What makes humans different from animals (in my opinion) is that not only that can we think, but that we can think about thinking. Much of education is teaching us about what to think, but the best education teaches us how to think.
A collection of short articles from the Farnum Street blog, “How to Make Smart Decisions Without Getting Lucky” offer 10 topics on this topic that are short, concise and provocative and will help you enhance your cognitive repertoire. One of the most comforting (for me, at least) out of the ten is “Smart People Make Terrible Decisions.” I take comfort that if Bill Gates early on missed the significance of the internet, and Jim Cramer of CNBC’s “Mad Money” thought Bear Stearns in 2007 was a “Buy.” If people like that can err, there’s hope for me.
Finally, if you’re looking for a handy acronym to guide your decision making especially in an organizational context, Vistage Speaker Dr. Zach Schaefer has a suggestion. A retired academic who is now a principal in a company that operates sport bars, Dr. Schaefer has both studied decision making as a professor and has had to make a few tough calls of his own as an entrepreneur. From these experiences he’s distilled a set of rules he calls “FARCI.”. Check out his 2 ½ min video to learn how FARCI can help you establish your personal “Decision Guardrails.
Great to share with your team or the young people in your life.
