Psychology and behavioral economics

We’ve all been there, facing a problem so large or complex it seems insoluble. Fortunately, insoluble problems are solved with great regularity. If that weren’t true, we’d still be living in caves and eating only what we could catch or pick.

What can we do to increase our chances of solving the big problems in our lives and workplaces? Here are three suggestions.

Simplification may be necessary when we try to cram complex or messy truths into comprehensible prose or usable tools, but the underlying dishonesty and inevitable distortions should be noted rather than denied, lest we begin to mistake the symbol for the thing.

I will never forget the quasi-humorous sign in the radiology reading room:

I’ll see it when I believe it.

Robert Burton, a former Chief of Neurology at Mount Zion Medical Center, explains it this way:

Gloria Steinem said: “The truth will set you free. But first it will piss you off.”

Based on my experience, telling the truth is more reliable at pissing others off than setting anyone free.

"Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof."

John Kenneth Galbraith, economist (1908-2006) 

You can never make the same mistake twice.

The second time you make it, it is a choice.

Becoming a good person seems like an obvious goal, a no-brainer. Despite that, not many of us really try. And fewer succeed. What's the problem?

A disappointing John Tierney article about decision fatigue in the New York Times magazine section is just the most recent in a collection of equally disappointing discussions of an issue that is both widespread and important.

Many discussions of improving engagement involve either complex philosophical/behavioral explanations or potentially disruptive (and therefore frightening and hard to do) widespread change. There is actually a pretty simple way to make significant change happen.

As soon as any project or issue is identified, and regularly thereafter, ask AND ANSWER the following four questions:

Joseph Campbell studied and wrote about myths, rituals and ceremonies, and the roles played by these early precursors of theater in the human experience. One of his enduring insights about the function of rituals in a society is informative to the role of structure in an organization.