Game in the Brain

Chapter 19 is Called Illusion of Understanding (In thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman).

• Hindsight makes mistakes appear obvious, maintaining the discipline to compartmentalize the narrative without the information from the narrative with the hindsight information. 
• Success stories are Clean up and there are a ton of biases that act to “clean that mess up” and develop a causal narrative. 
• Halo Effect, Outcome Bias, and being unable to parse out the detail and relationships. These are the elements that prevent us from seeing the role of Chance. 
• Apply many various techniques to prevent from falling into those Biases. Examples are:
• Imagining a different set of information and how these would influence decisions. trying to remember from the last “Save Point”.  
• The cost and risks of getting information, what is the best practice to follow a lead. 
• Imagine ever “Roll” you had to make when you were doing the project and remember all the uncertainty you had to go through. It was uncertain for you then, and go back to that uncertain you. 
• Asking how many other ways something could have played out. 
• Look at the Biased Narrative and ask, how could this have been used to be predictive. That there were predictive elements and try to prove these elements were predictive. Just the mental exercise is taxing enough to frustrate the Bias Narrative.

The Quiet little Promisers of Heaven

I just came from Fully Booked BGC last wednesday night. I saw the breadth of the success stories and I can imagine a “SUCCESS” tag on all these books. Its like a Quiet and Inanimate Salesman promising heaven and earth from a distance, but as you pry into him there are so many disclaimers and the “success” promised is more of a fanciful story and entertainment.

All I need to do is look at “Success Stories” Online  (example see 25 Books for Success).


Goals vs Success
Its not Success we look at when we Project Manage anyway. Does a Project Manager say: “Today we succeed!”. If one wants to achieve a GOAL then they need to have the skills to achieve that said GOAL or find the goals they can achieve with the resources they have.

Side Note.
Regression to the Mean vs Gamblers Fallacy
These are the same bias but one is Cynical and Pessimistic, the other optimistic.

Regression to the Mean
It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence, to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: “And this, too, shall pass away.” How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction!^[4][5]