason, it's
essential, during creative thinking, to respond to new ideas in a constructive way (even if
these ideas have come from a person with whom we're in disagreement!) Our first
inclination should be to try to see what's good in ideas and make them better. Negative
criticism is inappropriate at this point. Negative criticism merely stops thought; it tends to
mire us down in defensive avoidance and offers no solution. Negative criticism is
appropriate later, when we're evaluating alternatives. However, while we're still
structuring the problem, it's essential to keep our thinking open and constructive, trying to
force fit foolish ideas into problem solutions.

The advice to force fit is quite different from the frequently given advice to suspend
judgment during the idea-production phase of problem solving. If our problem-solving
sailor had simply suspended judgment—positive evaluation as well as negative
evaluation—he'd have added the ideas of a fish net and an ax to his list of possible
solutions! Suspending judgment leaves us with the original foolish ideas and fails to take
us to any creative ones. What our problem solver did, instead, was look for what was
good in these ideas. This requires an evaluative judgment. To suspend judgment, we have
to forget about the problem criteria, to forget about what we're trying to do. To force fit,
however, we have to keep the problem criteria in mind (Gordon, 1961, 1971;
Jungermann, von Ulardt, & Hausmann, 1983).

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The best statement of the relationship between suspending judgment and force fitting
requires distinguishing among three phases in the overall process.

• In coming up with a foolish “stepping stone”, no evaluation should be employed.

This is stimulus variation in the problem-structuring phase of decision making.

• In moving from the stepping stone to a potential solution, positive evaluation only
should be employed. This is force fit in the problem-structuring phase of decision
making.

• In evaluating potential solutions in order to determine whether any is

satisfactory, both positive and negative evaluation should be employed. This is
the evaluative phase of decision making.

The time has come to see how to put stimulus variation to work and look at some
specific techniques. First, however, some general points should be made.

• There's no point in using creative thinking techniques as long as we're coming up

with ideas. We should wait until we're coming up with no more ideas or are
coming up with the same ideas over and over again.

• Force fit must be applied to get from the “foolish” stepping stones produced by
these techniques to ideas that might be truly creative.

• The techniques will work most efficiently on decision problems if applied first to
values and then to alternatives and events, and if applied to big-picture
considerations, rather than details.

• It isn't necessary to use all of the techniques that will be discussed. Start with
those that appeal to you most, and try the others later when and if time
becomes available.

Here, I discuss five widely applicable techniques for stimulus variation: observation,
creative conversation, breaks, checklists, and mood. In later chapters, we'll consider
additional stimulus-variation techniques more specifically adapted to thinking of values,
alternatives, and events. Even in cases where the more specific techniques are applicable,
however, these general techniques are always applicable.

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Mood

We begin with an important internal stimulus, mood. People who are in a good mood
tend to come up with more ideas and with ideas that have more “reach”, in that they go
beyond narrowly defined bounds (Isen, 1997; Isen, Daubman, & Nowicki, 1987; Isen,
Means, Patrick, & Nowicki, 1982). This may be because we're more often in a positive
mood, so positive moods become associated with more ideas than negative moods. So try
to put yourself in a good mood when you're working on your decision problem, or put off
working on your decision problem until you're in a good mood. Being in a good mood
should be congruent with feeling hope and not feeling time pressure. This is the playful
attitude that creatives frequently refer to.

Observation

The most fundamental implementation of stimulus variation is thoughtful, or mindful

(Langer, 1989), observation of the world about us, especially parts of the world relevant
to our decision problem. Nietzsche said, “Don't think. Look!”

Thus, the artist looks at patterns in nature and at works by other artists to get ideas.
The writer observes people and reads and, furthermore, attempts to write about subjects
he or she has had personal experience with. The scientist pays close attention to data and
is very often forced to new ideas by the data, themselves. A technique for getting
management trainees to think creatively about management is to have them tour
industries looking for problems. Getting the facts straight is a good way to get ideas for
solving a problem, and, if you're stuck on a problem, a good thing to do is to go over the
facts once again.

One study (Getzels & Csikszentmihalyi, 1976) presented art students with objects
they might include in a still life and then observed their behavior. The principal finding
was that those who explored these objects the most thoroughly and took the longest to
decide on a composition and treatment produced the best paintings and had the
most successful careers as artists. The best artists were more likely to walk around the
table on which the objects had been placed, to pick them up and handle them—even to
bite on them!

Dale Chihuly, the world-renown Seattle glass blower, traveled to Finland, Ireland,
and Mexico, looking for stimulation for his project “Chihuly over Venice” (Chihuly,
1997). As he flew to Finland to work with their top glass blowers, he had no idea what he
was going to do, so open was he to the influence of the stimuli he'd encounter. Yet he'd

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no intention of simply copying Finnish glass. He expected to force fit Finnish ideas to his
style and his themes. The high point of the trip began when he moved outside the studio
and started setting his glass objects up along a nearby river. He hung them from trees,
stuck them in

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the ground, and even threw some that would float in the water—then rowed around
among them. The result was the creation of some forms that were both strikingly new and
yet consistent with his style.

Another study (Szekely, 1950) showed that manipulation of an object results in a

deeper understanding of the physics of the object, with the result that the object can be
used more creatively in solving new problems. We often get to the point where we can
repeatedly solve a mechanical puzzle without “knowing” how we do it and then have to
watch ourselves to “learn” the solution.

Careful observation and careful attempts to

establish and understand the facts, as unpretentious
as they may sound, may very well be the best
sources of ideas.

Creative Conversation

In conversation, new internal stimuli are created when we speak, and new external
stimuli are experienced when others speak. As one example of the way in which putting
our thoughts into words can activate new internal stimuli, consider the case of a medical
researcher who'd worked on and off for eight years trying to determine why injection of
the enzyme papain causes “wilting” of the ears in rabbits (Barber & Fox, 1958). He
finally found the answer while lecturing on the problem. In attempting to explain the
problem to students, he had to consider more closely an hypothesis that he'd rejected at
the outset on the basis of assumptions that would have been clear to anyone working in
the area, but not to the students. In demonstrating an experiment that he'd never
thought necessary, he found that the rejected hypothesis was, in fact, the correct one!
Similarly, how many times do we answer our own question before we finish asking it?
And how often do we find flaws in our thinking only when we try to explain it to
someone else?

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Writing can be as effective as talking in changing internal stimuli. Both involve

efforts to put our thoughts in a form that can be communicated convincingly to others and
thus can generate internal stimuli that we wouldn't generate when thinking “for
ourselves”.

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When we go to write our thoughts down, we usually find omissions and errors that lead us
to re-write—and re-write!

In addition to our producing new internal stimuli when we engage in creative

conversation, other people may provide new external stimuli. For instance, a boat owner
had been trying for over an hour to repair his diesel auxiliary, while his guest waited in
the cockpit, unable to help because of the small size of the engine compartment. Finally,
the guest said, “What exactly is the problem? Maybe I can make a suggestion.” The
owner described the problem; the guest made a suggestion; and, within minutes, the
owner had solved the problem! The guest felt pretty smug, but as it turned out, his
solution was not the correct one. He hadn't even understood the situation correctly. The
importance of his idea was in providing the owner with a different way of looking at the
problem, which led quickly to a genuine solution.

As this example suggests, a person need not be knowledgeable or creative to say

something that will stimulate creative ideas in others, especially in creative others. An old
Chinese proverb has it that, “A wise man learns more from a fool than a fool learns from
a wise man.” Because people coming from different experiences are inclined to chunk the
world in different ways, people with different experiences and perspectives have the
potential for thinking more adequately about the problem together than any one
could alone.

The fact that talking with others provides stimulus variation in two distinct ways,
producing new internal stimuli and providing exposure to new external stimuli, should
make it an especially effective way to come up with creative ideas. Talking with others is
more efficient, of course, when the conversation is about the problem and is especially
efficient, as we'll see later, when it's about big picture concerns and goals or sub-goals.

Talk with others about your decision problem.

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For creative conversation to work, it's, as always, important to apply force fit. In part,
this means thinking constructively about what we hear ourselves saying in an attempt to
turn it into something even better. In part, it means thinking constructively in a similar
way about what the other person is saying. (If we do manage to turn what the other person
says into something of value, we shouldn't forget that allowing him or her at least to share
in the credit for the idea can encourage a sense of control over the process and, with it, a
greater openness to future ideas. This is especially important when working with others
on a joint decision or trying to settle a conflict.)

Different people not only may bring different perspectives that can stimulate creative
thought in conversation, they also, of course, bring different information and expertise
that can help complete the fact picture. Both contributions can be of value. At the
highest levels of science, technology, business, and government, the best thinking is most
often done by problem-solving teams. This is one of the true values of diversity. Instead
of being thought of as the red light of trouble, differences are usually better thought of as
the green light of opportunity, the opportunity to get from minds in conflict to minds in
concert or, better, to the smoothly functioning “super mind” of an effective problem-
solving team. The Wright brothers understood this well and placed a high value on the
vigorous arguments they frequently had with one another.

There are three specific variations on talking with others that are broadly applicable:
the Devil's Advocate, the giant fighter's stratagem, and networking.

The Devil's Advocate. A Devil's Advocate is a person whose express role is to provide
arguments against the prevailing direction of the group. This practice was first formalized
by the Roman Catholic Church as part of its canonization process. When the Roman
Catholic Church is deciding whether a person should be recognized as a saint, it appoints
a person, the Devil's Advocate, to present the case against canonization. The practice of
assigning a person or group of persons specifically to argue against the prevailing opinion
has been found by a number of organizations to be a valuable one and has been
recommended as a corrective for groupthink (Janis, 1972). (Groupthink is the tendency
for members of a cohesive group to regard their perspectives as representative of the best
thought on the matter and to resist discrepant views.)

The value of a Devil's Advocate is dramatically illustrated in Arthur Schlesinger's

account (1965, pp. 803-4) of the meeting of President Kennedy's Executive Committee on
the first day of the Cuban missile crisis. Initially, most of the members thought that the
best alternative would be an air strike to destroy the missile sites. Then Attorney General
Robert Kennedy urged them to seek additional alternatives. As it happened, the

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alternative that was finally chosen, a naval blockade, was one of those generated in
response to his suggestion.

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The value of having a Devil's Advocate seems to have been demonstrated by the
Catholic Church in a negative way, as well. The current pope abandoned the practice, and
the number of persons admitted to sainthood has skyrocketed.

The Devil's Advocate principle also underlies our adversarial system of justice, in
which specific persons are assigned to represent the plaintiff or prosecution and specific
other persons are assigned to represent the defendant. The Devil's Advocate principle
seems to work best when the Devil's Advocate merely questions the assumptions on
which the dominant alternative is based and refrains from actually becoming an advocate
for a competing alternative (Schwenk, 1990; Schwenk & Cosier, 1980).

The giant fighter's stratagem. A children's story tells of a boy who found himself
having to defeat two giants. He accomplished this seemingly impossible task by arranging
for the giants to fight, and defeat, each other. The elegant feature of the giant fighter's
stratagem is that it uses intelligence to redirect the superior force of others to one's own
advantage. In applying this stratagem to decision making, we use the knowledge and
thought of experts to help us structure our decision problem.

Let's say that we're trying to decide on a car. Car A appears, on balance, to be the
best; however, Car B also has some very attractive features. We go to the person who's
selling Car B, give our reasons for preferring Car A, and ask him or her to talk us out of
our preference. If the person selling Car B manages to do so and to convince us that Car
B is preferable to Car A, we then go to the person who is selling Car A and repeat the
process. It's amazing how often this stratagem can, in the end, get the person selling the
inferior product to admit that, at least for our purposes, the competitor's product is
superior. This admission, alone, can give us a great deal of confidence in our decision.

Networking. When you seek information relevant to your problem from anyone,
there's one question you should always consider asking: Who else would you suggest I
talk with?

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Ask, “Who else would you suggest I talk with?” and,

“Who would be likely to disagree?”

Exploring a network of contacts can greatly expand the range of stimulus variation in
creative conversation.

Breaks

According to one view, taking a break achieves stimulus variation by simply allowing
time for internal and external stimuli to vary on their own (Maier, 1931; Szekely, 1945).
Getting an idea during interruption in work on a problem is called “incubation”. A
“miniature” example of incubation that we've all experienced is trying to recall a word,
giving up for a while, and then having the word suddenly come to mind (Polya, 1957).
(This happens all too often after having just walked out of an exam or an interview!)

Stimulus changes during a break can occur in waking life or in dreams. According to
legend, at least, the stimulus of his body displacing the bath water suggested to
Archimedes a way to determine the gold content of the king's crown without harming it,
by comparing its weight to the weight of the water it displaced. The stimulus, in a dream,
of a snake biting its tail suggested to Kekule the ring structure of benzene (Stein, 1975).

The stimulus changes that occur in dreams are efficient in that they tend to be related
to whatever problem we've been working on that day. This is an effect of priming. The
stimulus changes that occur in waking life, however, are reminiscent of the World's
Worst Creative Thinking Technique in that they won't necessarily bear any efficient
relationship to the problem we're working on. There are two things we can do about this.
One is to use the break to work on related problems. The other is to become so deeply

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immersed in the problem before taking the break that a broad range of everyday
experience will be seen as problem relevant.

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Make your decision problem a high priority, and then

live with it and sleep on it.

Taking a break sounds attractive because it seems to require no effort. This is

misleading, since effort is usually required to get deeply enough into the problem for the
break to work (Silviera, 1971). As Pasteur said, “Chance favors the prepared mind.”

Checklists

Using checklists is one of the easiest of the techniques for getting ideas. you can
expose yourself to a large number of stimuli in a short period of time simply by looking
through a list of items related to your problem. This is what we do when, in trying to
recall a name, we consider each letter of the alphabet in turn and ask ourselves whether it
could be the first letter of the name we're trying to remember. It's what the poet does in
using a rhyming dictionary to bring to mind words with a particular rhyme pattern. It's
what a chess player does when one of his pieces is attacked and he runs through the list:
Move the attacked piece, capture the attacking piece, interpose a piece between the
attacking piece and the attacked piece, attack a piece more valuable than the attacked
piece. Pilots, of course, routinely use checklists before takeoff.

The trick is to discover checklists that are relevant to your problem. We've already
presented a Decision Checklist. Later, we'll present specific checklists for thinking about
values, alternatives, and uncertainty.

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DECISION CHECKLIST
The COURAGE to be RATIONALL
Advisor role, process goal, hope
CREATTIIIIVE PROBLLEM STTRUCTURING
Stimulus variation, force fit
(observation, conversation, checklists)

• Values – Think of alternatives

•
✔ Stakeholders, +/-, future, self-
worth, community
Alternatives – Think of values, causes, resources
BALANCED EVALUATION
• Facts –
✔ Uncertainties, risky alternatives
BALLANCED EVALLUATTIIIION
Rough sketch, divide-and-conquer

•
•
Screening – Universalizability

Fact Table – Testability,

4.5
•
sampling, comparison,
uncertainty
+/- Table – Dominance
7.2
• 1-to-10 Table – Sensitivity
✔ Control, get information, diversify,
6.3
maintain options, share risk
• Decision Tree/Table
COMMIIIITTMENT
One-sentence justification

Secret Three: Balanced Judgment

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.

Albert Einstein

The third requirement for wise decision making, to be added to the courage to be
rational and creativity, is balanced judgment, or judiciousness. Judgment is a matter of
weighing various considerations. Good judgment involves attaching an appropriate
weight to each of the various considerations, and bad judgment involves inappropriate
weighting. The use of the scales as a symbol of justice represents the fact that the function
of judges is to weigh considerations, and legal scholars speak of various “balancing
tests”. Proverbs
11.1 says, “A false balance is an abomination to the Lord: but a just weight is His
delight.” In social contexts, judiciousness expresses itself as fairness or
evenhandedness. In decision making, judiciousness involves assigning appropriate
importance to various values and appropriate probabilities to various possible futures.

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This requires both consistency among ideas and consistency between ideas and
observations (Hammond,
1996).

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The simple fact that all alternatives, values, and events have been thought about
during problem structuring is no assurance that they will be weighed appropriately in
evaluating alternatives. The assumption that they won't is at the basis of a strategy a
friend of mine uses to influence decisions at meetings. Initially, he remains silent while
the others explore the issues in a relatively balanced manner; then he presents his
case just before the decision is about to be made. His reasoning is that, of all the
considerations discussed, the most recent are the most likely to be in working memory at
the time the decision is made and thus the most likely to influence the decision. His
success has been remarkable. It'd be considerably less so if good decision practices, such
as decision tables, were employed at these meetings.

Creativity identifies the parts of a decision problem: values, alternatives, and

events. Its task is qualitative. Judgment evaluates the relative importance of these parts.
Its task is quantitative. For this reason, judgment is often aided by numbers and
calculation. We'll make use of two kinds of numbers: rankings and ratings.

Recognizing Lack of Balanced Judgment

How can we tell when we're being injudicious, or unfair? This isn't always easy. De
Rouchefoucalt observed that, while we hear people complain about their memory all the
time, we rarely hear them complain about their judgment. This may be because feedback
about failures in memory tend to be so much more clear: When we forget a telephone
number, we clearly can't make the call; when we forget a key, we clearly can't open the
door. Feedback about failures in judgment tends to be less clear: When a decision turns
out badly, we evaluate the situation with the same faulty judgment that led to the
decision, in the first place, and can easily blame our failure on external circumstances.

We can improve our ability to recognize injudiciousness or unfairness. Oversimplified

representations of decision problems take a limited number of forms; and we can learn to
identify them and try to do something about them. The following patterns can function as
warning signs.

• A single alternative. When we find ourselves considering just a single alternative

—perhaps we've heard of a house for sale or have run across an attractive item in
a store—we should remind ourselves of the value of comparison shopping.

• A single value. When we find ourselves considering just a single value—perhaps

when we're thinking about the pro-life/pro-choice issue or the sustainable
environment/ economic development issue—we should remind ourselves of the

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dangers of single-issue thinking. The pro-lifer thinks of the life of the fetus that
stands to be lost. Some pro-choicers think of the mother's freedom; others, of the
future life of an unwanted child; still others, of overpopulation. Yet all of these
values are important, and all should be taken into account in decision making.

• A single future. When we find ourselves thinking in terms of just a single future—
whether it be an optimistic one, a pessimistic one, or simply the most probable
future—we should remind ourselves that planning for a single future is like
looking one way when crossing the railroad tracks and that the future we prepare
for may well not be the one that occurs.

• All considerations point to the same alternative. When we find all considerations
pointing to the same alternative, we should remind ourselves that, in this complex
world, even the best alternatives usually have drawbacks. Simple problem
representations often tell us more about our limited capacity for thinking about a
complex world than they tell us about the world, itself.

• Vacillation. When we find ourselves inclined toward one alternative on some

occasions and other alternatives on other occasions, it may well be because there's
too much to keep in mind at one time. After reading a book on shore life, we may
be inclined to vacation at the beach; then, after seeing a movie set in the
mountains, we may be inclined to go to the mountains, instead; then, after talking
with someone who has just come back from the beach, we may be inclined
toward the beach again. What causes this vacillation may be the fact that we
focus our limited attention on different samples of the relevant considerations at
different times (Goldberg, 1968; Shepard, 1964).

Any of the first four patterns could result from a failure in rationality, creativity, or
judgment, though the fifth, vacillation, seems to point relatively unambiguously to a
failure in balanced judgment resulting from cognitive overload. Take, for example,
thinking in terms of a single alternative. The decision maker might not want to think
about other alternatives because he or she is already committed to this alternative. The
decision maker might not have been able to come up with other alternatives. Or the
decision maker might not feel able to think about other alternatives, because thinking
about just this one is complicated enough.

The way to tell whether oversimplification reflects a problem with rationality,

creativity, or judgment is in the decision maker's response to additional information.
Resistance accompanied by emotionality suggests irrational defensiveness against the

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new idea; ready acceptance suggests that the decision maker was simply not creative
enough

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to come up with the new idea; resistance accompanied by confusion and cognitive
strain suggests lack of capacity to deal with the new idea along with all the others.

In any case, these five patterns can serve as warning signs and stimulate further
thought. When any is accompanied by a sense of confusion, a feeling of cognitive strain,
and repeated forgetting of important considerations, it suggests a working memory that's
too overloaded to represent the problem fairly. Recognition of this can lead us to ask
ourselves whether we're excluding information because that information is genuinely
unimportant (a good reason) or because it puts us into cognitive overload (a poor reason,
and one about which we can do something).
Some warning signs of injudicious, or unfair,
thought are:
• Failing to consider multiple alternatives, values, or
futures,
• Seeing all considerations as pointing in the same
direction,
• Vacillating among alternatives,
• Feeling overwhelmed by new information.

How can we do something about limited capacity and achieve greater judiciousness?
We can supplement working memory with external memory or priming, and we can fit
the problem to the memory that is available by means of heuristics and decomposition.
This is a good point to pick up the discussion of automatic and controlled processes.

Controlled Processes

In the section on creativity, we distinguished between controlled processes and

automatic processes and went on to consider the conservative nature of automatic
processes (“conservative” in the sense of continuing the past, not in the political sense).
Our earlier problem with limited capacity was that it led to reliance on automatic
processes, which, because they follow accustomed paths, resist creativity. Our current
problem is with limited capacity, itself.

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If we've done a creative job of problem structuring, we quite likely have come up with
more considerations than can be held in the “mental handful” of working memory. And, if
the decision problem is a kind we don't encounter repeatedly, we aren't likely to have
chunks in long-term memory to aid working memory and enlarge its capacity. The most
important life decisions tend to be ones that we don't encounter repeatedly. For example,
we may very well choose a career or a mate or a house just once.

The following problem shows how even a simple task can overload working memory:

What day follows the day before yesterday if two days from now
will be Sunday?

Solving this problem “in your head” is like trying to do long division without pencil and
paper. With pencil and paper (a form of external memory), such problems become trivial.

Limited capacity contributes to poor judgment, or unfairness, in two ways. First,

because we can hold only so much in working memory, much may be simply excluded
from consideration. What's excluded from working memory is, in effect, accorded zero
weight. This is often not judicious. Second, because our capacity for thinking about
what's in working memory is also limited, many of the distinctions among items in
working memory may fail to be considered, and items that aren’t distinguished with
sufficient clarity may be weighted too nearly equally (Slovic, P., & Lichtenstein, S.
1973). This, too, is often not judicious.

A classic example is undervaluing quality products, services, and experiences by

failing to attach sufficiently greater importance to benefits that are of long duration than
to costs that are of short duration. Henry Royce, of Rolls Royce fame, warned against
this, saying, “The quality remains long after the price has been forgotten.” Another
classic example of inappropriate weighting is overvaluing many “vices” (e.g., getting
“high” on alcohol or drugs) by failing to attach sufficiently great importance to costs that
are of long duration (a hangover or even addiction) in comparison with benefits that are
of short duration (reduction of anxiety, a feeling of belonging, or a “high”), (Varey &
Kahneman,
1992).

We tend to adjust to the limited capacity of working memory in a way that seems
quite reasonable: We think about just the most important considerations. However, what's
most important to us from our current perspective may not be what's most important to us
from perspectives we take at other times. In such cases, we find ourselves in a hall of

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mirrors, vacillating between favoring one alternative at one time and favoring another
alternative at another time, entirely unable to arrive at a stable preference.

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We turn now to several techniques that can help us attack complex decision problems
judiciously, despite our limited capacity. These are external memory, priming, heuristics,
and decomposition.

External Memory

External memory can be a powerful supplement to working memory. External

memory is the flip side of, “Out of sight, out of mind”. We might say, “In sight, in mind.”
What we keep in view we're likely to remember and think about. Examples of external
memory abound. Tying a string on your finger (or, more conveniently, putting your watch
on the other wrist) is one form of external memory. In making such changes, you
rearrange the world so that it “remembers” for you. A chessboard is another form of
external memory. So is a well-arranged desk. Hutchins, a cognitive anthropologist who
studied the elaborate external memory of navigators, represented by symbols on charts
and settings on instruments, asserts that, “Humans create their cognitive powers by
creating the environments in which they exercise those powers” (1996, p. 169).

The most powerful system for creating records in external memory—and one whose
power tends not to be fully appreciated—is writing. This includes diagramming, as well
as a powerful recent extension of writing, computers, which not only create records in
external memory but also manipulate them, doing some of our thinking for us. Written
symbols have the power to free us from the limitations of what we know and have learned
about the immediate perceptual situation and allow us to contemplate what's not present
— the past, the future, and the perspectives of others. As we saw in the story of the
residency decision that opened this book, the most important considerations in a decision
problem can easily be out of sight and out of mind.

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We would all be better decision makers if we wrote our ideas

down and diagrammed the relations between them.

Lists. One way of using external memory is making lists of ideas as we think of them,
a list of alternatives, a list of values, and a list of future scenarios. For one thing, making
lists of alternatives, values, and futures ensures that we don’t forget the good ideas we've
already come up with. For another, listing ideas encourages us to think of additional
ideas. And, finally, writing down old ideas frees controlled processes from reliance on

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habitual patterns, so they can search with greater flexibility for new ideas (Chambers &
Reisberg,
1985; Reisberg, 1996).

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Decision tables and decision trees. Decision tables and decision trees are devices in
external memory that not only retain ideas we've come up with but also organize them so
as to guide further thought in logical directions. Once we have lists of alternatives, values,
and events, we should organize them into a decision table. Decision tables will be
discussed in detail later. If the uncertainties regarding choices and events in the future are
sufficiently great, a decision tree can be of great help. Decision trees, too, will be
discussed in considerable detail later.

Without decision tables and decision trees, we frequently fail to make crucial
comparisons in reasoning about what we know. In choosing a preferred alternative, we
frequently evaluate only one alternative at a time until we find one that's satisfactory, an
approach called “satisficing” (Simon, 1955, 1956). This can lead us to stop short of
considering superior alternatives. The tendency is to compare single alternatives against
intuition, rather than to compare multiple alternatives against one another. (See also
Lipshitz, et al., 2001.)

In choosing a preferred explanation, we, similarly, tend to think about only one
explanation at a time, thinking about how well just that explanation accounts for the data
and not at all about how well other explanations might account for the same data
(Dougherty, Mynatt, & Tweney, 1979; Beyth-Marom, R., & Fischhoff, B., 1983). This
pattern of thought often results in what has been called confirmation bias (Chapman,
1967; Chapman & Chapman, 1967) and leads to uncritical acceptance of poorly thought-
out explanations.

As we shall see, both decision tables and decision trees force comparison of
alternatives, and probability trees force comparison of explanations. The result is that
we're less likely to accept the first idea that comes to mind.

Removing clutter from external memory. The importance of separating problem-

relevant material from problem-irrelevant material in external memory is well
illustrated by the “dazzle effect”. If two groups of people add up the same columns of
numbers but one group has dollar signs placed next to the numbers, the group with the
dollar signs will make more errors. Though the dollar signs are irrelevant to the task of
adding up the numbers, they demand attentional capacity and take it away from the main
task. This is what’s behind the principle of maintaining a high “data/ink ratio” in
designing graphs (Tufte, 1983): A graph should present the relevant data with a minimum
of ink and clutter. For example, three-dimensional bar graphs create more distracting
“dazzle” than two- dimensional bar graphs, and those that introduce the greatest amount
of distracting information are those that picture people or objects of different sizes.

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An organized work space reduces distraction and

helps focus attention on the task.

Priming

We have an intermediate-term memory that, like external memory, can make

information more available to working memory than it would be if the information had to
be retrieved all the way from long-term memory. We all know that recent
experiences, such as a new joke, a first kiss, or an unpleasant argument, tend to come
easily to mind for the next few days. This is intermediate-term memory.

We can learn to use this memory more systematically. If you’re faced with a complex
decision problem, such as a financial planning decision, where there are many things to
take into account, you may at first feel overwhelmed and inadequate to the task and may
tend to procrastinate. It can help enormously to spend some time just going over all the
important components first, to get them fresh in mind, before starting work on the
problem. If you try this, you’ll actually feel smarter when you do start work on the
problem. Psychologists used to call this a “warm-up” effect (McGeoch & Irion, 1952).
Now, it's called “priming” (Shiffrin, 1988), getting ideas ready to be thought about more
easily. It’s a simple but powerful trick for expanding our mental capacity.

By now, we've considered a variety of forms of stimulus control, ways to bring

automatic processes into the service of controlled processes and higher goals. It should be
helpful to review them:

• To get new ideas, we vary automatic processes by varying stimuli

• To retain good ideas, we reactivate automatic processes by repeating stimuli in
the form of external memory aids;

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• To make potential good ideas more available to thought, we prime automatic

processes by thinking about them or associated ideas;

• To get rid of distracting ideas, we avoid activating irrelevant automatic

processes by removing irrelevant stimuli.

We now turn to two techniques that, while continuing to capitalize on the way
the mind is organized also capitalize on the deeper logic of the decision problem, itself.
These are heuristic search and decomposition.

Heuristic Search

External memory will get us only so far in dealing with complexity. The full
complexity of even modest problems can’t be represented on an 8½”-by-11” piece of
paper. To get anywhere with complex problems, we have to think efficiently by
distinguishing the important from the unimportant and directing our attention to what is
essential.

What makes the World's Worst Creative Thinking Technique so bad is that it's
inefficient. The ideas that serve as stimuli bear no special relation to the problem. What
the technique lacks is any mechanism for searching efficiently.

Mechanisms for efficient search are called “heuristics”. You probably know the Greek
word “eureka”, which means, “I found it”, and comes from the ancient Greek word
“heureka”. A heuristic is an educated guess that helps you find the solution to a problem.
The central theme that runs through all heuristics is constraint location, locating those
aspects of the problem that constrain further search to regions of the problem space in
which good ideas are most likely to be found.

The notion of efficiency in searching for ideas might be made clearer by comparing
random search, algorithmic search, and heuristic search. Consider the problem
confronting a safecracker who is trying to break into a safe with four dials, each
numbered from 0 to 9 (Newell & Simon, 1972).

0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1
9 9 9 9
8 2 8 2 8 2 8 2
7 3 7 3 7 3 7 3
6 4 6 4 6 4 6 4
5 5 5 5

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There are 10,000 possible combinations for this lock. The first dial has 10 positions,
0-9, and for each of these the second dial has 10 positions. Thus, there are 10 x 10 = 100
possible combinations of settings on the first two dials alone. Continuing this logic, there
are 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 = 10,000 possible combinations of settings on all four dials.

Consider algorithmic search. A simple algorithm, or rule, that assures that all
numbers will be tried once and only once would be to try them in the order 0000, 0001,
0002, to
0009, then 0010, 0011, 0012, to 0019, and so on up to 9999. This will take a maximum of
10,000 tries, a single sweep through the entire problem space.

Consider random search. Random search will be less efficient than algorithmic
search, because there's likely to be substantial repetition of combinations already tried.
There is no theoretical limit to the maximum number of tries. The probability that the
solution will still not be found after 10,000 tries is (9999/10000)10000 = .37!

Finally, consider heuristic search. A heuristic is an educated guess and, as such, goes
beyond logic and mathematics to incorporate knowledge about the particular problem or
kind of problem one is dealing with. In cracking an old fashioned safe of this type, it's
possible to sandpaper your fingertips lightly to increase their sensitivity so that you can
feel the tumblers fall into place when each dial is in the correct position. This means that
you can divide the problem of finding a four-digit combination that will achieve the goal
of opening the door into four sub-problems of finding the single digit that'll achieve the
sub-goal of causing the tumblers to fall in each dial. This replaces the overall goal of
opening the door with the sub-goals of getting the tumblers to fall.

The effect on the mathematics is dramatic. Before, we had to try out 10 positions on
the first dial and 10 positions on the second dial for each of the 10 positions on the first
dial. Thus, the maximum number of combinations for the first two dials was 10 x 10 =
100. Now, however, we try out 10 positions on the first dial until the tumblers fall
into
place, and then we try out the 10 positions on the second dial only in combination with
that one position on the first dial. Now, the maximum number of combinations for the
first two dials is 10 + 10 = 20. Instead of 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 = 10,000 possibilities for the
entire lock, we now have 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 = 40, an enormous improvement! In general,
analysis into sub-problems replaces multiplication signs with addition signs in this way.

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These three methods for searching for the solution to a problem differ enormously in
their efficiency. In real life, the improvement resulting from various heuristics can be
substantially greater than this. Efficiency is something that wise decision makers pay
attention to.

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The game of chess provides simple illustrations of the most widely useful heuristics.
With the number of sequences of moves from start to checkmate or stalemate estimated at
more than the number of molecules in the known universe, even computers can’t play
chess without relying on educated guesses. Three educated guesses used in chess and
decision making, generally, are: “Focus on the big picture”; “Think backwards from your
goal”; and, “Improve your position”. Chess players focus on the big picture by roughing
out their plans in terms of the big pieces (king, queen, bishops, knights, rooks) and
thinking about the details (pawns) later. They think backwards from the goal by
considering desirable intermediate positions they might be able to achieve. Because the
ultimate goal of checkmate is too distant early in the game, they try to improve their
position by estimating distance from a win in terms of relative strength as measured by
number of pieces captured and number of squares controlled. (In the safe-cracking
example, distance from opening the door was measured in terms of the number of
tumblers that had fallen into place.)

These heuristics are all based on educated guesses. Though they're likely to lead to a
win, they may lead to a loss. For example, in capturing a piece to improve your estimated
position in chess, you could fall into a trap and lose the game.

Though life is far more complex than chess—so complex that it isn’t possible to
calculate number of possible “games”—these three heuristics that have been found useful
in thinking through chess moves have also been found useful in thinking about life's
decisions. In their application to structuring decision problems, they're most often called:

• breadth-first search,

• value-focused search, and

• sub-goal analysis

(Polya, 1957; Newell & Simon, 1972; Wicklegren, 1974).

We’ll introduce the concept of breadth-first search in discussing the importance of the
relevance criterion for a well-structured value set (Ch. 3). We’ll also make use of the
concept of breadth-first search in discussing classes of alternatives (Ch. 4) and will return
to this concept in arguing for the importance of beginning at the bottom of the Decision
Ladder (Ch. 5). We’ll make use of the concept of value-focused search in arguing for the
importance of analysis of values in thinking creatively about alternatives (Ch. 4). We'll
make use of the concept of sub-goal analysis in thinking efficiently about values (Ch. 3).

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To think efficiently about your decision problem,

• Get clear about a “rough sketch” before getting

mired in details;

• Start the “rough sketch” by thinking about your

goals or, if your goals are too distant, by thinking
about sub-goals.

Two of these heuristic principles actually shaped the organization of this book. It was
the principle of breadth-first search that determined the placement of Values,
Alternatives, and Uncertainty as chapters in the main part of the book and Thinking More
Deeply About Values, Thinking More Deeply About Alternatives, and Thinking More
Deeply About Uncertainty as appendices at the end. Finally, it was the principle of value-
focused search that determined the placement of the discussion of values (Ch. 3) before
the discussions of alternatives (Ch. 4), decision tables (Ch. 5), and uncertainty (Ch. 6).

Decomposition

To external memory, priming, and heuristic search, we now add decomposition, the
decision aid for managing complexity that's most widely discussed by decision
practitioners and researchers. What we mean by “decomposition” is analysis of a problem
into its components, a strategy of “divide-and-conquer”. The problem is broken down into
sub-problems; the sub-problems are solved; and then these solutions are put together to
solve the original problem. Decomposition employs a logical framework that enables us
to think about a small number of ideas at a time and yet arrive at a conclusion that's
soundly based on a large number of ideas. In this way, it extends our intellectual grasp.
For new and complex decision problems, this logical framework serves the same function
that patterns in long-term memory serve for problems with which we've had repeated
experience. Moreover, it should do so less fallibly.

A study of differences between developers and environmentalists (Gardiner &

Edwards, 1975) shows how decomposition can enlarge our mental grasp beyond what can
be accommodated by a familiar perspective and thus reduce differences among parties

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with conflicting perspectives. A number of environmentalists and developers were

asked

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to evaluate third-party applications for land-use permits in terms of the desirability of the
proposed projects. The judgments in the first part of the study were holistic, that is, each
participant looked at all the information that was presented and “put it together in his or
her head”. This, of course, is the way we usually make judgments. Not surprisingly, the
developers gave significantly higher approval ratings to the applications than did the
environmentalists. At this point, their opinions were in conflict.

The judgments in the second part of the study were decomposed. The
environmentalists and the developers went through the applications again, this time
evaluating each application on a number of scales that they'd readily agreed upon
(number of jobs created, conformity with the building code, etc.) For each developer and
environmentalist, a single overall score was then computed for each application, using
that participant's own ratings and importance weights. The result was that there was no
longer any significant difference between the approval ratings of the two groups. The
conflict that was present in the holistic ratings had disappeared in the decomposed ratings.
Perhaps most impressive is the fact that this happened without any argumentation!
Decomposition, alone, did the trick.

Decomposition enables us to get a complex problem within our mental grasp. Just as
it enabled each decision maker to embrace the varied perspectives of a number of
decision makers in the land-use permit example, so it can enable a single decision
maker to embrace the varied perspectives that he or she—especially when thinking
rationally and creatively—may take on different occasions. Decomposition can reduce
both intrapersonal and interpersonal conflict. The application of decomposition to
decision making is best illustrated by the use of decision tables, which, as we'll come to
see later, are far more than simply aids to memory.

External memory representations such as decision tables and decision trees are highly
complementary with decomposition in that the full power of decomposition requires some
form of external memory—if we’re going to break the problem down into pieces, we’ll
need some way to keep track of those pieces. Used together, external memory and
decomposition can enormously expand our intellectual capacity.

Completeness for decision making, simplicity for decision implementation. The

navigator may go through many complex calculations to determine the best course, but
then give the helmsman simply a star, object, or compass heading to steer by.

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We can encourage judicious thought in decision

making by
• Using external memory,
• Removing problem-irrelevant clutter from external
memory,
• Thinking heuristically, and
• Using a decision table to structure external
memory in terms of simpler sub-problems.

In a similar way, once we've made a decision, we should try to reduce the complex
reasons for that decision to a single sentence that captures their essence yet is simple
enough to motivate our behavior and that of others as we carry our the decision. Such
simplification, together with the shift from unbiased evaluation to commitment discussed
earlier, should increase the chances of success in implementing a good alternative.

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