In the world of today, the complexity of a problem and the anxiety of making the decision that follows often surpasses the brain capacity of many individuals. Specifically, for entrepreneurs, making a good and timely decision could very well be the backbone of the success of their organization. In both the terms of treatment of employees and the service of customers, a fair decision would make a huge difference.
But even the most sensible individuals can sometimes decisions Even unconsciously, allowing personal preferences affect an objective process, can severely undermine an entrepreneur’s image and jurisdiction in their own corporation. The way a business owner or an entrepreneur handles a situation and takes a decision has thoughtful effects on his image, and decisions are often shadowed by our own lazy thinking and biases. The following are five steps on how you can eliminate decision bias and handle situations better with healthier decisions.
Evaluate the odds of your Success
Ratting off one or two factors that could act upon governing the outcome of your decision is not enough. Before taking a step, take all factors and stats into consideration and evaluate the odds of the result, thoroughly. Very few people veritably, do this, and even fewer use the considered factors to evaluate a decision. A bias that we show when choosing a field on a specific event, without taking the events true probability into consideration, is called base rate neglect. It frequently occurs in our society, for example, crime rates, divorce rates and school grades of students, etc.
Base rate neglect gets you off the track by highlighting the shiny testimonials and makes you overlook the statistic possibilities. For example, if you want to start a vlog but want to get a videography course first, it would help you better understand the percentage of successful vloggers who have done that course. Similarly, if a course title says that it would make you a millionaire, you better research further than the quotes on the website rather then just being overwhelmed by the temptation of earning a million dollars.
Learn to ignore and follow emotions
Is it possible to make a good decision without being emotional about it? The answer might be more complex than you think. Yes, without emotion, the probability of a better decision is higher, but it is more likely to take more time and effort. The reason behind this lies in the anatomy of the human brain- emotions send messages that are quick and straightforward. When such messages reach the decision-making part of the brain, it determines how and where to process all that information. Emotional messages that are too loud to process influence our decisions majorly, this phenomenon is called visceral bias.
During a moment of judgment, our feelings can misrepresent the influence and impartiality about a person or an event. Positive and negative emotions can have respective impacts on a decision. Negative emotions usually make us underestimate our abilities, exaggerate the consequences, overestimate the risks and ignore the priorities altogether. On the obvious contrary, positive emotions make us overestimate our capabilities, underrate the risks involved and misjudge our priorities, and over-amplify possible gains. Positive emotions make us believe that the things making us feel good are more necessary, valuable and important. While negative emotions make us judge things on the factors that undermine our confidence and make us feel incapable, unnecessary and insignificant.
Consider you could be wrong
Take yourself back to this same date from last year, and try to remember- did you know which team would win the football world cup? Which Hollywood actor would bag the Oscar? Which countries would see a plummet of stocks in the month of march? If you said yes to even one of the questions, you are showing symptoms of another bias, hindsight bias. Thistype of bias makes us claim we knew what was going to take place, but we make the claim only after the event has taken place. What’s more, we are bent on believing to the extent that virtually no one can influence our judgment about it. But wait, there’s more, things get even more twisted when people misremember their own predictions about an occasion.
Let’s play a little game for a moment. Without consulting sir, Alexa, Cortana or google, ask yourself- do you know the age of Mahatma Gandhi when he died? Take a wild guess to answer your question. If a month from now to follow up is mentioned, many would say that they chose a number much closer to the correct answer, rather than the first assumption you had come up with. The biggest issue with hindsight bias is that it keeps you from learning from your mistakes. This bias veritably makes you forget that you made any mistake in the first place, so it is highly understandable.
Consider that facts that disapprove your point
It is human nature to find itself right all the time. In order to protect this desire, the human brain tends to ignore the evidence that that contradicts the idea and focuses solely on the evidence that supports it. This phenomenon is called confirmation bias, although itmight sound like a pretty scientific way of thinking than other biases, it’s still bias and its not the road you want to walk down.
Biased sampling cheats your brain into thinking that it is right even when it is standing on the wrong side of the road. For example, you think a burger tastes bad, you will keep looking for mistakes and flaws in the design of that burger joint. By the time of performance evaluation rolling around, the data of thoughts becomes a laundry list of limitations. Consequently, you believe you were correct all along. The willingness to collect evidence that disapproves of our point not only makes our point stronger but also supports us in the anticipation of flaws in the whole idea.
Put your beliefs through a thorough interrogation session
Beliefs are something that exists in a person’s mind, it is usually in the form of trust and confidence or acceptance of something- usually without proof. Belief bias is committed by a person when he accepts his beliefs as more rational and dependable for the reason that they sound more credible. The more consistent an individual is about an authentic-sounding idea, the more likely he is to ignore or even look for any kind of proof. For example, if you believe that most dogs bite, you are less likely to approach one, let alone adopting one as a pet of your own. From an entrepreneur’s view, if a product in his inventory or service in his domain is believed unworthy of being paid, he’ll never make it available in the market. Similarly, considering a message to be underpowered would inevitably seal its fate that it never gets shared.