Life is full of big decisions, but hard-to-detect flaws in our thinking often prevent us from making good choices. According to Dan and Chip Heath, we can make better decisions if we follow a process that pushes us to overcome our biases and illogical ways of thinking. In Decisive, they present a decision-making process we can use for big decisions across any area of our lives.
Dan and Chip Heath wrote this book because they noticed there’s ample research on how flawed our decisions are but little advice on how to make better choices. The brothers, who both have a business background, derive their advice from psychology research and interviews they conducted.
We’ll begin this guide by describing several biases and illogical ways of thinking that weaken our decision-making. Then, we’ll outline the Heath brothers’ decision-making process, including specific strategies they offer for each step. Throughout the guide, we’ll supplement their strategies with actionable steps. Furthermore, we’ll compare the authors’ ideas on decision-making to those of other experts on choice, such as Barry Schwartz, Daniel Kahneman, and Annie Duke. Lastly, we’ll further contextualize the book’s ideas using research on how culture and society influence our decision-making.
When we make decisions, we typically start by identifying and weighing our options. Then, we pick an option and hope for the best. These steps aren’t a problem in themselves. According to the Heaths, the problem is that we passively allow our biases and irrational ways of thinking to influence each step.
Different Approaches to the Study of Decision-Making
The Heath brothers study decision-making by examining how our cognitive flaws impact our choices. How does their approach to demystifying decision-making compare to that of other authors who explore the psychology of decisions?
Some authors focus on the ways culture and society impact individuals’ decision-making. For instance, in The Art of Choosing, social psychologist Sheena Iyengar examines how culture influences the value we place on choice and the choices we make. In The Paradox of Choice, psychologist Barry Schwartz studies how the abundance of choice offered in market democracies impacts our decision-making and well-being.
Other authors focus on the ways the human brain processes decisions. Some focus on the power of intuitive decision-making, as Malcolm Gladwell does in Blink. Others study irrational decision-making, as psychologist Daniel Kahneman does in Thinking, Fast and Slow.
Decisive falls into this latter category of approaches. The Heaths add to this body of knowledge a decision-making process designed to make our decisions more rational. They don’t spend much time in their book discussing the ways culture and society impact our decisions.
We’ve organized these cognitive influences into four “bad habits.” We’ll explain each habit and describe how it compromises our decision-making.
When making a decision, we tend to identify and consider only two options. The authors argue that this habit of binary thinking prevents us from developing multiple, potentially better options.
For example, imagine that a retiree is wondering whether to downsize to a smaller home close to family or stay in their beloved current home. They think, “I can either stay or sell.” This either/or framing reflects binary thinking, and they’re missing other viable options. For instance, they could downsize and list their current home as a rental. That way, they could spend time in both places.
(Shortform note: Why do we engage in binary thinking? Recent research in psychology suggests that binary thinking is a “cognitive shortcut” that enables us to efficiently make sense of high volumes of information. We process just two options faster than we would process many.)
The Heath brothers share that once we’ve identified our options, confirmation bias prevents us from accurately evaluating them. Confirmation bias is the psychological term for our tendency to search for and favor information that underscores our existing beliefs. The authors claim that confirmation bias causes us to ignore information that supports our non-preferred options, even if those options are better.
For instance, imagine a man is considering whether to rent a home in Neighborhood A or B. His friend, who lives in Neighborhood A, once told him a harrowing story of a break-in at her house. As he researches the two neighborhoods’ safety, his confirmation bias kicks in. Without realizing it, he searches for information that supports his hunch that Neighborhood A is unsafe. He doesn’t seek out information about safety in Neighborhood B. He then chooses Neighborhood B, even though Neighborhood B’s crime rates are much higher.
(Shortform note: Why are we prone to confirmation bias? Like binary thinking, confirmation bias is a “cognitive shortcut” our brain takes to expedite thinking: It’s quicker to collect and evaluate a small sample of information (the information we agree with) versus a large one (many opposing viewpoints). Scholars who study evolutionary explanations for confirmation bias argue that it continues to persist as we evolve because it helps groups problem-solve effectively. Confirmation bias strengthens our conviction in our viewpoints. When people with strong, contrasting viewpoints debate solutions for a problem, the group deeply scrutinizes the problem. The resulting analysis contributes to a better solution, increasing the group’s chances of survival.)
When it’s time to finally make a choice, our bias toward the status quo weakens our judgment. According to the authors, tough decisions elicit intense emotions. These emotions cause us to seek relief in what’s familiar. Thus, we make decisions that resist change, even if change is what we need.
(Shortform note: What intense emotions give us a bias towards the status quo? Researchers claim maintaining our current status allows us to avoid two unpleasant emotions: the discomfort of having too many options and the agony of a tough dilemma.)
The Heath brothers share that our status quo bias comprises two other biases. The first, called the mere exposure effect, is a bias toward things and situations we’re accustomed to. The second is loss aversion: a bias against choices that lead to loss. When we make a choice, these two biases make us fearful of losing what’s familiar and what we currently have. As a result, we avoid making significant life changes.
The Relationship Between Social Circumstances and Bias
Research suggests that our biases don’t exist in a vacuum. Our social circumstances influence to what degree we feel—and are impacted by—loss aversion and the mere exposure principle.
For example, experimental research suggests that wealthy people and people in positions of power experience less loss aversion. For these people, losses feel less painful due to the social and financial safety net that comes with being wealthy.
Furthermore, research on the mere-exposure effect suggests a relationship between this bias and racial prejudice. One study found that if you increase a white person’s exposure to Asian and Black faces, they show an increased liking of new faces of Asian and Black people. Since likability impacts behavior, the researchers conclude that efforts to increase white people’s exposure to faces of color—such as in ads and in the media—could reduce racial bias and its harmful consequences.
Finally, a fourth habit kicks in after we’ve made our decision. According to the authors, our hubris—or extreme self-confidence—makes us feel certain in our predictions about a decision’s outcomes. If the outcome is different than we predicted, we’re left surprised and unprepared to deal with it.
Consider the example of a woman who decides to sell her sailboat before she leaves town. She predicts that her luxury boat will sell fast. Confident in her prediction, she doesn’t plan for the possible outcome that it won’t sell. When the market turns out softer than she predicted, she’s left scrambling.
(Shortform note: While the Heath brothers don’t address this explicitly, their inclusion of this step in a process they frame as universally applicable suggests they think of hubris as a mindset that anyone can suffer from, rather than an enduring personality trait that only some of us have. Their view is at odds with some academic work on hubris. For instance, some researchers believe that hubris is an acquired condition associated with possession of power.)
The Heaths insist that mere awareness of our bad habits isn’t enough to improve our decisions. We need a process that actively resists each habit. In this section, we’ll explore the decision-making process that the Heath brothers offer as a solution to the habits. For each step, we’ll describe its purpose and offer three strategies for implementing it.
(Shortform note: In the book, the authors organize the four steps of their process into a mnemonic called “WRAP.” Each letter in the acronym stands for a step in their process: Widen Your Options, Reality-Test Your Assumptions, Attain Distance Before Deciding, and Prepare to be Wrong. We’ve rephrased each step to clarify the exact goals of each one. However, we’ve maintained the authors’ sequence of steps because each step builds on the one before it.)
The Link Between Social Context and Decision-Making Capacity
The Heath brothers claim that we can improve our decision-making skills by resisting our bad habits. This perspective suggests that all individuals have the capacity to make strong decisions, which further implies that it’s an individual’s responsibility to improve their decision-making skills. By contrast, other scholars who look at decision-making in a social and cultural context emphasize how social inequality influences our capacity for deliberating on decisions. Their research suggests that both individuals and policymakers (and the social and economic conditions the latter create) are responsible for individuals’ decisions.
For example, some research shows that a person’s access to wealth affects their capacity to make wise decisions. One psychologist who studies scarcity claims that when people don’t have enough of a vital resource (such as money, time, or space), they have less “mental bandwidth” to deliberate on decisions. Every person experiences a reduced mental bandwidth due to scarcity from time to time. However, because poverty is an enduring form of scarcity, poor people chronically have less mental bandwidth. As a result, poor people often make unwise decisions—not because they’re inherently bad decision-makers, but because they lack the bandwidth to make better ones.
To fix this issue, the researcher offers steps that both poor individuals, as well as policymakers, can take. First, he recommends that poor people schedule 30 minutes every day to deliberate on decisions. Carving out decision-making time prevents people from making hasty choices throughout the day. Second, the researcher urges policymakers to design solutions to poverty that don’t further strain people’s mental bandwidth. For example, public health officials could build more health clinics in low-income neighborhoods so poor people don’t use up precious mental bandwidth to arrange transportation to far-out clinics.
Because of binary thinking, during the first step of decision-making, we tend to come up with only two options. The Heath brothers argue that we can improve our decisions by coming up with more options. They cite research that suggests considering more than two distinct options facilitates faster, more creative decisions that better suit our needs. Additionally, doing so guarantees that you have at least two backup options. However, the authors warn that having too many options overwhelms you. They suggest that you aim for three to four strong, distinct options.
What’s the Ideal Number of Options for a Decision?
Many researchers and authors investigate how many options are optimal for decision-making. Because Decisive focuses on big decisions, we’ll share several findings from research that examines high-stakes decisions (rather than inconsequential decisions, such as what color tie to wear).
Like the Heath brothers, researchers have observed that having lots of options doesn’t always lead to better, more creative decisions with helpful backup options: There are clear negative consequences of having too many options. For example, when people are offered too many options for healthcare plans, they become stressed and make a careless choice—or in some cases opt out of enrollment altogether. Similarly, one study found that online daters who chose from among six people to date were more satisfied with their decisions than people who considered 24 options.
Furthermore, although the Heath brothers warn against binary thinking, some research illuminates the benefits of binary choices. For example, research on retirement planning found that people made wiser investment choices when presented with a binary of two options versus a selection of five options.
Finally, the optimal number of choices may depend on how different those choices are from each other. Research supports the Heath brothers’ claim that it’s important to consider options that are distinct from each other. For example, research found that when doctors were presented with three options for patient care including two highly similar options, they usually opted for the most dissimilar option to avoid having to choose between the two similar options.
The fact that there’s no clear consensus among researchers about the optimal number of options suggests that this number depends on the nature of the decision.
In this section, we’ll share strategies for coming up with three to four strong, distinct options.
Binary choices are between choice A or B, but it’s often better to pursue a both/and option: one that combines the best parts of both A and B. One technique for creating a both/and option is to combine an optimistic choice with a cautious one. According to the authors, a cautiously optimistic option prepares you for a range of outcomes—both positive and negative. It serves as a middle ground between a high-risk option and one that’s too prudent.
For example, imagine a postal worker who’s considering quitting his job to become an artist. Within the binary of “quit or not,” the optimistic option is to quit and hope he can earn a living making art. The cautious option is to continue as a postal worker. A cautiously optimistic option could be to reduce his hours at the post office while he takes time to launch his career as an artist.
(Shortform note: A cautiously optimistic mindset may provide you with general benefits in life, beyond the realm of decision-making. Research in psychology suggests that people who balance optimism with caution experience higher levels of long-term contentment. That said, it might be best to approach some tasks with more optimism than others. For example, some psychologists recommend that you balance caution and optimism when setting goals and then employ a more optimistic mindset when carrying out those plans.)
Another strategy for developing more options is somewhat counterintuitive: Imagine that one or more of your options have been eliminated. The authors claim that when we rule out an option, we handle this constraint by creatively developing other options.
For example, consider someone who wants to sign up to run a full marathon. However, they’re new to running, and they wonder if they’ll be ready in time. After they imagine eliminating the option of running a full marathon, they research other possibilities. They add “run a half-marathon” to their list. It’s an option that’s both ambitious and realistic.
Constraints Bolster Creativity
Experimental research supports the Heath brothers’ claim that limitations during the creative process drive creative problem-solving. When people are asked to brainstorm ideas without any limits, they follow their intuition instead of innovating. By contrast, when people brainstorm ideas within limits (such as limits on time or money), they tend to generate more creative solutions.
What are some additional ways you can apply creativity-inducing constraints while brainstorming options for a decision? Here are three suggestions:
Ditch the cellphone. While brainstorming options, keep your cell phone in another room. Research shows that having your cell phone within reach—whether or not you actually use it—limits your cognitive competence.
Reduce your online distractions. If you’re looking online for options for a decision, download a website-blocker for your browser so that you don’t waste time web-surfing.
Limit the time you spend developing options. Place limits on your brainstorming time so that you don’t waste too much brain power and time generating options you later reject.
A final way to develop additional options is to learn from experts. The Heaths define an “expert” as anyone who has more experience than you with the topic of your decision. Experts may be able to share tried-and-tested options that you hadn’t even thought of.
For example, consider a teenager who asks his parents for a cell phone. His parents want to please him, but they’re reluctant to increase his social media access. To produce an extra option beyond the binary of “phone or no phone,” they could seek advice from other parents who’ve bought their children cell phones about how to supervise and limit children’s social media use.
(Shortform note: When seeking expert advice for a career-related decision, think carefully about whom to consult and what questions to ask. Researchers suggest that for career-related decisions, you should seek the advice of expert professionals. For personal decisions, seek the advice of experienced friends or family. When approaching an expert for career-related advice, it may help to use informational interview techniques (when you ask questions of someone in a field you’re interested in). Use an email template when reaching out, research the expert in advance, and keep your Q&A short.)
Which Decisions Are Worth Developing Multiple Options For?
This first step of the Heath brothers’ process, uncovering more options, offers many benefits—but it may be time-intensive. Life is finite, as Oliver Burkeman reminds us in his book Four Thousand Weeks, and he argues that we must thoughtfully manage our time to prioritize what matters most to us. Similarly, Barry Schwartz argues in The Paradox of Choice that having too many choices in all areas of our lives causes us to devote too much time to unimportant decisions. So, how do we decide which decisions to spend time on?
Psychologist Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational, recommends considering whether the decision you’re making has an expiration date and prioritizing decisions that do. For example, a person with a sick grandparent may prioritize the decision of how to spend time with them over a decision that doesn’t expire (such as whether to buy a grill).
Once we’ve determined which decisions are worth our time, we can reduce our decision-making time for less-important ones. One psychologist, who warns that decision overload leads to procrastination, offers several techniques:
Have someone else make the decision. Find someone else who might be better at making that decision than you (and possibly even enjoy making it). For instance, if you’re unsure what to wear to an event, consider asking a fashionable friend to choose your outfit.
Choose a “go-to” option. For recurring decisions, automatically go with the same, easily doable option—even if it’s not perfect. For instance, if you want to exercise more, choose a “go-to” exercise—such as a 30-minute run—and only deviate from that plan if you have the time and energy to brainstorm something that requires more planning (such as weightlifting).
After you develop two to four appealing options, it’s time to evaluate them. However, because of confirmation bias, we often ignore crucial information about our options. The Heaths emphasize that while we can’t eliminate our confirmation bias, we can resist its power and make well-informed decisions. In this section, we’ll share several strategies for doing so.
One way to resist your confirmation bias is to hunt for information that contradicts your existing beliefs. The authors claim that according to research, when we consider an opposing viewpoint, we force ourselves to pay attention to high-quality information that we’d otherwise ignore due to confirmation bias.
A technique to accomplish this strategy is to find an expert on the topic of your decision and ask questions that welcome an opposing viewpoint. For example, imagine a high school graduate who must choose among several colleges. One college tops their list because they believe it has a strong art program. They meet with an admissions counselor from that college to learn more. Their confirmation bias tempts them to ask questions that confirm their belief that the art program is strong. Instead, they can seek out an opposing viewpoint by asking, “What are some issues with the art program?”
Seeking Out Opposing Viewpoints While Online
For many people, the Internet is a primary source of information—but the Internet also intensifies confirmation bias. Algorithms use information about our preferences to determine which ads and search results to show. This can lead to a “filter bubble effect”: a phenomenon in which a) our confirmation bias limits what content we look for in the first place, and b) algorithms reinforce the bias by only showing us ads and search results that fit our existing preferences. This surrounds us in a cocoon of information that continually fortifies our existing beliefs.
How can we counter the filter bubble effect? One entrepreneur recommends we “Google the opposite”: use search terms that bring us to opposing viewpoints. For example, the high school graduate could seek out perspectives that speak to a school’s downsides by Googling the name of a school followed by words like “overrated” or “unhappy.”
The authors argue that due to our confirmation bias, we trust our biased instincts over more accurate data about what people in a similar situation have experienced. To overcome this, we can seek out objective information.
One way to do this is to pay attention to base rates: statistics that describe the percentage of a population for which something is true. For example, the aforementioned college applicant could compare base rates from each college that show what percentage of its art majors find a job in the arts after graduation.
(Shortform note: If you’re unfamiliar with base rates or statistics in general, you might worry about misinterpreting data you find. One way to ensure you wisely interpret data is to research a statistic’s sample size: the number of people it represents. For example, if the college applicant encountered a statistic that read, “100% of our 2020 art program graduates found a job in the arts,” they could follow it up with this question: “How many students graduated that year?” If the answer is three, the statistic may be less revealing than if the answer is 300.)
The authors offer another way to seek objective information: Ask an expert questions that prompt them to share factual information, specifically. The authors recommend that you avoid asking questions about the future. For example, the college applicant shouldn’t ask the counselor, “Do you think this program will prepare me for an art career?” This question may fall prey to the counselor’s own biases. Instead, the authors instruct us to ask questions about the past and the present. An expert provides a more objective perspective on these types of questions.
(Shortform note: When talking with an expert to gather objective information, how can we distinguish between subjective and objective statements they make? One tip is to be on the lookout for words or phrases that make value judgments, as these often indicate a statement is subjective. Phrases such as “worse then,” or “better than,” and “could mean that,” all reflect a speaker’s subjective interpretation.)
A final way to consider objective information is to generate it yourself. As previously stated, our confirmation bias prevents us from making credible predictions by distorting how we interpret information. To further overcome this bias, the authors suggest gathering more credible information by conducting a trial run of at least one option. A trial run is a test that allows you to accurately evaluate an option, since it provides evidence of the option’s outcomes. This evidence helps you make an informed prediction about how the decision may pan out long-term.
For example, a man who’s unsure whether he wants to move in with his partner could conduct a trial run by moving in with them for two weeks. This experience and its pros and cons could inform whether or not he stays beyond that time.
Barriers to Conducting Trial Runs
Someone’s privilege may influence whether they can afford to conduct trial runs for certain types of decisions. For example, internships are a common way for college students and recent graduates to give a career they’re interested in a trial run. However, internships are often unpaid: In 2019, 43% of internships at for-profit companies were unpaid. This means that only those with existing wealth can afford to complete the internships. Furthermore, students of color are underrepresented in unpaid internships because white students have greater access to wealth.
Some recent efforts to ensure pay for interns have been successful, such as a six-year grassroots campaign to ensure the White House pays its interns.
As previously noted, tough decisions heighten our emotions, which compels us to avoid change. Our bias towards the status quo tempts us to choose whichever option minimizes loss and change—even if change is what we most need.
To overcome status quo bias, the authors argue that we shouldn’t disregard the current emotions that drive us to seek comfort in the status quo. Instead, we should put those emotions into perspective by looking outside ourselves and beyond the present. In this section, we’ll share several strategies for doing so.
Mindfulness for Managing Emotions
Research in psychology supports the authors’ claim that we shouldn’t disregard our emotions. In fact, doing so harms both our mental and physical health.
One way to manage, rather than disregard, heightened emotions is to practice a well-known mindfulness technique called RAIN:
Recognize: Acknowledge what you’re feeling by naming your emotions.
Allow: Let yourself feel your emotions, and don’t try to change them.
Investigate: Ask yourself where in your body you feel those emotions and why you might be feeling them.
Non-Identification: Remember that your emotions are real, but they don’t define you.
One strategy for putting your current emotions into perspective is to imagine the point of view of someone else who’s not experiencing the same strong emotions. The authors claim that this strategy allows you to more rationally and objectively see the decision’s important facets. You might then recognize the value of disrupting the status quo and seeking beneficial change. For any kind of decision, ask yourself, “If my friend or colleague was in this situation, what decision would they make, and why?”
(Shortform note: Since the release of Decisive, new research has suggested that we’re often wrong when we simply imagine what others think. For example, one study found that we better predict another person’s thoughts when we talk to them versus when we simply imagine what they think. However, there may still be benefits to imagining someone else’s perspective as a decision-making exercise, even if what we imagine is different from what they’d actually do. Recent research suggests that when we imagine someone else’s perspective, we improve our ability to generate creative and novel ideas.)
A second way to put your emotions into perspective is to predict how you’ll feel about your decision at various points in the future. The authors state that we make better decisions when we give additional weight to our future feelings. When we consider how we’ll feel in the future, we’re more likely to welcome a change in the status quo.
One technique the authors recommend is the “10/10/10 test,” created by business writer Suzy Welch. First, select one of your options. Then, ask yourself, “If I chose this option, how would I feel about my decision 10 minutes, 10 months, and 10 years after I made it?” If you determine that you’d feel positively about that option at all three points in the future, it’s a strong option.
Is it Possible to Accurately Predict Future Feelings?
Experts have differing opinions about how accurately we can predict our future feelings. In Stumbling On Happiness, psychologist Daniel Gilbert argues that it’s futile to do this because your present emotions determine how you think you’ll feel in the future. He’d likely claim that a test like the 10/10/10 test will only reflect your current state of mind, rather than tell you something new about your future state of mind.
However, whether or not it’s possible to accurately predict future feelings, Annie Duke, author of Thinking in Bets, argues that imagining the future can still positively impact decision-making. She claims that by remembering past decisions and imagining future outcomes, we better manage our emotions and make more rational decisions. She calls this strategy “mental time travel.”
In some cases, it may not help to imagine someone else’s perspective or look far into the future. Even after trying these strategies, the decision may continue to be emotionally fraught. The authors share that when a decision is still emotionally fraught, it’s a sign that it may be a choice between one or more of your values. They claim that the best way to work through a decision that concerns multiple values is to clarify which of those values are most important to you.
The Relationship Between Cultural Values and Decision-Making
When clarifying your values, consider how the values that impact your decision may be culturally rooted. Research reveals that our cultural background influences whether we look inward or outward when we make emotionally fraught decisions. If your culture values individuality, you may make decisions by looking inward and determining your own wants and needs. By contrast, if your culture values collectivity, you may look outward and make choices based on what others expect of you.
We can learn from both approaches. When you clarify your values for an emotionally-fraught decision, notice if you find yourself looking inward or outward. If this approach isn’t serving you, or if it isn’t helping you to manage your emotions and make a decision, consider taking the opposite approach.
One value-clarifying technique that the authors recommend is a “stop doing list.” Business consultant Jim Collins created this technique.
Use Satisficing to Make Values-Oriented Decisions
Jim Collins’s stop-doing list and the Heath brothers’ addition prompt us to ponder what we value most and identify ways that we’re wasting our time. But it’s possible that after these exercises, we’ll still be left with a list of multiple values. For the purposes of decision-making, how can we prioritize these remaining values?
Psychologist Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice, offers advice: Don’t expect you’ll find the perfect answer, and don’t overthink it. For a decision that concerns a choice between multiple important values, there may be no best choice. He recommends a decision-making strategy called satisficing: choosing an option that’s satisfactory, rather than perfect. His research shows that maximizers—people who take time deeply considering every possibility until they find the best one—are often more unhappy with their decisions.
Let’s put the authors’ strategies and Schwartz’s advice into a real-world context. Imagine a person is deciding whether she wants to continue living in the city or move to the country. She sees herself as a “country person” at heart. But she also identifies as LGBTQA+, and there’s a larger queer community in the city. After making her “stop doing list” and analyzing her calendar, she finds that she equally values time in the country and time in community with other queer people.
If she were to approach her decision as a maximizer, she may spend years searching for the perfect country town that also has a vibrant queer community—a search that may or may not yield any results. If she approaches her decision as a satisficer, she may miss out on living in that perfect town. But by making a choice, she can end the stress of deciding—and move on to brainstorming how to make that choice great.
After you’ve made a choice, the decision-making process isn’t necessarily over. The authors claim that after you make a decision, you can take action to increase the odds that your decision will succeed.
As previously stated, our hubris makes us overconfident in our predictions for the future, which causes us to poorly prepare for the decision’s outcomes. The authors argue that we can overcome our hubris with humility, and increase the likelihood that our decision will succeed, by:
In this section, we’ll share several strategies for doing so.
The authors share that one way to plan with humility is to prepare for both best-case and worst-case scenarios. By planning for both types of scenarios, we ensure that the worst-case scenario won’t be devastating and that we’ll be more prepared for the success of the best-case scenario.
For example, consider a woman who decides to quit her job and open a food truck. First, she imagines a worst-case scenario and makes a plan for it.
Next, she imagines a best-case scenario and makes a plan to be ready for it.
(Shortform note: This strategy is similar to Annie Duke’s technique of “scenario planning:'' an exercise in which you imagine every potential outcome of your decision. Duke adds a step, however: After you imagine each outcome, estimate its likelihood. Duke claims that this exercise helps you make a more rational decision. In contrast to the Heath brothers’ strategy, Duke intends for scenario planning to happen before the decision is made. Therefore, these two strategies could both be worked into a decision-making process: Scenario planning could serve as a tool to inform a decision, and the Heath brothers’ contingency planning strategy could serve as a tool to prepare for its outcomes.)
When it’s challenging to accurately predict a decision’s worst-case outcomes, we can still prepare for the unforeseeable. The authors argue that even though our hubris will cause us to underestimate the worst-case scenario, we can negate that hubris by working “safety factors” into our predictive calculations. A safety factor is a cushion we can add to our prediction of the worst-case scenario. If it turns out that the worst-case scenario was too optimistic, then the safety factor helps us avoid disaster.
For instance, imagine that the food truck owner estimates her business expenses. She multiplies those estimated expenses by a safety factor of 1.5. That way, if it turns out her estimate fails to account for unexpected costs, she avoids draining her bank account.
(Shortform note: The Heath brothers present their safety factor strategy as a way to avoid worst-case scenarios, like a “rainy day fund.” If you’re someone who’s motivated by positive incentives, you could reframe this strategy as a “sunny day fund.” For example, consider the cushion budget that the food truck owner calculates by multiplying her estimated budget by a safety factor of 1.5. She could motivate herself to save the money by making this a “sunny day fund”: telling herself that if she doesn’t use this budget, she can spend it on something else, such as a vacation.)
A final step we can take to prepare for future outcomes is to ensure that we act early if we notice any signs that our decision is headed towards a negative outcome. Our hubris may tempt us to ignore these signs, so the authors recommend that we humbly assume our decision will have negative outcomes. They advise us to proactively create an alert: a reminder for us to act that fires in response to early signs of a negative outcome. Alerts ensure that we recognize when it’s time to follow up our decision with another decision that steers us off the path toward a negative outcome.
(Shortform note: The authors’ discussion of alerts, and the way that alerts trigger a new decision, implies that decision-making has cyclical nature: The outcomes of a decision create the circumstances for the next decision.)
One type of alert that the authors offer is a deadline. After you make a decision, choose a date in the near future. When that date arrives, evaluate the success of your decision so far and determine whether you need to change course.
(Shortform note: A deadline alert is a chance to reflect upon your decision at a predetermined time. Annie Duke recommends that when we reflect upon a decision’s outcomes, we distinguish between outcomes caused by luck and outcomes caused by skill. That way, we notice and continue behaviors that contributed to success, notice and stop behaviors that led to failure, and acknowledge moments of luck or unluckiness that were out of our control.)
Another type of alert that the authors offer is a pattern. After you make a decision, list several possible warning signs that the decision is headed towards a negative outcome. If you notice a pattern of more than one warning sign, it’s a signal that you need to either re-evaluate your decision or follow it up with another one.
For example, imagine a teacher in a classroom that has several students who are new to the school. He wants to ensure that they’re integrating well with their peers, and he determines that sitting alone at lunch would be a sign of poor integration. Each day, he observes the students eating. If he ever notices that a student sits alone more than two times, this pattern alerts him to decide how to better support them.
(Shortform note: Because confirmation bias makes us see what we want to see, it’s possible that we may not notice warning signs that our decision is headed towards a negative outcome. When setting a pattern-style alert, consider enlisting the help of a friend, colleague, or family member who can help you notice warning signs and shake you out of your confirmation bias.)
As well as helping you to counteract hubris, alerts help you overcome another issue that the Heath brothers highlight: passive living. This is when you proceed through life without actively reflecting on your daily behavior. The authors argue that when we live passively, we often fail to recognize opportunities to follow up on our decisions. An alert helps us recognize these opportunities.
For example, consider someone who decides to buy a car. Not long after this decision, they slip into passive living and fail to notice the car’s gradual deterioration. It may not occur to them that they should decide to get a tune-up or purchase a new one in better condition.
(Shortform note: Why do we tend to live passively? Daniel Kahneman’s research in Thinking, Fast and Slow reveals that our brain sometimes employs heuristics: automatic shortcuts for processing information. This part of our brain allows us to make intuitive, efficient judgments, which can be useful in many situations (such as reading signs on bathroom doors to determine which one to enter). Kahneman argues that we make poor decisions when we act upon these instincts without questioning them: in other words, when we passively allow them to rule our lives.)
The Popularity of Books on Choice and Decision-Making
Decisive is one of many books on the topic of decision-making that’s been published in the past several decades. Why is decision-making such a popular topic, especially in the United States?
It’s possible that this popularity reflects the value that American culture places on choice. One psychologist argues that the US value of choice dates back to the United States’ founding. During this time, several prominent thinkers influenced American values around choice: For example, economist Adam Smith proposed the idea that individual self-interest drives economic growth, and Ralph Waldo Emerson’s ideas about self-reliance encouraged people to value individual choice over conformity. Choice and independence continue to be cornerstones of American culture that the U.S. government articulates in official documents today.
When faced with a big decision, it’s important to push yourself beyond binary thinking by developing more than two viable options.
Think of a big decision that’s on the horizon for you. (This decision might relate to your health, career, relationships and family, upcoming purchases, politics, education, finances, or leisure.) Describe that decision, and explain why it’s important to you.
List two options for that decision that represent a binary. For example: “adopt a dog” or “don’t adopt a dog.”
Next, develop an additional option by imagining you must eliminate one of the options in the binary. What option did you imagine eliminating, and what did you replace it with? For example, eliminate the option to adopt a dog and replace it with “foster a dog.”
Now, generate a both/and option that’s cautiously optimistic. For example: “Foster a dog for two months. If it works out, adopt the dog; if it doesn’t, foster another.” (If you already have a cautious option and an optimistic option in your list, you can combine them into one.)
The remaining steps of the Heath brothers’ decision-making process (assessing options, choosing one, and preparing for its outcomes) are steps that may take time and involve others. To set you up for success on these steps, let’s plan which strategies you’ll use for each step.
Look over the three to four options you developed in the first exercise. Which option(s) do you prefer, and why do you prefer those options?
Now, make a plan for how you’ll resist your confirmation bias as you further assess those options. Select at least one strategy that you’ll use to resist your confirmation bias toward your “favorite” option: Seek out an opposing viewpoint, seek out objective information, and/or conduct a trial run. Describe how you’ll carry it out. (For example, if you’re leaning towards adopting a dog, seek out an opposing viewpoint by asking a dog-owning friend to share downsides of owning a dog.)
Next, identify your current emotions. What feelings come up for you as you think about this decision? (For example: “hesitant,” and/or “excited.”) Why do you think you feel this way?
Make a plan for how you’ll put those emotions into perspective when it’s time to make the final decision. Will you imagine what a friend or colleague would do, try the 10/10/10 test, and/or make a stop-doing list? Describe how you’ll implement this strategy. (For example, you could use the 10/10/10 strategy to imagine how you’ll feel about adopting a dog in the future.)
Finally, make a plan for how you’ll prepare for the decision’s outcome. Will you prepare for its best-case and worst-case scenarios, build safety factors into your predictive calculations, and/or create an alert? Describe specifically how you’ll carry out the strategy. (For example, if you decide to foster a dog before adopting it, you could create an alert by listing and watching out for warning signs that the dog isn’t a good fit.)