Confirmation Bias
Confirmation Bias leads us to seek out information supporting an existing predilection and to discount opposing information. Illustration: You’ve just had a heated discussion with a friend about which musician is better between Adele and Justin Timberlake. You, being wise, know that JT is one of the bests of all time. So you pull your […]
Sunk Cost
The Sunk Cost decision-making trap inclines us to perpetuate the mistakes of the past. Illustration: Dating relationships. We’ve all seen it. A couple that is clearly terrible for one another. The relationship is toxic, and if it’s a friend, they might even be candid enough to tell you how hard it is being in the […]
Status Quo
The basic explanation of this trap is that we are biased towards maintaining the current situation, even when better alternatives exist. Illustration: We have a team production meeting every morning in our office. There was a time that everyone on our staff was considered a production worker or was directly related to the production process. […]
Anchoring: Hearing Both Sides
As we’re looking through the 8 psychological decision making traps, we’re starting off with what we call anchoring. Anchoring is what we do when we give disproportionate weight to the first information we receive. It’s a human trait. It’s hard not to do. Illustration: Say your spouse has only good things to say about a […]
Quality as Habit
In the front of our office building in the lobby area, we have a lot of beautiful typographic signage with really powerful quotes. For instance, one is a Henry Ford quote that says, “A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.” That we put on the walls to help display our culture […]
Be the Buffalo
I’m in a peer advisory group with some other local business owners, and we have a saying that gets thrown around in our monthly meetings from time to time. The saying is “be the buffalo.” Now for some context on the saying. Out in the West, in the open plains where buffalo roam and cattle […]
Are You a Manager or a Leader?
Customer demands are intense, the need for continuous innovation is vital, and our national culture is changing. In the busy and ever changing world of business, leading businesses is more challenging than ever. James McGregor Burns, in his renowned book, Leadership (1978), proposed two leadership styles: transactional and transformational. Transactional leadership is an exchange-based relationship […]
Asking The Right Questions
Good salespeople and good fundraisers recognize their role is to help people do what they are already inclined to do. Unfortunately, most people hesitate to ask tough questions that challenge a prospect to think critically and differently about their situation. Questions can help a prospect visualize a better outcome or a surer path to their […]
Event Planning: Think Customer First
How do you measure the success of your meetings and events? Of course, when we schedule events, we have an end in mind. A desired outcome that we want. Attendance, making a connection or a sale, introducing team members etc. However, it’s imperative that when we craft our meetings, events, and agendas we’re aware of […]
Mistakes: What we can learn from them.
We’ve been making mistakes as a company for the past 51 years. That’s not necessarily a banner ad we have running on our website homepage or a fact that we regularly trumpet to prospective clients. Yet it’s something that I draw a lot of confidence from and know is a competitive advantage for our organization. […]
