The Art of Thinking Clearly — Review
We all make decisions every moment, some important ones and some not so much. But there are times when we are being indecisive. Although this book is not a “how-to” book, it indeed highlights the path to renunciation.
The pope asked Michelangelo: ‘Tell me the secret of your genius. How have you created the statue of David, the masterpiece of all masterpieces? Michelangelo’s answer: ‘It’s simple. I removed everything that is not David’
Thinking more clearly adopting Michelangelo’s method, it would mean for us: eliminate all errors and better thinking will follow.
In his book the author, Rolf Dobelli talks about 100 thinking errors. To eliminate them we need super power and yet it may be insufficient. Cognitive errors are far too ingrained in us. The book attempts to offer insurance against too much self-induced unhappiness.
All we need is less irrationality!
Negative knowledge is much more potent than positive knowledge. After all, strategy is making trade-offs in competing. The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do. This approach is called via negativa, path of renunciation. We cannot say what brings us success or happiness, but we can pin down only what blocks or obliterates them. Eliminate the downside, the thinking errors and the upside will take care of itself. This is all we need to know.
We must learn to close doors.
A business strategy primarily focuses on what not to engage in. Adopt a life strategy similar to a corporate strategy: When we figure out, note down what not to pursue in life and make calculated decisions to disregard certain possibilities we can make better strategies. A well thought list will not only keep us away from trouble but also save time which invest in thinking and find ourselves in an endless loop. Think hard once and then just consult the list. ‘Most doors are not worth entering, even when the handle seems to turn so effortlessly.’
Strategy is the creation of a unique and valuable position, involving different set of activities.
Any business should find its circle of competence just like an individual should. Only when differentiator of a business has been identified, it makes sense to enter the market. Otherwise this business will be one among many others which will fight for effectiveness rather than efficiency in operations or pricing etc. If there are already industry giants, it makes no sense to enter market in the same space. Find a gap and exploit it to start off. Warren Buffet says ‘You have to stick within what I call your circle of competence. You have to know what you understand and what you don’t understand. It’s not terribly important how big the circle is. But it is terribly important that you know where the perimeter is. So figure out what your own aptitudes are. If you play the games where others have aptitudes and you don’t you are going to lose. Figure out where you’ve got an edge. And you’ve got to play with your own circle of competence’. Be the best at what you do, almost irreplaceable. Only when we know our circle of competence, we will be able to carry out the activities differently.
No matter how far you’ve gone down the wrong road, turn back!
‘We’ve come this far…’ ‘I’ve read so much of this book already…’ ‘But I’ve spent two years doing this course…’ You can see in all these cases, non-recoverable expenses we have already invested, somehow creep up to us. It’s only wise if you need to cancel a project half-way through when there are clear indicators. Don’t let the time and money already spent make the decisions. What counts is at this moment, does it make sense to continue the project or not.
Emotions play a huge role in making decisions.
Good roles and bad roles. Do I build a company? You can do it, only if you have strong emotions, when you fall in love with that project. You can’t do that rationally, this has to be an emotional aspect. But then going about this, meaning in implementing this company you try to take emotions away as much as you can because emotions lead you to the wrong path. To set goal emotions are very important, to implement goals you better think clearly.
Think Beyond!
Did you notice while reading this article, you accepted whatever corresponded to your self-image and unconsciously filtered everything else out? What remains after filtration is a coherent portrait — the confirmation bias, the father of all fallacies.
The confirmation bias is alive and well in the business world. An executive team decides on a new strategy. The team enthusiastically celebrates any sign that the strategy is a success. Everywhere the executives look, they see plenty of confirming evidence, while indications to the contrary remain unseen or are quickly dismissed as “exceptions” or “special cases.” We become blind to dis-confirming evidence.
So let’s be careful and mind our steps!
