‘Decisive’ by Chip Heath and Dan Heath — Book Summary

During summer-2020, I read ‘Decisive’ — an amazing book on decision making recommended by my mentor. This book widened my perspective on how I look at my problem and make decisions right now. This blog is a summary of the book.

“Decisive is a book about the decision-making framework. And as with any proven framework, we will have to believe in the process to get the best out of it. This decision making framework might be most useful for any decision which takes us more than 10 minutes to make”

The authors start the book with the below story(‘scenario’ might be an apt word),

“Shannon, the head of a small consulting firm, is agonizing about whether to fire Clive, her IT director. Over the past year, Clive has consistently failed to do more than the minimum required of him. He’s not without his talents — he’s intelligent and has a knack for improvising cheap solutions to technical problems — but he rarely takes any initiative. Worse, his attitude is poor. In meetings, he is often critical of other people’s ideas, sometimes caustically so.

Unfortunately, losing Clive would cause problems in the short-term. He understands how to maintain the company’s database of clients better than anyone else.

What would you advise her to do? Should she fire him or not?”

Before reading this book, my answer would have been ‘Yes, Fire her’ or ‘No, don’t fire her’. But, according to the authors, Narrow framing(limiting our choices to binary decisions) is the first biggest villains of decision making.

What if we had seen a character like Shannon in our previous work or a project? We might be biased again to impulsively say whether to fire Shannon or not based on our past experience. This, Confirmation bias is the second Villan of decision making.

Alternatively, what if you are Shannon’s manager and she had not been very responsive to your calls for the past two weeks. You are pissed off with her(obviously). Would you fire her just because of your short term emotions? These short term emotions are the third villain of decision making.

What if you fire her because of your overconfidence that many other competent candidates would apply for the same job? This overconfidence bias is the 4th and last villain of decision making according to the authors.

To summarize, the 4 villans of decision making are,
1) Avoid narrow framing
2) Confirmation bias
3) Short term emotions
4) Overconfidence

The authors then go on to explain the WRAP decision-making framework. WRAP is an acronym for Widening your options, Reality test your assumptions, Attain distance before deciding, Prepare to be wrong.

Let’s dive right into the framework itself.
Note: This version of publishing is going to look more like notes. (soon I will change this in the upcoming edit)

1) Widening your options

Most of the decision in our lives aren’t binary, i.e our choices are not always just a simple ‘Yes or No’/ ‘This or that’. This is an eye-opening perspective for me. Another way to understand this is that there is always more than two way of achieving our end goal. The authors offer three good techniques to widen our options.
1) Vanishing point technique
Ask yourself, ‘What will I do if I can’t choose any of the currently available options?’

• Margaret Sanders realized she had a better option than firing Anna, the introverted receptionist.

DAN: Imagine that I told you you’re stuck with Anna indefinitely and you can’t rely on her to be the “front door.” She cannot be

the face of the office anymore. What would you do?

SANDERS: Hmmm … We could move her out of the front door and try to staff the front door differently. Maybe the professional staff could take an hour each, and we could get some work-study students in to fill in the rest of the time.

DAN: Is that a viable option? Could you afford to hire work-study students?

SANDERS: They are super cheap. We only pay about 25% of their hourly rate, which comes out to about $2.50 per hour.

• When our options “disappear,” we’re forced to move our spotlights.

How do we escape a narrow frame? Think about the opportunity cost(this concept really changed my life and how I make decisions).

2) Multitrack options
Consider a wide variety of option that are widely distinct from one another.

Multitracking = considering more than one option simultaneously.

• The naming firm Lexicon widens its options by assigning a task to multiple small teams, including an “excursion

team” that considers a related task from a very different domain.

When you consider multiple options simultaneously, you learn the “shape” of the problem.

• When designers created ads simultaneously, they scored higher on creativity and effectiveness.

Multitracking also keeps egos in check — and can actually be faster!

• When you develop only one option, your ego is tied up in it.

• Eisenhardt’s research on Silicon Valley firms: Multitracking minimized politics and provided a built-in fallback plan.

3) Find someone who has solved the problem.
A good question to ask is: ‘Who else would have a similar problem?’ (on Start something that matters book, Blake Mycoskie suggest to read a lot of biographies for entrepreneurs who are looking to solve similar problems).

Think of ‘And’ instead of ‘Or’. Have a prevention and promotion mindset. (both at the same time)

When Stuck, look for analogy.
This is such a powerful technique I have applied for solving problems during innovation challenges(particularly physical product design).

Have a prescribed ‘decision playlist’ of questions to ask. Why? Below are 3 reasons,
1. It spurs us to multitrack — Gets us to have a prevention and promotion mindset
2. Act as stimuli for new ideas and options — It’s a generative process.
3. It stops people from overlooking an option.

Note: To be proactive, encode your greatest hits in a decision “playlist.”

• A checklist stops people from making an error; a playlist stimulates new ideas.

• Advertisers Hughes and Johnson use a playlist to spark lots of creative ideas quickly.

• A playlist for budget cuts might include a prompt to switch between the prevention and promotion mindsets: Can you cut more here to invest more there?

Laddering up technique:
It is redefining the problem to include a very broad range of outcomes.

A third place to look for ideas: in the distance. Ladder up via analogies.

• Kevin Dunbar: Analogies are a pillar of scientific problem-solving. Scientists make progress through analogies to similar experiments and similar organisms.

• Ladder up Lower rungs shows close analogies (low risk and low novelty), while higher rungs reveal more distant solutions (higher risk and higher novelty).

• Fiona Fairhurst designed a speedier swimsuit by laddering up and analyzing “anything that moves fast,” including sharks and torpedoes.

If nothing works, lastly, try to change the situation at hand (this is an exceptional case and hence there is no need to fret.)

2) Reality test your assumptions

After expanding our options, the next step is to design experiments to test out our alternatives before we go full-on to commit on our decision (Damn, I am getting the language of an entrepreneur here.). This is to fight out ‘confirmation bias’.

I have always liked this idea and I am even a big proponent because designing small experiments to reality test the biggest assumptions because it helped me to learn faster and cheaper before I went to pursue my start-up idea.

The authors suggest a few wonderful techniques to reality test our assumptions(I always wondered why ‘find someone who solved the problem’ is not a technique, but, yeah! Let’s move on)

1) Asking disconfirming questions

The authors recommend sparking constructive disagreement within organizations by playing the role of devil’s advocate, by asking “What would have to be true for this option to be the very best choice?”

Some more examples of disconfirming questions,

“Who were the last three associates to leave the firm? What are they doing now? How can I contact them?” (in the context of a job interview for a Law students. This is a must-ask question for all of us when we attend Job interviews-’Who was doing this role previously? Why did they leave the organization or moved out of the role?’)

While buying a second-hand item like iPod we can ask “What problems does the iPod have?”

Caution: Probing questions can backfire in situations with a power dynamic.

Ask open ended quesitons. Doctors are wiser to use open-ended questions. “What do you mean by ‘dizzy’?”

Consider the opposite
The next technique is for us to consider the opposite for a moment.

Extreme disconfirmation: Can we force ourselves to consider the opposite of our instincts?

• A marriage diary helps a frustrated spouse see that his/her partner isn’t always selfish.

• “Assuming positive intent” spurs us to interpret someone’s actions/words in a more positive light.

2) Zoom in, Zoom out
When we Access our choices, we take inside view by default. Often we trust “the averages” over our instincts — but not as much as we should.

We can correct this bias by doing, Zooming out, Zooming in.

Zooming out — Learning from the experiences of others who have made similar choices. Look for base rates.

Zooming in — we look at a close up of the situation, looking for colour or texture: The nuanced impression of reality.

Zooming out and zooming in gives a more realistic perception of our choices. (Analogy — Think of the camera.)

If you can’t find the “base rates” for your decision, ask an expert.

• You might ask an IP lawyer: “What percentage of cases get settled before trial?” etc.

• Warning: Experts are good at estimating base rates but lousy at making predictions.

Examples: FDR created statistical summaries and read samples of real letters.

Paul Smith and colleagues at P & G while working on the Bounty product did Scientific data testing of toilet paper — tear down of competitor products (tensile, strength, water absorption) and personal experience.

Brian Zikmund-Fisher studied the base-rate outcomes of patients with MDS, but he also sought a close-up (discovering the need for exercise and a “third adult”).

3) Ooch - Test out assumptions with a deliberate mistake (Personal favourite)

TO OOCH IS TO ask, Why predict something we can test? Why guess when we can know?

Google X does this to the extreme. They learn what they would not have learnt by stretching engineering to the extremes, the limits.

Because we naturally seek self-confirming information, we need discipline to consider the opposite. We can fight confirmation bias with three strategies.

First, we’ve got to be diligent about the way we collect information, asking disconfirming questions and considering the opposite. Second, we’ve got to go looking for the right kinds of information: zooming out to find base rates, which summarize the experiences of others and zooming in to get a more nuanced impression of reality. And finally, the ultimate reality-testing is to ooch: to take our options for a spin before we commit.

The double diamond method of design thinking framework I learnt at MIIPS has all the elements of relaity testing our assumptions. The hypothesis-driven decision-making framework is great learning I got out of MIIPS. During our customer discovery, we start out with a problem statement or a high-level business objective(relatable to asking disconfirming questions or considering the opposite) and then zoom out with market analysis(PESTLE analysis), relatable to zoom out. Then we go out to validate our learning and surprising status-quo from the market research using interviews(personal interviews to get a texture of the problem). We validate our insights from the interviews using a co-design session(ooch).

3) Attain distance before deciding

The next big step, to overcome distracting short-term emotions, we need to attain some distance. Fleeting emotions tempt us to make decisions that are bad in the long term. How to do it?

Car salesmen are trained to prey on customers’ emotions to close a deal quickly.

1) 10–10–10 rule
10/10/10 rule provides distance by forcing us to consider future emotions as much as present ones.

Ask yourself,
How would I feel about this decision 10 minutes from now?
10 months from now?
10 year from now?

Our decisions are often altered by two subtle short-term emotions: (1) mere exposure: we like what’s familiar to us; and (2) loss aversion: losses are more painful than gains are pleasant.

• How many of our organizational truths are ideas that we like merely because they’ve been repeated a lot?

• Students given a mug won’t sell it for less than $7.12, even though five minutes earlier they wouldn’t have paid more than $2.87!

2) Ask a friend technique:

We can attain distance by looking at our situation from an observer’s perspective. (What would I recommend a friend?)

• Andy Grove(Intel) asked, “What would our successors do?”

• Adding distance highlights what is most important; it allows us to see the forest, not the trees.

Perhaps the most powerful question for resolving personal decisions is “What would I tell my best friend to do in this situation?”

3) Honour your core priorities
Priority conflicts help us reevaluate our core values and priorities. Agonizing decisions are often a sign of conflict among your core priorities.

• Core priorities: long-term emotional values, goals, aspirations(Our core priorities should be in alignment with our core values). What kind of person do you want to be? What kind of organization do you want to build?

• The goal is not to eliminate emotion. It’s to honour the emotions that count.

By identifying and enshrining your core priorities, you make it easier to resolve present and future dilemmas.

• At Interplast, recurring, nagging debates were settled when executives determined that the patient was the ultimate “customer.” (Great story that illustrate this point of honoring core priorities)

4) Have a ‘stop doing’ list.
To carve out space to pursue our core priorities, we must go on the offence against lesser priorities.

• On the USS Benfold, the crew actively fought the List B items like repainting (e.g., by using stainless-steel bolts that wouldn’t leave rust stains).

• Jim Collins’s “stop doing list”: What will you give up so that you have more time to spend on your priorities? (This is a great technique. After discontinuing this practice for a while, I recently adopted this ‘Not to do’ list for the summer and I should say that this worked wonders.)

• Bregman’s hourly beep: Am I doing what I most need to be doing right now? (Looks like a powerful technique. I have not tried this way of living yet)

Have productive interruptions each day to ask ‘Am I doing my top priority items on my list?’ and learn to say ‘No’ to a lot of fewer priority items on the list!

We need to Attain Distance Before Deciding. With some distance, we can quiet short-term emotions and look past the familiarity of the status quo. With some distance, we can surface the priorities conflicts that underlie tough choices. With some distance, we can spot and stamp out lesser priorities that interfere with greater ones. Attaining distance can be painful, as with the interminable discussions held by the leaders at Interplast. But getting distance doesn’t require delay or suffering. Sometimes it happens almost instantly. Thanks to a guardrail — Do first, apologize later — we know what the right choice is. Thanks to a simple question — What would I tell my best friend to do in this situation? — we see the big picture. Thanks to a $10 wristwatch that beeps on the hour, we are more mindful of the priorities we’ve set for ourselves.

4) Prepare to be wrong

After we’ve made a decision, we must challenge ourselves to consider two questions: How can we prepare ourselves for both good and bad outcomes? And how would we know if it were time to reconsider our decision? In other words, we must Prepare to Be Wrong.

1) Bookending:
The future is not a “point” — a single scenario that we must predict. It is a range. We should bookend the future, considering a range of outcomes from very bad to very good.

• Investor Penstock bet on Coinstar when his bookend analysis showed much more upside than downside.

• Our predictions grow more accurate when we stretch our bookends outward.

To prepare for the lower bookend, we need a premortem. “It’s a year from now. Our decision has failed utterly. Why?”

• The 100,000 Homes Campaign avoided a legal threat by using a premortem-style analysis.

To be ready for the upper bookend, we need a preparade. “It’s a year from now. We’re heroes. Will we be ready for success?”

• The producer of Softsoap, hoping for a huge national launch, locked down the supply of plastic pumps for 18 to 24 months.

By bookending — anticipating and preparing for both adversity and success — we stack the deck in favour of our decisions.

Anticipating problems helps us cope with them.

• The “realistic job preview”: Revealing a job’s warts upfront “vaccinates” people against dissatisfaction.

• Sandra rehearsed how she would ask her boss for a raise and what she’d say and do at various problem moments.

2) Set a tripwire

In life, we naturally slip into autopilot, leaving past decisions unquestioned.

• E.g., we’ve all been peeling bananas from the top. Nothing ever compelled us to reconsider it.

A tripwire can snap us awake and make us realize we have a choice.

• Zappos’s offer $1,000 for new hires to quit. This created a conscious fork in the road for new hires.

Tripwires can be especially useful when change is gradual.

Deadlines are a great way of setting up a tripwire. When tripwires are not well defined. They can be recognized by pattern.

Partitions set boundaries which are a great way of getting people to reflect on before making a choice (it would make people stop and reflect on before they keep making choices).

Partitions: Day laborers saved more when their pay was put in 10 envelopes versus 1 .

We tend to escalate our investment in poor decisions; partitions can help rein that in.

E.g., “We won’t allocate more than $50,000 to jump-start this failing project.

Boundaries are necessary because of people’s tendency to escalate their commitment to their choices.

‘Tripwire and boundaries might sound overly cautious, but Tripwire encourages risk-taking!’

Tripwires can actually create a safe space for risk taking. They: (1) cap risk; and (2) quiet your mind until the trigger is hit.

“Process” isn’t glamorous. But the confidence it can provide is precious. Trusting a process can permit us to take bigger risks, to make bolder choices. Studies of the elderly show that people regret not what they did but what they didn’t do.

~Rahul vignesh Sekar

P.S: Thank you, Chip Heath and Dan Heath for this amazing book.