09 Aug Book Report! “Thinking In Bets” by Annie Duke
When it comes to make better decisions in business or in life, we could all do with a better model of looking at decisions. The “all or nothing” model, the danger of hindsight bias and the often toxic regret of decisions leads to regularly poor decision making.
But, if we start thinking about decisions from a viewpoint of probabilities (i.e. bets), put regret into the mix before decisions are made, and doing some scenario planning, we can start to slow down the decision making process. Then by studying with a group of disinterested group of people how we made decisions, we can begin to improve the decision making process.
This book maybe one of the most coherent studies of decision making. Rest assured, despite her background as a professional poker player, Duke has written a book with lots of stories outside poker and has an engaging style that makes her points without lapsing into her near Ph.D. academic style. Packed also with plenty of references and a long suggested reading list, Duke does show her academic side.