Articles
Too Much Information
How much information do you really need to fulfil your personal remit? What is the most efficient information consumption process? These are rarely asked questions, but they are crucial when analysing the effectiveness of individuals and organisations. Trying to...
Cultural Differences – the Implications
We expand upon last week's work looking at how academic studies have shown a marked counter-stereotype series of biases - pointing towards overconfidence in decision making from Chinese citizens vs U.S. citizens. If this is borne-out through interactions in large...
International Communication Considerations
The human brain emphasises processes that minimize effort and energy expenditure. This explains why stereotyping across cultures persists, regardless of the ever-lower costs of information acquisition across the world. Extreme care should be used when conducting...
Brexit – How Negotiations Work
Brexit talks are not especially complicated, at least conceptually. We believe that they should be viewed as akin to any number of corporate negotiations - e.g. a merger or sale process. The drivers are ego and minimizing cognitive expenditure - looking at everything...
Workplace Pensions – The Biggest Nudge Ever
The UK state has used Nudge theory to push people into making the 'right' decisions for years. The UK Pensions Act of 2008 has now been implemented and it nudges people into workplace pensions - it is set so that people have to opt out. There are advantages to mass...
Optimism Bias in Capital Projects
Understanding the basic human propensity to be overly optimistic regarding future success is the first stage to managing it. After decades of data and research the UK Treasury has created a quantitative process designed to minimize such impacts. For the average...