This is a book that offers the opportunity of an education. There are so many interesting tangents — they’re a bit like hyper-links that’ll take you into another world, the world of someone who has thought deeply and has experienced a life that’s anything but average. And to be sure this book is not about what’s average.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb argues that history is dominated not by the predictable but by the highly improbable. Before Europeans discovered the black swan in Australia, the world in the northern hemisphere believed there were only white swans. In fact, the expression “it’s a black swan” was a way to make a point about something being impossible. However, improbable and consequential events do exist outside our normal spheres of reference. Understanding the kind of impact these events can have on your plans, for good or bad, and being prepared is the central argument of this book. Taleb offers good advice. (more…)

Doctors are in a high stakes business where thinking mistakes have serious consequences. Even with good intentions, expert knowledge and sophisticated medical technology, an average of about 15 percent of a doctor’s diagnoses are wrong - potentially causing patient stress, suffering, physical harm, even death. So what’s the problem? Thinking short cuts, the kind that we’re all prone to make, are undermining good decision making. (more…)

Many years ago we would never have thought that there is code that determines who we are. Now we understand that DNA is the ultimate example of structured information.
Thin slices of related information paint a composite picture

The way the human the brain serves up the right information in a split second is truly inspiring. How do you explain now retired Magic Johnson’s court sense and ability to float through a seemingly impossible line of guards and then sink a basket making it look like poetry in motion? How do you account for Wayne Gretzky’s renowned ability to anticipate where the puck will be at a critical moment?

Malcolm Gladwell in Blink uses examples like these to illustrate the brain’s capability to process thin slices of related information and make fast and accurate decisions. “Blink” is Gladwell’s metaphor for split second decision making.

This capability to thin slice accurately is based an acute understanding of what’s important and what’s not. The composite picture that the thin slice represents may include seemingly trivial information and exclude other information that just doesn’t fit. It’s the right bits of information and relationships between them that matters.

The concept applied to regulatory organizations, and in particular to the development of risk profiles, can be very effective. (more…)

No doubt it gets more complicated than this, but this is collaboration.

True collaboration requires the open sharing of information. Participants in collaborative processes consider themselves to be peers who can freely communicate their thoughts. The collective thought process generates better thinking and results than isolated thinking. (more…)