Sam Kyle > Quotes

“History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes,” as Mark Twain is reputed to have said.”
― Sam Kyle, The Decision Checklist: A Practical Guide to Avoiding Problems

“It’s important to stay away from the blame/credit mentality, because it undermines understanding, which is the key to getting better.”
― Sam Kyle, The Decision Checklist: A Practical Guide to Avoiding Problems

“The key to understanding the limits of our knowledge is to check the results of our decisions against what we thought was going to happen and why we thought it was going to happen. That feedback loop is incredibly powerful.”
― Sam Kyle, The Decision Checklist: A Practical Guide to Avoiding Problems

“Widen your options: You encounter a choice. But narrow framing makes you miss options. How can you expand your set of choices? Reality-test your assumptions: You analyze your options. But the confirmation bias leads you to gather self-serving information. So how can you get outside your head and collect information you can trust? Attain distance before deciding: You make a choice. But short-term emotion will often tempt you to make the wrong one . . . So how can you overcome short-term emotion and conflicted feelings to make the best choice? Prepare to be wrong: You'll often be overconfident about how the future will unfold. So prepare to be wrong. How can you plan for an uncertain future so that you give your decisions the best chance to succeed?”
― Sam Kyle, The Decision Checklist: A Practical Guide to Avoiding Problems

“We’re overconfident. “People think they know more than they do about how the future will unfold.” Our frame is too narrow. “This is the tendency to define our choices too narrowly, to see them in binary terms. We ask, ‘Should I break up with my partner or not?’ instead of ‘What are the ways I could make this relationship better?’” We rely on short-term emotion. “When we’ve got a difficult decision to make, our feelings churn. We replay the same arguments in our head. We agonize about our circumstances. We change our minds from day to day. If our decision was represented on a spreadsheet, none of the numbers would be changing—there’s no new information being added—but it doesn’t feel that way in our heads.” We have confirmation bias. “When people have the opportunity to collect information from the world, they are more likely to select information that supports their preexisting attitudes, beliefs, and actions.” We pretend we want the truth, yet all we really want is reassurance. So what are your barriers to making good decisions?”
― Sam Kyle, The Decision Checklist: A Practical Guide to Avoiding Problems

“Munger believes that by using a range of different [mental] models from many different disciplines—psychology, history, mathematics, physics, philosophy, biology, and so on—a person can use the combined output of the synthesis to produce something that has more value than the sum of its parts.”
― Sam Kyle, The Decision Checklist: A Practical Guide to Avoiding Problems

“Inverting the Problem: Think about problems in reverse. It is not enough to think about them one way. You need to think about problems forward and backward, which forces you to uncover hidden beliefs about the problem you are trying to solve. For instance, instead of thinking about what would make a good life, think about what would make your life miserable, and then avoid those things. Or here’s another example. Do you want to be a good leader? If so, then think about all of the bad leaders you’ve met in your life and list the reasons why they were bad. Think about the ways you don’t want to be like those bad leaders, and you’ll be more likely to succeed at being a good leader. Second- and Subsequent-Order Thinking: Ask yourself, “And then what?” First-order thinkers stay on the surface. They tend to look for things that are easy and simple. Second-order thinkers don’t accept the first conclusion. They go deeper and push harder. Have you ever been in a meeting where a good idea is suggested, everyone agrees on it, and then that’s the end of the discussion? No one asks deeper questions. No one goes to the next level. No one asks what will happen if new problems arise. Second-order thinking is hard work. The Map Is Not the Territory: Our minds create maps of our world in order to understand it, because the only way we can process the complexity of everything is to simplify it in our minds. Businesses use maps all the time. These are the strategic plans, the budgets, even profit and loss statements. And we can’t avoid them. We need to use maps in order to pass information around in an easily digestible way. Sometimes, in fact, we are so reliant on simplification that we will frequently use an incorrect model because we feel any model is preferable to no model.”
― Sam Kyle, The Decision Checklist: A Practical Guide to Avoiding Problems

“When you do as everyone else does, don’t be surprised when you get what everyone else gets.” — Peter Kaufman”
― Sam Kyle, The Decision Checklist: A Practical Guide to Avoiding Problems

“Clare Boothe Luce observed in an article she wrote for Reader’s Digest in 1979, “Courage is the ladder on which all the other virtues mount.” You must acquire the courage to make difficult decisions.”
― Sam Kyle, The Decision Checklist: A Practical Guide to Avoiding Problems

“This approach helps people overcome blind spots: “Looking back from the future helps people to see the nitty-gritty details required to achieve long-term goals.” This approach helps people “bridge short-term and long-term thinking”: “Analyzing a single event as if it has already occurred rather than pretending it might occur makes it seem more concrete and likely to actually happen, which motivates people to devote more attention to explaining it.” Looking back “dampens excessive optimism”: “Most people overestimate the chances that good things will happen to them and underestimate the odds that they will face failures, delays, and setbacks. Kahneman adds that ‘in general, organizations really don’t like pessimists’ and that when naysayers raise risks and drawbacks, they are viewed as ‘almost disloyal.’” A premortem challenges the illusion of consensus: Many times, groups tend to conform so they don’t disrupt harmony. “The resulting corrosive conformity is evident when people don't raise private doubts, known risks, and inconvenient facts. In contrast, as Klein explains, a premortem can create a competition where members feel accountable for raising obstacles that others haven't.”
― Sam Kyle, The Decision Checklist: A Practical Guide to Avoiding Problems

“Here are some other tips to keep in mind as you implement your decision journal. Get beyond the obvious. Often your first thoughts aren’t your own, but are the thinking of someone else. So try to get beyond the brief and obvious insights. Handwrite in your journal. Technology is great, but writing things down in your own handwriting will keep you honest and help prevent hindsight bias. It’s easy to look at a document on your computer screen and say, “I didn’t see it that way.” It’s a lot harder to look at your own handwriting and say the same thing. Be specific and concrete. Avoid vague language. If you’re stuck in the fog of abstractions, you’re not ready to make a decision, and it will be easy to change definitions to fit any new information. Write down the probabilities as you see them. Review your journal often. I review mine quarterly. This is an important part of the process. It helps you to realize where you made mistakes, how you made them, what types of decisions you’re bad at, etc. If you share your journal with a coach, they can review it and help you identify areas for improvement. Remember it’s not just about outcomes. Maybe you made the right decision (which, in our sense, means used a good process) and still had a bad outcome. That’s called a bad break. On the other hand, maybe you discovered that you had a good outcome for the wrong reasons (i.e., despite a bad process), and a decision journal will stop you from being overly confident in using that process in the future.”
― Sam Kyle, The Decision Checklist: A Practical Guide to Avoiding Problems

“Ford made a historic decision to improve the lives of his workers. He added a third shift to create more jobs, reduced the workday from nine hours to eight, and doubled the hourly pay of his employees.”
― Sam Kyle, The Decision Checklist: A Practical Guide to Avoiding Problems

“When I first started to use a decision journal, it was clear to me that I had optimism bias. This means I was focusing on the possible positive outcomes while not anticipating and preparing for potential negative ones.”
― Sam Kyle, The Decision Checklist: A Practical Guide to Avoiding Problems

“Formal education will make you a living. Self-education will make you a fortune.”
— Jim Rohn”
― Sam Kyle, The Decision Checklist: A Practical Guide to Avoiding Problems

“In the book Decisive, authors Chip and Dan Heath talk about our biases when making decisions, and the tendency to see only what’s in front of us. They call this the “spotlight” effect, which in essence is the core difficulty of decision making. What’s in the spotlight will rarely be everything we need to make good decisions, but we won’t always remember to shift the light.”
― Sam Kyle, The Decision Checklist: A Practical Guide to Avoiding Problems

“You can use your journal to answer the questions at the end of each chapter. Then use the Decision Journal Template found in Appendix B whenever you’re making a decision, either individually or as part of a group. Take a moment and write down: The situation or context. The variables that govern the situation. The complications or complexity as you see it. Alternatives that were seriously considered, and why they were not chosen. A paragraph explaining the range of outcomes you deem possible, with probabilities. A paragraph explaining what you expect to happen, and the reasoning. (The degree of confidence matters, a lot.) The time of day you’re making the decision, and how you feel physically and mentally. (If you’re tired, for example, write it down.)”
― Sam Kyle, The Decision Checklist: A Practical Guide to Avoiding Problems

“Here are the six steps Bazerman and Moore argue you should take, either implicitly or explicitly, when applying a rational decision-making process. “Define the problem. Managers often act without a thorough understanding of the problem to be solved, leading them to solve the wrong problem. Accurate judgment is required to identify and define the problem. Managers often err by (a) defining the problem in terms of a proposed solution, (b) missing a bigger problem, or (c) diagnosing the problem in terms of its symptoms. Your goal should be to solve the problem, not just eliminate its temporary symptoms.” “Identify the criteria. Most decisions require you to accomplish more than one objective. When buying a car, you may want to maximize fuel economy, minimize cost, maximize comfort, and so on. The rational decision maker will identify all relevant criteria in the decision-making process.” “Weight the criteria. Different criteria will vary in importance to a decision maker. Rational decision makers will know the relative value they place on each of the criteria identified (for example, the relative importance of fuel economy versus cost versus comfort). The value may be specified in dollars, points, or whatever scoring system makes sense.” “Generate alternatives. The fourth step in the decision-making process requires identification of possible courses of action. Decision makers often spend an inappropriate amount of search time seeking alternatives, thus creating a barrier to effective decision making. An optimal search continues only until the cost of the search outweighs the value of added information.” “Rate each alternative on each criterion. How well will each of the alternative solutions achieve each of the defined criteria? This is often the most difficult stage of the decision-making process, as it typically requires us to forecast future events. The rational decision maker carefully assesses the potential consequences on each of the identified criteria of selecting each of the alternative solutions.” “Compute the optimal decision. Ideally, after all of the first five steps have been completed, the process of computing the optimal decision consists of (a) multiplying the ratings in step 5 by the weight of each criterion, (b) adding up the weighted ratings across all of the criteria for each alternative, and (c) choosing the solution with the highest sum of weighted ratings.”
― Sam Kyle, The Decision Checklist: A Practical Guide to Avoiding Problems

“Kahneman calls this tendency “what you see is all there is.” We look for information that fits our thoughts, and ignore information that doesn’t.”
― Sam Kyle, The Decision Checklist: A Practical Guide to Avoiding Problems

“Daniel Kahneman calls the Availability Bias or Heuristic: We tend to most easily recall what is salient, important, frequent, and recent. The”
― Sam Kyle, The Decision Checklist: A Practical Guide to Avoiding Problems

“Keeping a decision journal prevents something called hindsight bias, which is when we tend to look back on our decision-making process, and we skew it in a way that makes us look more favorable.”
― Sam Kyle, The Decision Checklist: A Practical Guide to Avoiding Problems

“Whenever you’re making a consequential decision . . . just take a moment to think, write down what you expect to happen, why you expect it to happen and then actually, and this is optional, but probably a great idea, is write down how you feel about the situation, both physically and even emotionally. Just, how do you feel?”
― Sam Kyle, The Decision Checklist: A Practical Guide to Avoiding Problems

“review, these villains are: We’re overconfident. “People think they know more than they do about how the future will unfold.” Our frame is too narrow. “This is the tendency to define our choices too narrowly, to see them in binary terms. We ask, ‘Should I break up with my partner or not?’ instead of ‘What are the ways I could make this relationship better?’” We rely on short-term emotion. “When we’ve got a difficult decision to make, our feelings churn. We replay the same arguments in our head. We agonize about our circumstances. We change our minds from day to day. If our decision was represented on a spreadsheet, none of the numbers would be changing—there’s no new information being added—but it doesn’t feel that way in our heads.” We have confirmation bias. “When people have the opportunity to collect information from the world, they are more likely to select information that supports their preexisting attitudes, beliefs, and actions.” We pretend we want the truth, yet all we really want is reassurance.”
― Sam Kyle, The Decision Checklist: A Practical Guide to Avoiding Problems

“Here’s his seven-step checklist: “Write down five pre-existing company goals or priorities that will be impacted by the decision. Focusing on what is important will help you avoid the rationalization trap of making up reasons for your choices after the fact.” “Write down at least three, but ideally four or more, realistic alternatives. One can be staying put and doing nothing. It might take a little effort and creativity, but no other practice improves decisions more than expanding your choices.” “Write down the most important information you are missing. We risk ignoring what we don’t know because we are distracted by what we do know, especially in today’s information-rich businesses.” “Write down the impact your decision will have one year in the future. Telling a brief story of the expected outcome of the decision will help you identify similar scenarios that can provide useful perspective.” “Involve a team of at least two but no more than six stakeholders. Getting more perspectives reduces your bias and increases buy-in—but bigger groups have diminishing returns.” “Write down what was decided, as well as why and how much the team supports the decision. Writing these things down increases commitment and establishes a basis to measure the results of the decision.” “Schedule a decision follow-up in one to two months. We often forget to check in when decisions are going poorly, missing the opportunity to make corrections and learn from what’s happened.”
― Sam Kyle, The Decision Checklist: A Practical Guide to Avoiding Problems

“As with physical tools, the lack of a mental tool at a crucial moment can lead to a bad result, and the use of a wrong mental tool is even worse.”
— Shane Parrish”
― Sam Kyle, The Decision Checklist: A Practical Guide to Avoiding Problems

“Conduct a 360º performance review with your colleagues to help you understand your decision-making strengths and blind spots. Take a personality assessment to gain a deeper understanding of how your preferences may affect your decision making. Also use your decision journal to respond to these prompts: Write about one decision where you didn’t take responsibility. What happened? What was your role? Why didn’t you take responsibility? What would you do differently now? Write about one decision where your indecisiveness cost you or your company. What happened? Why were you indecisive? What would you do differently?”
― Sam Kyle, The Decision Checklist: A Practical Guide to Avoiding Problems

“I know a decision journal has helped me change the way I make decisions. It has provided me with a feedback loop, and a mechanism to switch from unconscious to conscious, which is one of the most valuable things you can have.”
― Sam Kyle, The Decision Checklist: A Practical Guide to Avoiding Problems

“Work on the right decision problem. The way you frame your decision at the outset can make all the difference. To choose well, you need to state your decision problems carefully, acknowledging their complexity and avoiding unwarranted assumptions and option-limiting prejudices.” “Specify your objectives. A decision is a means to an end. Ask yourself what you most want to accomplish and which of your interests, values, concerns, fears, and aspirations are most relevant to achieving your goal.” “Create imaginative alternatives. Remember: your decision can be no better than your best alternative.” Everything has an opportunity cost, which is the loss of potential gain from other alternatives when one alternative is chosen. “Understand the consequences. Assessing frankly the consequences of each alternative will help you to identify those that best meet your objectives—all your objectives.” “Grapple with your tradeoffs. Because objectives frequently conflict with one another, you’ll need to strike a balance. Some of this must sometimes be sacrificed in favor of some of that.” “Clarify your uncertainties. What could happen in the future, and how likely is it that it will?” “Think hard about your risk tolerance. When decisions involve uncertainties, the desired consequence may not be the one that actually results. A much-deliberated bone marrow transplant may or may not halt cancer.” “Consider linked decisions. What you decide today could influence your choices tomorrow, and your goals for tomorrow should influence your choices today. Thus many important decisions are linked over time.”
― Sam Kyle, The Decision Checklist: A Practical Guide to Avoiding Problems

“The most important skill a skipper can have is the ability to see through the eyes of the crew.”
― Sam Kyle, The Decision Checklist: A Practical Guide to Avoiding Problems

“If you want to be able to trust your gut feelings, you have to put effort into learning where your intuition let you down. Don’t abandon it, improve it.”
― Sam Kyle, Hell Yeah! or Hell No! And How to Tell the Difference: The Ultimate Guide to Intuitive Decision Making

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards." — Søren Kierkegaard”
― Sam Kyle, The Decision Checklist: A Practical Guide to Avoiding Problems