Train Your Brain
. . . to help you avoid your biases
Today’s Tuesday Reading turns again to focus on another aspect of bias, how to keep our minds from falling for bad advice.
Today’s Tuesday Reading turns again to focus on another aspect of bias, how to keep our minds from falling for bad advice.
Today, in the United States some four out of every five individuals age 5 and older have some type of cell phone. And, most of these have sufficient functionality to be called smartphones. This is in stark contrast to the time when I was growing up in a small rural southeast Texas town.
Sometimes we need to react fast, automatically. For example, as we see a large truck speeding towards us as we are standing in the edge of the street waiting for a traffic light to change. Or, as we observe the subtle cues of a very dissatisfied client. And, at a different time, we may find ourselves totally engrossed in the deep work1 of a seemingly intractable problem. And, then our thoughts and actions need to proceed at a slower pace.
Steven Westlund is the author of today’s Tuesday Reading. He is the Director of Enterprise Applications Architecture at Washington University in St. Louis. His essay first appeared as a leadership program reflection earlier this year. [Steve may be reached at swestlund@wustl.edu.]
MOR's alumni continue to stay invested in their ongoing leadership development. See where they are having the most sustained success, where they find challenges and benefit from some of their ideas on how to keep the focus. The answer is in the room!
The Cambridge English Dictionary defines bias as a “personal opinion that influences your judgment.” We all have such personal opinions.
Early this decade Google was focused on building the perfect team. Even earlier, the company had endeavored to capture large quantities of data about employees and how they worked. They knew, for example, how frequently particular people ate together (more productive people had larger networks of dining partners) and were able to identify key traits shared by the very best managers (good communication and avoidance of micromanaging).
Turn on the radio or television, read a magazine or newspaper, surf the web. You’ll likely hear or see a story about sexual harassment or assault or mischief on the part of someone in power – a broadcast personage, a media executive, a politician, etc.