Never Go with Your Gut: How Pioneering Leaders Make the Best Decisions and Avoid Business Disasters

by Gleb Tsipursky, Howard J. Ross, Kevin T. Collins (Narrator)

Avoid terrible advice, confirmation bias, and poor decisions.

Want to avoid business disasters, whether minor mishaps, such as excessive team conflict, or major calamities like those that threaten bankruptcy or doom a promising career? Fortunately, behavioral economics studies show that such disasters stem from poor decisions due to our faulty mental patterns—what scholars call “cognitive biases”—and are preventable.

Unfortunately, the typical advice for business leaders to “go with their guts” plays into these cognitive biases and leads to disastrous decisions that devastate the bottom line. By combining practical case studies with cutting-edge research, Never Go With Your Gut will help you make the best decisions and prevent these business disasters.

The leading expert on avoiding business disasters, Dr. Gleb Tsipursky, draws on over 20 years of extensive consulting, coaching, and speaking experience to show how pioneering leaders and organizations—many of them his clients—avoid business disasters. Reading this book will enable you to:

Discover how pioneering leaders and organizations address cognitive biases to avoid disastrous decisions.
Adapt best practices on avoiding business disasters from these leaders and organizations to your own context.
Develop processes that empower everyone in your organization to avoid business disasters.

Genres: Business, Leadership, Nonfiction, Psychology, Management, Self Help, Personal Development

Audible Audio

First published November 1, 2019

About the author

Dr. Gleb Tsipursky helps leaders use hybrid work to improve retention and productivity while cutting costs. He serves as the CEO of the boutique future-of-work consultancy Disaster Avoidance Experts, which helps organizations adopt a hybrid-first culture, instead of incrementally improving on the traditional office-centric culture.

He authored seven books, including the global best-sellers Never Go With Your Gut: How Pioneering Leaders Make the Best Decisions and Avoid Business Disasters (Career Press, 2019) and The Blindspots Between Us: How to Overcome Unconscious Cognitive Bias and Build Better Relationships (New Harbinger, 2020). His new book is Returning to the Office and Leading Hybrid and Remote Teams: A Manual on Benchmarking to Best Practices for Competitive Advantage (Intentional Insights, 2020). His writing was translated into Chinese, Korean, German, Russian, Polish, Spanish, French, and other languages.

Dr. Tsipursky’s cutting-edge thought leadership was featured in over 650 articles and 550 interviews in prominent venues. They include Harvard Business Review, Fortune, Fast Company, CBS News, CNBC, Entrepreneur, Business Insider, Government Executive, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Time, Inc. Magazine, Boston Globe, New York Daily News, Fox News, USA Today, Forbes, and elsewhere.

His expertise stems from over 20 years of consulting, coaching, speaking, and training experience on future-proofing, strategic decision making and planning, and cognitive bias risk management. His hundreds of clients include innovative startups, major nonprofits, and Fortune 500 companies from Aflac to Xerox. It also comes from his strong research and teaching background as a behavioral scientist. After spending 8 years getting a PhD and lecturing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he served for 7 years as a professor at the Ohio State University’s Decision Sciences Collaborative and History Department. He published dozens of peer-reviewed articles in academic journals such as Behavior and Social Issues and Journal of Social and Political Psychology.

A proud Ukrainian American, Dr. Gleb lives in Columbus, Ohio (Go Bucks!). In his free time, he makes sure to spend abundant quality time with his wife to avoid his personal life turning into a disaster.

Contact him at Gleb[at]DisasterAvoidanceExperts[dot]com, follow him on Twitter @gleb_tsipursky, Instagram @dr_gleb_tsipursky, and register for his free Wise Decision Maker Course https://disasteravoidanceexperts.com/...

Reviews

[Felicia Cravens · Rating 5 out of 5]

Behavioral science tells us that we think we're smarter and wiser about making decisions than we actually tend to be. We "know" so many things that aren't true, and we hold on to those beliefs even in the face of objective evidence that we're wrong. In our personal lives, that can be problematic. In business, it can be disastrous.

Dr. Tsipursky delivers some good news, though. We can learn to recognize and counter our cognitive biases, and that can give us a competitive advantage in business. Yes, the work is hard, but chances are that few of our competitors are putting in this kind of work to learn to make better decisions. The strategies in this book can almost immediately put us ahead of much of our competition.

And the exercises aren't solely applicable to business cases, either. While in the middle of reading this book, I found myself confronted with a situation in my personal life. The issue was similar to a case covered in the book, and it caused me to pause and reevaluate what was happening. Because I was now primed to think differently, I was able to quickly recognize the problem I was walking into, and apply some of the techniques from the book to slow down and think through the best way to respond, instead of charging into battle immediately and suffering a far worse outcome.

That's one of the best things about the book. The cases resonate, and the exercises can start helping immediately. And if you don't have time to read and reflect on the entire book right away, it's organized so that you can get an overview and introduction to the concepts quickly, and focus on the areas where you might need more immediate attention.

[Bryan Fox · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's funny, but in an effort to write a short, breezy text that appeals to the corporate type who's "too busy to read", the author has managed to produce something which reads more like an appliance instruction manual than a book which actually addresses the many cognitive biases on which his principles are based.

I suppose if you know NOTHING about cognitive biases, and really ARE "too busy to read", this might be useful for you in the business world. But the exercises at the end of each section, which the author describes as "essential", are literally just the same question, again and again: "When have you been affected by - insert name of cognitive bias - and how could you have behaved differently?"

[Thomas Wikman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Think Outside of your Cognitive Bias Box

Going with your “Gut” or allowing your Cognitive Biases and emotional reactions to guide your business decisions is a bad idea. This conclusion is based on scientific research in, for example, behavioral economics, neuroscience and psychology. However, Dr. Gleb Tsipursky also give a lot of real-world examples that help you understand why. These examples are interesting and entertaining stories that make the book fun to read.

I was aware of some well-known cognitive biases such as; confirmation bias --- when you look for information that confirms your belief and ignore information that contradicts the belief, sunken cost bias --- when you fail to divest because you hope to regain the losses, the Dunning Kruger effect when people with limited knowledge greatly overestimate their own understanding. In this book Dr. Gleb Tsipursky describes more than 30 different kind of cognitive bias and how to detect them in others and in yourself as well as how to fight them. He provides decision making approaches that avoids the various pitfalls and processes you can use to help others become aware of and fight their cognitive biases (EGRIP). The book also teaches something called Probabilistic Thinking.

The book contains a lot of exercises that help you detect and deal with cognitive biases in yourself and others. Doing the exercises is a great approach to self-discovery. It is a lot more difficult to acknowledge cognitive biases that you yourself have as compared to discovering them in others, which is one reason the exercises are important. Once you understand one type of bias and how to deal with it in practice you can help others and yourself, but it takes more work to do the same for yourself. In my opinion this book is not just for business leaders and professionals. Understanding these cognitive biases and learning how to deal with them can help us lead better and smarter lives and help us form more realistic opinions and world views.

In summary, this book will help you discover and deal with the biases that prevent you from acting more rational and it will teach you to use evidence based reasoning and probabilistic thinking. This book could help all of us become better professionals and live our lives better.

[Laszlo Makay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Do you have an aim to reach?
Book review of „Never Go With Your Gut” by Gleb Tsipursky

It seems that thinking is not the most fashionable occupation nowadays. Political leaders give the impression of living in a post-truth reality, business leaders are busy with PR and marketing, religious leaders rightly focus on your soul, but ignore your mind and this new species of „influencers” are… well just influencing you as a profession.
And now, here comes a book trying to teach you thinking better.
Nominally it addresses business decisions makers, and yes, it is highly useful for any business leader. Why? Because business errors are very costly. While making a wrong decision of choosing a not fitting running shoe gives you a sour feet, making a wrong business decision can cost millions of dollars. So, learning how to avoid them is worth some time. This book does offer practical guidelines and tools to recognize and avoid the most critical problems. I have never seen so many fallacies, judgement errors and biases listed and explained before. I didn’t even know that there are so many. If a business leader can duck just few of them, then buying and reading this book has very high short-term return indeed.
But even if you are just an everyday dude like me, you can still profit a lot from this book. Why? First because you are a target for all the above politicians, marketeers, religious leaders and influencers. They try to influence you to reach their aims, not yours. And what is their easiest way to do that? Exploiting your biases so your wrong decisions will serve them, not yourself.
But the real part comes after you learnt resisting manipulations. If you follow your true aims, you don’t want to fail. “Avoiding business disasters” - as the book says - is fine. What about avoiding personal disasters too, and reaching your aims? You can choose your aims with your gut, aims are deeply personal anyway. But realizing them requires the right decisions.

[Brandon Laws · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the smartest books I have read in a long time. I have a lot of work to do as a leader when it comes to decision making. This should be required reading for new and existing leaders.

[Jason Hillenburg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gleb Tsipursky’s latest book Never Go with Your Gut: How Pioneering Leaders Make the Best Decisions and Avoid Business Disasters gains much of its luster and credibility from Tsipursky’s reputation as a pre-eminent expert on Disaster Avoidance. He serves as CEO of Disaster Avoidance Experts, a consulting and training firm with a client roster peppered with numerous Fortune 500 companies, non-profits, and mid-sized businesses. Tsipursky’s preceding book The Truth-Seeker’s Handbook: A Science-Based Guide generated a substantial buzz and its successor will likely do the same. Tsipursky’s target as a sacred cow of sorts, but it follows the same path of withering analysis defining his debut.

The aforementioned sacred cow is the popular concept of “trusting your gut” when making major decisions. Tsipursky makes a case from the outset that advice to follow your instincts when holding a place of leadership and/or fiduciary responsibility is a catastrophic mistake, One of the main thrusts of Tsipursky’s book is how dispassionate and rational thinking is the hallmark of successful business decisions, but the same principle extends across the scope of our lives. Never Go with Your Gut never limits itself to a narrow application of its theme; the author’s innate understanding of humanity and self-realization of our potential has a wide scope.

AUTHOR WEBSITE: https://disasteravoidanceexperts.com/

The assertive first-people writing gives Tsipursky’s writing an added wallop missing from similar texts. It isn’t difficult to discern the public speaking influence on the book’s prose, but there’s a traditional linear structure tethered to literary ties rather directed at an audience. The central ideas at the book’s heart, like his eight step decision making model, are presented with straight forward clarity and have practical application.

Tsipursky underlines his passion for the topic writing about his father. Contributions like this humanize possibly dry material and strength the personal touch driving he book. Never Trust Your Gut may be surprising to some; it isn’t a given to expect that making decisions based on a “hunch” or “a feeling” holds great cachet among business and organizational leaders. Tsipursky makes it clear, however, that organizations of all sizes romanticize instinctual decision-making whereas Never Trust Your Gut lays out smorgasbords of practical and well researched reasons pushing back against that approach.

AMAZON: https://amzn.to/2OPneKh

No serious discussion of this would be complete without examining how human bias affects decision making. Plotting our everyday trajectories along the track of our emotions invites disarray and inconsistent for many reasons. Our predilection towards indulging our biases, however, ranks as one of the larger complications with such an approach to life. We will succumb to flimsy conclusions, react rather than act, and stuck with cleaning up a mess of your own making. Tsipursky makes the consequences clear for readers and ring with credibility.

Never Go with Your Gut: How Pioneering Leaders Make the Best Decisions and Avoid Business Disasters is a powerhouse text. Gleb Tsipursky comes across like a proverbial force of nature; his zest for promoting his point of view is palpable from first page to last; we need more voices like this. Young forward thinkers such as Tsipursky are among the ranks of those fascinated by much more than financial profit for themselves and their clients. This book, at its heart, is inspired by the idea healthy business and organizational decisions can help shape a forward path for humanity. The fact it is so well written deepens its riches and focuses a vigorous treatise on a key aspect of human character.

[Tasnuva Tonny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading books on various subjects imparts information and increases the depth about the subject as well. This book will guide me to understand the most significant ones for business settings. I would like to give my heartfelt thanks to Dr. Tsipursky to launch such a thoughtful book which helped me to become more productive & thoughtful. I think reading the book would be helpful for me because this book focuses, not only on the cognitive biases that can derail us at any stage of the decision-making process, but also on how we can resolve these issues. Also I tend to choose what’s comfortable rather than what’s true or good for me. I think I should read this book as I am a professional who wants to avoid disastrous judgment errors in managing my present and future career. We can train our intentional system to spot and address our systematic and predictable dangerous judgment errors in business and other life areas.

This book would have been helpful in the past as I was a small business owner who wanted to lead the organization safely and securely into the increasingly disrupted future and avoid the trip wires that will cause competitors to stumble. After completion of my Engineering I served 2.5 years in a multinational organization also achieved the Best Employee Award but suddenly the official environment changed & I had to leave the job. I was mentally so depressed that time & started small business without thinking its future. For that reason, my product selection & marketing policy was wrong. If I would get chance to read this book earlier, it will mark a paradigm shift in my professional lives. I truly feel that after reading this book I won’t fall into cognitive biases.

By reading the book I came to know about the halo effect which describes a mental error we make when we like one important characteristic of a person; we then subconsciously raise our estimates of that person’s other characteristics. I also came to know about the horns effect reflects the mistake of subconsciously lowering our estimates of a person when we don’t like one salient characteristic. We fall too easily for repeated rumors in business settings. When we like one important characteristic of a person, our gut moves us to overestimate all other positive aspects of that person and downplay any negatives; the reverse happens when we don’t like one important characteristic, this read proved surprising and unexpected for me. When going with our gut, we pay too much attention to the most emotionally relevant factors in our immediate environment, the ones that feel like they are the most critical, whether or not they’re the most important ones. This will be taking forward with me.

A cognitive bias I found in the book is “Self-serving bias”, a problem I often see undermining teamwork and collaboration, namely, when people tend to claim credit for success and deflect blame for failure. People might call this human nature, but behavioral science scholars call this the self-serving bias. I truly agree Poor strategic leadership decision-making is responsible for such disasters, yet neither these leaders nor their followers received professional development in making decisions. I always believe in the phrase which is perfectly described in this book that “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing”, this is mental error, people with limited knowledge on a topic feel much more confident about their judgments compared with true experts on a topic. This book allows me to know that successful people are uncomfortable with the realization that luck sometimes plays a much larger role in the success of decision-makers than skill. The best that decision-makers can do is maximize the possibility of success, and then roll the dice.

[Beatrice Sargin · Rating 5 out of 5]

At first, the title of the book compelled me to want to have an idea of why I should stop trusting my guts. For me, I was a bit biased because I for one have always trusted my guts in everything whether it failed me or NOT because I always believed in LUCK. But then because I am the never quitting type when it comes to acquiring knowledge and learning something new, I was sure there's a perfectly rational explanation on what this book entails so I purchased it and am by far amazed at the rich contents in this book. When I read the first chapter on "the Gut or the head" I realized my mistakes when I carefully understood the roles of the two thinking systems, the autopilot, and the intentional systems. I understood the danger zone of the cognitive biases. I came to terms that Irrational behavior usually results from systematic and predictable mental errors that researchers term cognitive biases. Everyone needs to know about the twelve techniques to address dangerous judgment errors if you're my kind of person who usually likes to go with their guts. But I am glad it's all in the past now. That was due to the wrong wiring of my brains.


This book helped me in creating an awareness of a lifetime to never trust my guts in major decisions. If you want to be a great leader in life, make great decisions and build your confidence level, this book is what you need. No one loves to be losers in their careers and business. This book showed that the cognitive bias behind our faulty decision-making is called loss aversion, which is caused by our tendency to prefer avoiding losses over getting higher gains. After reading this book, I have put my head in the right-thinking platform and am set for exploits in my career. Now I have a better understanding of why I shouldn't trust my guts when it comes to making decision. Now my colleagues see a different me in the way I talk, reason and make effective decisions and am glad this book has a role to play in that success part.


I remember 6 months ago I was called by my superior and given a project to handle. It had to do with health and wellness and I was to take the project home and map out things to be done to improve the project. So I did and I trusted my guts back then and I was overconfident and this ruined my reports and feedback. I missed out providing answers to so many loopholes spotted by my superior and this got the better of me. The project was put on hold indefinitely and I needed to learn with that project to horn my skills. It was like I just missed an opportunity flashed passed me because I so much trusted my guts. If I had seen and read this book earlier I wouldn't have made a bad choice of trusting my guts.


So far my key takeaways in this book are the eight-step decision-making model that I will start implementing to help me provide much-needed guidance for pulling together and implementing the debiasing strategies in this book when making effective decisions and the five key questions to always ask myself to avoid decision disasters.

I am a victim of going with my guts and this book touches on it and why we fail at it as well as why not to trust decisions we make from our guts even if your gut may have not failed you. This book is an eye-opener and I strongly recommend this book to readers like me and people who want to define a new meaning and purpose in their lives.

[Janica · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book NEVER GO WITH YOUR GUT provides valuable information that gives individual a basis on how to come up with a wiser decision. The future of the company as a whole depends on how business leaders decide. Further, this book teaches how to deal with the “internal” self in every situation that requires decision making.

I’ve known a friend who tried to establish an investment group. It is composed of five individuals who agreed to have a monthly due. It was agreed that the dues are intended to invest in higher interest such as stocks and mutual funds. At the beginning, it turns out so well. Until one day, one of the members, driven by gut, decided to host a concert. Confidently he assures the group that his proposal would earn much. In the long run, the event turns out to be losing, and there were misunderstanding among the members which eventually lead the group into withdrawal.
Should the group had known this book, the group would have a different perspective on how to put in place all the necessary things to be done particularly the attitude of handling a startup business.

What surprises me in this book is that, in every chapter contains information on how to process the self. In fact, for some reasons there are times that I am confused especially when the book provides a research where gut could be right. However, in my own point of view, I would go for a more systematize approach in decision making rather than following the gut feeling. Further, every time I feel gutsy, I will consider it as a basis to evaluate and process situations before decision will be made.

Having limited resources on how to start a business is one of my problems. My parents are not businessperson, or my profession does not teach business. In the book, there are twelve techniques to address these issues.
Identify and make plan to address dangerous judgment errors – should I be confronted with a risky situation where decision is necessary, I would evaluate the situation, examine every angle and possibilities, consult expert if necessary, to avoid unnecessary results.
Delay in decision-making – should I be so unsure; I would spend some time to review all necessary factors before deciding.
Mindfulness and meditation – I will spend time to consider the people directly or indirectly involve in my decision. I would spend time to meditate to energize my capacity to think critically.
Probabilistic thinking – should unnecessary event will happen I would spend my time finding evidences on how or why things happened.
Making predictions about the future – as a visionary, it is important to make predictions about the future. It includes, changing attitude, changing strategies, eliminating traditions.
Considering alternative explanations and options – should the behavior of the people around is unpleasant, I would rather check what is behind reason.
Considering our past experience – we learn from the past. Should the experience lead us to prosper, then continue. Should it made us broke, then move on and find new ways.
Evaluate the long-term future and repeating scenarios – our daily routine determines the outcome of our goal. There is always the need to evaluate if there is a need to change of the routine to bring the company to a greater profit.
Considering other people’s point of view – listening is the best way to learn. Using an outside view to get an external perspective – check and balance approach. Consulting stakeholders is best method in setting direction to the company.
Setting a policy that guides your future self or your organization – to avoid the risk of bankruptcy and abuse of employee or business partners, setting policy is a best way.
Making a precommitment – adaptability of other organizations that are helpful.

[Jo Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I find reading the book title “Never Go With Your Gut” ironic. But as they say, don’t judge a book by its cover. Ironic in a sense that as humans, we tend to be emotionally trusting our gut whenever we make decisions or we feel there is something wrong. This book would guide me to shift my perspective into how I deal with my personal and career choices to avoid committing the same mistake.

When I was already working in a corporate environment, it came across my mind to pursue a masters degree in business so that I could do something productive during weekends and for my future plans. I did go after my plan but it was an impulsive decision. It was a plan I had but I didn’t really think through of the struggles I may encounter. That time I was working as a full time employee, business and studies. It was hard for me to focus as I have been juggling a lot of workload on my shoulder and I ended up giving up my studies. If I knew what I have read in this book, especially the 8 steps in decision making I would have made the right decision back then which will certainly not cost me money, time and energy.

It caught my attention while I was reading “If you feel uncomfortable with a situation, don’t just rely on your instincts and go with your autopilot system. Instead, turn on the intentional system to analyze what’s going on.” To be honest, this strike me because most of the time I rely on my instincts. And when I do, I always have this question “Did I make the right decision?” and then feel guilty or regret about it. With what I have read in the book, cognitive biases were mentioned and there were 30 of them in which we should evaluate ourselves if we were in collision with these biases and use debiasing techniques to address potential judgement errors.

On the other hand, there are a lot of cognitive biases that I might or be vulnerable but I think it would be attentional bias. There are times which I tend to not really being keen to details which led to committing mistakes. Also, when it comes to people I am not really the discerning one. With this, I must be able to pay attention on this bias and learn to evaluate the situation where have I gone wrong. Ask certain people for feedback. And also, take into consideration that there are other factors that are important too.

[June Lyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the books that I am excited to read until the last chapter because you would learn so many things, from strategies and techniques that you can apply to avoid potential disasters in decision making. I am an introvert person, I usually follow my gut when deciding things for myself that led to dangerous errors. But, when I read the book, I've learned and experienced that when you follow your gut it will only result to cognitive biases.

One of the situations in the past that I used my gut was when I applied in one of the car companies here in our town, I just applied because I saw their hiring post online and because the location was convenient to me without thinking what could be my future when I join the organization, I got hired but I only lasted for 3 months because of the poor people management and super toxic culture.

If I read this book back then, I should have done my thorough research about their profile, what benefits they have for their employees, and would not end up applying and wasting my time there. But, I am very fortunate to have this book, it's my guide most esp. in making decisions every day.

This book helps me every time I go shopping. Before, I just get what I want even if I don't need it as long as it looks beautiful in my eyes and ended up just using it once or twice because I don't like it anymore, so basically I am not good in handling money. But, now after reading this book, I could say I've changed 360 degrees when it comes to managing my finances. Now, I have an expense tracker, I also think many times and do my research if this product is worth buying and if I do have a budget for it. I actually get tempted when I see the latest products in the store, at the back of my mind, I can hear "Hey, get yourself a reward, buy that one, you only live once, so enjoy your money", but I always go back to the Eight-Step Decision-Making Model stated in this book that greatly help in avoiding serious problems.

[Kh Monjurul · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you want to save your business from yourself or your gut decision, and want to avoid disasters, this book would be very helpful for you. Most of the business leaders take decisions from their heart, not from their head.
“Never Go With Your Gut” is a book written by Dr. Gleb Tsipursky who is a disaster avoidance expert. In this book the author simply describe the way to avoid other terrible advice, cognitive biases and wrong decisions in the work-place thus a business leader can be able to avoid business disasters.

When I completed my MBA, I wanted to be a leader and started my own online business. I thought if I follow my passion I must be successful. When I launch my favorable product in my locality without verifying the demand in the market, I saw that this product is not properly welcomed by the consumer. They would like to buy this product from local market rather than online market. My gut decision about which product had to launch in online business sector proved wrong. If I had this book earlier, perhaps I could have avoided some bad situations in my life.

There are many cognitive biases and dangerous judgmental error which has great impact on our gut based decisions. I found 12 specific techniques to address dangerous judgmental errors in this book. It includes Identify elements and make a plan, Probabilistic thinking, make predictions about the future, Consider alternative options, past experiences and other people’s perspectives and so on. I think it helps me to take proper decision in workplace.

Another cognitive bias which is described in this book is overconfidence. As a leader one should have to be confident, not overconfident. Dr. Gleb Tsipursky identified some judgmental errors in our professional life and included many exercises for us. I feel that this book is highly recommended for leaders, decision makers and business professionals. Thanks all.

[James Melvin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this book is very helpful to me, it explains how our gut-based ways could lead to disastrous decision. What I like about this book is it explains how our instincts could control us resulting to terrible decisions.
I still could remember one situation in my life where I somehow regret because I follow my gut without evaluating my decision thoroughly, that was when I chose my college course based on what I know was easy and because of the opinion of everyone else. I knew from the very start before I graduated from high school that I wanted to take a business course, but my family and friends kept telling me that I should not because it would be so hard and there are much easier courses. So, I take another path, which is completely different from what I really love to do. And now, there's no more enough time to do what I like, there's so much time and resources wasted. If I read this book long time ago, I might not feel any regret now because this will guide me on how to make better decision in my life.
By reading this book, I learned so many things like in our modern world; many people go with their gut because trusting such feels comfortable even if this will lead to bad decisions. I usually follow my gut in making decisions in so many areas of my life, and ended up with regret. I've learned that we should verify our gut first, whether it could be a threat or an opportunity, instead of going with your heart because it feels right, I will surely take this passage with me moving forward. I am a person who decides abruptly without thinking the long term effect, like buying things that are not useful but could satisfy me in a short period of time. I will definitely follow the intentional system instead of the autopilot, because in intentional system, it changes your automatic thinking, feeling, and behavior patterns to avoid dangerous judgment errors.

[Kezia Tabago · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a young professional in business and finance, I prefer learning that is seamless, flexible, and holistic. With using continuous improvement in gaining competitive advantage, this book opened room for learning the psychology of non-monetary considerations in decision making. Reading about sections regarding the scandals with Enron and Tyco reminded me of the ever famous Madoff Scandal. I could not guarantee the motive behind such malpractice and defrauding but had Bernie been aware of different kinds of biases, he might have found a way to revive and straighten the operations. With reading points in this book, my key take away was: we are more evolved beings. We should no longer be carried away by intuitions and gut feelings because of biases. We are lucky enough that works specially the advocacy of Dr. Tsipursky (to be more reliant on science based decision making) are already being shared to us. I became reminiscent to the time I had a costly training when I read on the eight step decision making. To make my story short, I took on an overpriced training without looking at the situation holistically. I ended up spending a lot more than I could've afforded at the time. I love the story on Patricia, the CPA who wanted to leave her job. This is an unexpected take away from me because I am guilty of this cognitive bias: THE STATUS QUO BIAS. I tend to stay on the comfort or safe zone. With all the guide and key points in this group, I feel I can step out of my comfort zone and make better decisions.

[Alexandra Leigon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just finished reading Gleb Tsipursky’s book, “Never Go With Your Gut”, and there could not be a better or more timely publication! The increasing complexity of our world, driven by the technological revolution, is forcing us to find more and better ways of making effective decisions quickly. With the greater availability of psychological research to guide us, understanding how our minds work has become the new tool set for every individual who wants to succeed in any field.

Although this book is clearly intended for application in the corporate sphere, which is the author’s area of expertise, it is an accessible, engaging and practical resource for decision makers of all kinds. Written in a clear, concise and conversational style, with personal experiences that engage the reader, the book is organized in a step-by-step checklist format that can be easily and quickly accessed. Understanding the effects of cognitive bias in our thinking and decisions is one of the most vital tools we, as mentors, can offer our clients. In my opinion, “Never Go With YourGut” should be a dog-eared, highlighted manual in the personal library of every mentor! Not only does this book offer a handy guide for our own professional decision-making, it also provides an effective way to engage our clients in the necessary self-examination that must become an ongoing practice for them. It should be required reading for every client we serve and a manual for all mentors who seek to empower their clients to make wise decisions!

Alexandra Leigon
President
The Moebius Fund

[Tara Garrigan]

I found this book from the Marketing-Mentor.com blog post and podcast interview. Ilise Benun writes "I spoke with Dr. Gleb Tsipursky about why his new book, “Never Go With Your Gut: How Pioneering Leaders Make the Best Decisions and Avoid Business Disasters,” advocates ignoring your natural instincts when it comes to making business decisions.

His book is about using cognitive neuroscience and behavioral economics to avoid mistakes in your business. I was especially interested in the idea of cognitive biases, the term for decision errors that are made simply because of how our brains are wired.

Here are a few simple thoughts that came out of the conversation:

Don’t wait for your gut to tell you when you’re ready - just start the work. Even if it turns out to be bad work, you’re helping yourself develop the habit of exercising your brain and creativity
What’s comfortable isn’t necessarily good
Our primitive instincts and intuition were not built for our modern environment
Dr. Tsipursky’s disaster avoidance expertise has helped him to find counterintuitive techniques that can be used to combat cognitive biases. While all types struggle with them, we focused on several cognitive biases that are common to many creatives. Absence blindness (or what he calls survivorship bias) is one that I was especially curious about. This is the idea that a person is unable to value what they can’t see. What effect does that have on the value of creative work if the client doesn’t understand the process?"

Based on this interview, I'm definitely interested to hear more!

[Han Nanah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the books I have read that is very informative and helpful to me especially in making any decision. I will definitely make this book as my reference whenever I will make whether small or very important decision.
I have made decisions in the past which turns out to be a disaster. I quit my job which is a good company and decided to apply to another which I did not thoroughly research and think if it will be a good choice. I ended up quitting my new job after 4 months because it is not a good choice after all. This book could have been helpful as I believe it will be a great help to avoid such disastrous decision.
I learned a lot of new things by reading this book, especially the Five Questions to Avoid Decision Disasters. Those five key questions strikes me because before I did not have guidelines or questions to follow whenever I am facing big decisions. I will be using it from now on to help avoid disastrous decision in the future.
What really strikes me is that I am guilty as to what Dr. Gleb mentioned in the book as having “bias blind spot”. Not realizing I am doing something wrong or choosing the wrong decision because I believe in my gut and past experiences. The topic about “bias blind spot” is an eye opener for me and for anyone who will read this book that believes they don’t have blind spots and have perfectly clear vision of reality and that their decision-making is optimal. This book is really worth reading!

[Alex Weissenfels · Rating 5 out of 5]

(Full disclosure, I once served on the board of directors of Intentional Insights, of which the author is a co-founder.)

Never Go With Your Gut is a solid compilation of reliable techniques for avoiding being led astray by one's own brain in a professional context. It explains biases from a practical perspective, shows examples of how they affect our efforts, and provides exercises for recognizing and overcoming them. The exercises have simple steps for applying one's new awareness of different cognitive biases to improve the outcomes of one's efforts. This book doesn't waste any time or space, and covers tremendous ground in under 200 pages.

To acknowledge the "illusion of transparency" bias, I must admit I can't say for certain how easily people who aren't already familiar with biases will be able to absorb and apply this knowledge. However, the examples seem to introduce the concepts quite well, and the exercises invite people to take a step back and reflect on each bias one by one, to relate it to their own lives.

Inspired by reading Never Go With Your Gut, I am already taking steps to address my loss aversion bias and sunk cost fallacy, which have been distorting my priorities.

I'd like to see how far the world would leap ahead if more business executives (and people in general) took this book to heart.

[Avwenceslao · Rating 5 out of 5]

In reading Never Go With Your Gut: How Pioneering Leaders Avoid Business Disasters and Make the Best Decisions, It helps me understand the subconscious biases that can lead to both bad and dangerous decisions. It offers simple yet effective techniques that can be used by any individual to strengthen their decisions and defend themselves against dangerous judgment errors.

I still regret turning down a great job offer abroad because I trusted my gut, reflecting on some bad decisions in my life that could have been avoided if I had this book earlier. After reading this book, I realized that going with my gut wasn't so good for me. This book provides sensible and effective solutions to problems in decision-making. It helps leaders to be aware of when their emotions drive them to make poor decisions, providing individuals with clear and easy techniques to improve judgment calls.

I may be vulnerable to many cognitive biases, but I think it will be a status quo bias. Often I tend to favor the comfortable and prefer things to stay the same instead of choosing change, sometimes instead of trying something new I choose to go on with a previously made decision. Following this book's teaching will give me insights and helpful strategies for living a more productive and rewarding life.

[Wayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have a history of making poor decisions or being unable to make any decisions at all? This book may just help you get past that problem. The author comes at the process of decision-making from both a scientific -- behavioral economics, psychology, cognitive neuroscience -- and practical, first-hand, experience as a consultant, educator and businessperson, perspective. His methodology works. Why? Because it bypasses our in-built, knee-jerk response mechanisms by way of a structured series of rational steps that, though geared specifically to business, can be applied to many of life's big decisions. It’s also an easy read. Though he does use some jargon to describe his process, he defines it so that the reader isn’t left floundering in incomprehensible technospeak. He’s also written the book in a way that is self-referential, i.e., he’s done the work of leading the reader back to the parts that may need to be re-read or referenced for best effect, rather than leaving it to the reader to have to do so. And as icing on the cake, he’s provided short-cuts for those so pressed for time that they can’t afford to apply the full process in the moment. Making the decision to buy this book on rational decision-making, as well as to buy into his methodology, may turn out to be one of the best decisions you ever made.

[Ruona Sargin · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I came across this book I was impressed because I am the kind of person who likes to be different in my way. When others are going left, I would rather go right. This book title kind of drew me towards a feeling of a sense of belonging that I finally found something that takes sides with me, so I wanted to learn more. No doubt, I don't trust my gut at times, I make decisions based on logistics and am still figuring out better ways to make effective decisions until I came to know about the rich content of this book. After reading each chapter of the book, I discovered I am a victim of what the book describes as the Dunning Kruger Effect. In a section that discussed The Many Flavors of Overconfidence The phrase “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing” helps explain a cognitive bias related to overconfidence called the Dunning-Kruger effect.

As a professional, my overconfidence has been my greatest disaster as I applied the same strategy to succeed consequently and this method doesn't always provide the desired results for what am expecting. Moreover, the 8 step decision-making model has been my latest key and approach towards making impactful business decisions and this book has finally been the missing piece I need to fill in the void as a successful business leader in effective decision making.

In the aspect of failing to plan and plan to fail, I am recently a victim of that. One month ago I made a decision using my autopilot system and it got the better of me. I lost a fortune down the drain because of my bad choices. If I had read this book earlier, I would have been intentional in my decisions and I wouldn't have regretted my choices then because I would have selected better options.

Having (to) read this book, I'm privileged to be exposed to these ideas discussed in it compared to other business leaders or any other professionals who are still unaware of the dangers of typical judgment errors in the work-place. Learning about the thirty cognitive biases described in this book represent the biggest threats to your business and career success. Every CEO, Leader, Small business owner, and aspiring boss or leader needs a copy of this book. I strongly recommend this book to guide you on the right path as well thought out decisions determines how far a plan of action can succeed.

[Precious Quinte · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book entitled "Never Go With Your Gut" is helpful and insightful in every way. I make decisions everyday, and with the help of this book, I will surely be guided specially in making big decisions to avoid possible damages or disasters. I could still remember how I first had my stock trading account, I was so excited to trade. Technically, I have no strong foundation on how stocks really work. I just trusted my basic knowledge so I decided to follow my gut while buying stocks without considering and studying the technicalities and other necessary things to consider in buying stocks. After a few days, my stocks went down. I thought it was only for a few days, but weeks and months came by and the price still didn't go up as expected, that's when I realized that I had it all wrong.

I learned about Five Questions to Avoid Decision Disasters while reading this book. I believe this will serve as my guide specially in making big decisions so I will no longer have to face bad results or even if by any chance I will encounter such, it would be very minimal.

I find myself vulnerable with the ostrich effect as of the moment and I find it really hard to get back on my feet each time I receive rejections but now that I've read this book, I can say that I will be able to debias it little by little.

[John Kirbow · Rating 5 out of 5]

"It is not so much the groundbreaking‘guru’ advice or inside wisdom that makes people successful in their personal andprofessional lives, but the (seemingly) small things – the fundamentals, as we call them in the world of military training and leader development. It is the attention to the details we usually overlook that makes the biggest difference. In this case, it is the things we take for granted such as bias recognition, better heuristics andframing of problems, better ways to organize our thinking, to plan ahead for being on time, to know how to best approach a manager who may 'not like you', or simply to avoid the pitfalls of dubious reasoning. Gleb’s book gives a very accessiblebreakdown of these fundamentals, and guides readers to see that whilethese ‘simple things’ are important, they are far too often overlooked. Ittakes some training and practice to implement them, but Gleb’s book lays out alogical, comprehensive and useful road-map for doing so. It covers a good range of areas, and opensprofessionals up to one of the biggest ‘common sense’ mistakes they make: notbeing eager to see their blind spots and adapt. He makes what we (mistakenly) call ‘common sense’ far more common!"


-John Kirbow,

Army veteran, writer, skeptic and social science advocate.

[Ella Aquino · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve read so many books from consulting, marketing, self-help to personal development. I would be very honest that with my deep passion and interest towards meditation, quantum field, vibration... I had formed a belief about “follow your gut” or “intuition” or “your heart. This has led me to make awful decisions that stressed me and affected my financial investments which resulted in me been a failure so many times in life. I've realized, the mainstream teachings of gurus that had been a “marketing to the mass”. As a consumer, we need to be self-aware. We need a thorough evaluation and proper review of our choices so as not to commit a fatal mistake. Failure is part of our lives but if we can do something that we can control, then we can save unforeseen heartbreaks, stress and monetary issues that come with it.

The eight-step decision model is a key point I acknowledge in this book as it will be my lifetime guide to aid me in making well thought out decisions. Now before reviewing in all aspects of my life- personal and business. I have read and conducted my self-review and evaluation of my goals. I was amazed to look back at my previous decisions I've made that turned out a huge blow in my life, which could have been prevented.

I urge everyone to buy a copy of this book for better life's choices

[Abigail A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Business leaders who make rational decisions lead best. Here's how to do it.

In our current era, CEO’s are often revered as a combination of genius and mystic. They claim that they “go with their gut” that is, they make decisions based on feelings rather than rationality.
This magical quality of being able to make important decisions brilliantly, by way of instinct, is part of how their large pay packages are justified. They recommend that you do the same. This might be reasonable, if only it worked. As Gleb Tsipursky devastatingly shows, this frequently leads to disaster, with aforementioned geniuses suddenly declaring bankruptcy, to the detriment of their investors and workers alike. Well-researched and readable, this book shows how to avoid these disasters by using rational decision-making processes instead. Using examples and exercises, Tsipursky guides the reader though both the whys and the hows of rational decision-making. When the stakes are high, he advocates, use the processes that he lays out in order to reach decisions that will benefit your company for many years to come. If you care about your business, you should read this book.

[Carol Schepper]

In an era where deep thinking often seems to be discouraged, and business leaders and politicians are often praised for "going with their gut" - or "making decisions instincually" - it's refreshing to have a reminder that decision making needs to be based on more.
Gleb Tsipursky uses a well-reasoned approach - based on scientific research in neuroscience and psychology - to demonstrate why "going with your gut" is a poor way to make decisions. We are never as unbiased as we think we are, and when we rely solely on our guts to make decisions, we let our biases and highly subjective view rule. Other, even opposing, insights and opinions are necessary to ensure that we have all of the input we need to move past our own biases. Although it can be hard for a leader to admit - we can be wrong about something, and yet be convinced that we are right. Honestly including all the input we can before making a business-critical decision can help us avoid making a bad choice - one that could cost our business in significant ways.
All in all - I highly recommend Never Go With Your Gut - particularly for people charged with business-critical decisions.

[Randall Saunders · Rating 5 out of 5]

The central idea in Never Go With Your Gut is that the tendency of people to make snap decisions (“going with our guts”) is deeply rooted in our psyches, and while this impulse may have been very useful in humanity’s relatively simple prehistoric environment, in our very complex modern economy it often leads to disastrous business decisions. To counteract this tendency, author Gleb Tsipursky (who is also a friend of mine) examines a series of mental fallacies, “cognitive biases,” and offers techniques on how to address them, and how to be more thoughtful, and more successful, in making business decisions. Although as just described, NGWYG may sound like a dry, academic dissertation, in fact the book is just the opposite. The author’s writing style is engaging, and he makes the discussion alive and relevant to readers by drawing on well-known headline examples of business failures and on his own experiences as a business consultant. Chapters are concluded with useful summaries, and the author provides a guide on how readers can apply the lessons learned to their own businesses. NGWYG is both substantive and readable, and garnished throughout with humor. Personally, I found the ideas in NGWYG helpful not only in my workplace, but also in my life outside work, anywhere I interact with people --- that is, everywhere. NGWYG is a very useful and practical book for persons at all levels of business, from CEOs to front-line employees, wherever decisions are made.

[Teddi Fishman · Rating 5 out of 5]

The most costly expense in any business or profession isn't materials, advertising, or even labor--it's bad decision-making, yet we do audits and strategize how to minimize expenses for everything but that. What Tsipursky has written is a a guide to "continuous improvement" and "agile development" of the brain.
It's no secret that even high-functioning business leaders can become overwhelmed by limitless information availability and endless competing demands. The idea that we can trust our gut is comforting and familiar--but Tsipursky makes a clear case that it's just not so--particularly in cases where emotions, biases, and even misinformation are involved. It's precisely in situations where rationality is most needed that it can be in shortest supply. This book shows readers how to bridge the gap between wanting to make the most informed and reliable choices and knowing how to make it so.
A must-read for leaders, but also anyone who wants to minimize the awful feeling of looking back with regret and wondering how we did things that in hindsight, make no rational sense.

[Cecilia Locati · Rating 5 out of 5]

As the podcast host of Internal Control Talks, I interviewed Gleb about this book, and we had a very insightful conversation on how cognitive bias could lead decision-makers to take disastrous decisions, especially in challenging times such as now with Covid.
This book is a must-read for everybody as each one of us makes decisions every moment of the day. It is especially valuable for everyone working in a business environment especially if involved in strategic company decisions. While reading about each of the cognitive biases described in the book, I recalled dozen of situations where those biases came into play in business situations.
The book is also a very insightful read for risk and control professionals who aspire to support decision-makers in making a better evaluation of risks and manage them more effectively.
I particularly like the very practical step-by-step frameworks which Dr. Tsipurski suggest which I found very effective especially as they are coupled with practical exercises to help the reader mastering them.
Highly recommended!

[Randy Grein · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like many who grew up during the space race I loved Star Trek. I loved science even more, and always tried to stick to logic and reason. 'Go with your gut' was an strategy I always rejected but even so there are always improvements to be made. Gelb's book is not just a casual read but a manual how to improve decision making. A casual read will help, but the real benefit comes from doing the exercises in each chapter. These are designed to redirect decision making to more productive strategies. None are difficult but don't neglect them - the benefit is not the 'aha! experience but in practicing those strategies until they become habit. This may take just a few minutes each or hours, but please do not skimp. New thought habits are easy to shed and you'll want to have these down solid.