Decision making and biases

Decision making and biases

Managers make decisions, backed up by mental biases. Most of the times, the decision taken becomes the nightmare of our life. There are 16 cognitive biases which can kill or aid the decision making process.

Cognitive biases helps us to understand and are designed to help us survive. We cannot process all  information around us, hence we must resort to trusting in biases to make decisions quickly and effectively.

Known broadly as the curse of knowledge biases rely on our past knowledge and ways of applying prior knowledge in decision making. On a lighter note, a funny comics is depicted below.

Most of the decisions we believe we are making with a clear mind are actually controlled by mental shortcuts known as cognitive biases and it is important to learn how to minimize their negative impacts on decision making. Biases are experienced and perceived differently by different persons to a different extent. The best decision is one which can satisfy personal biases, sub-conscious egos and agendas to the minimal, thereby maximizing the interests and outputs of the firm.