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    Decisive Chip Heath and Dan Heath

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    Horatiu Bahnean
    When making important decisions, our intuition can lead us astray in three ways: only considering a few options, being swayed by short-term emotions, and having a false sense of certainty. To make better decisions, we should go through the W.A.R. process - Widen your options, Attain distance from your emotions, and Reality-test your assumptions before committing. This involves imagining other potential options, getting an outside perspective, and testing options on a small scale before fully committing to any big decision.

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    Decisive Chip Heath and Dan Heath

    Uploaded by

    Horatiu Bahnean
    874 views1 page
    When making important decisions, our intuition can lead us astray in three ways: only considering a few options, being swayed by short-term emotions, and having a false sense of certainty. To make better decisions, we should go through the W.A.R. process - Widen your options, Attain distance from your emotions, and Reality-test your assumptions before committing. This involves imagining other potential options, getting an outside perspective, and testing options on a small scale before fully committing to any big decision.

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    Decisive - Chip Heath and Dan Heath

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    When making important decisions, our intuition can lead us astray in three ways: only considering a few options, being swayed by short-term emotions, and having a false sense of certainty. To make better decisions, we should go through the W.A.R. process - Widen your options, Attain distance from your emotions, and Reality-test your assumptions before committing. This involves imagining other potential options, getting an outside perspective, and testing options on a small scale before fully committing to any big decision.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    874 views1 page

    Decisive Chip Heath and Dan Heath

    Uploaded by

    Horatiu Bahnean
    When making important decisions, our intuition can lead us astray in three ways: only considering a few options, being swayed by short-term emotions, and having a false sense of certainty. To make better decisions, we should go through the W.A.R. process - Widen your options, Attain distance from your emotions, and Reality-test your assumptions before committing. This involves imagining other potential options, getting an outside perspective, and testing options on a small scale before fully committing to any big decision.

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    Insights 

    from Decisive by Chip Heath and Dan Heath 
    “Sometimes we are given the advice to trust our guts when we make important decisions. Unfortunately, our guts 
    are full of questionable advice.” – Chip & Dan Heath 

    When we trust our gut when making decisions, we encounter three decision pitfalls: 

    We will rarely consider more than two options. 
    In 1993, Ohio State University researcher Paul Nutt examined 168 decisions of big organizations. Nutt found that 69% of the decisions only 
    had one alternative. These two options decisions led to an unfavorable result 52% of the time. 

    We will be blinded by short‐term emotion. 
    Take a moment and look back on some of the worst decisions you’ve made. Any chance you sought short‐term pleasure over your long‐
    term interests? 

    We will have a false sense of certainty. 
    A study found that when Doctors feel “completely certain” about a diagnosis, they are wrong 40% of the time! In another study, when 
    university students believed they had a 1% chance of being wrong, they turned out to be wrong 27% of the time. 

    To avoid these three pitfalls, we need to go to W.A.R. each time we need to make a significant decision. 

    iden your options 
    Pretend you rubbed a magic lamp, and instead of the beloved Genie in Aladdin, you got his evil brother. This 
    evil genie takes your current options away. Authors Chip Heath and Dan Heath call this the "Vanishing Options 
    Test". 

    By running this test, you pretend there are no good options left on the table. Now you need to come up with a 
    new set of options. When you take a moment to imagine a situation where both options you were considering 
    are off the table, you will find other promising solutions. 

    ttain distance 
    In a 1999 study, students were asked to choose between two jobs: job A would pay well but not be very 
    fulfilling, and job B would pay less but make them feel very fulfilled. 66% of students said they would take job 
    B.  

    When the researchers asked the students to advise their best friend on their job choice, 83% recommended job 
    B. Asking “What would I tell my best friend to do?” allowed the students to gain a clear perspective, attain 
    distance from their short‐term emotions, and make a wise long‐term decision. 

    eality‐test 
    It’s not wise to buy a new vehicle without test driving it. Why do we make other big decisions before giving 
    them a test drive? Authors Chip Heath and Dan Heath recommend that we reality‐test every big decision we 
    make. 

    If you’re deciding to move to a new city, don’t make the decision based on online reviews and 
    recommendations from friends. Take a two‐week vacation, rent an Airbnb in the city you want to move to, and 
    pretend as though you are living there (do typical day‐to‐day activities). 

    If you’re buying a new vacuum, buy three. Test them out for two weeks, and then return the two you least like. 

    Only commit to a big decision after you’ve reality‐tested your assumptions by running a small trial. 

    In the book, they use the acronym W.R.A.P., with the P standing for prepare to be wrong. Reality‐testing partially prepares you to be 
    wrong by testing your assumptions before you leap.  

    Here is a quick summary of the section ‘prepare to be wrong’: The future is uncertain, and we never know what the future will have in 
    store. We must consider a plausible worst‐case scenario, take out insurance, install a tripwire (an early warning system), or a pre‐
    established exit point (like a stop loss on a stock purchase). 

    Nathan Lozeron
    www.ProductivityGame.com

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