Episodes
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Today, we talk about the arc of international business in Russia over the past 30-some years. Our guest is Charles Hecker. Charles is a self-professed “Russia geek” who has written a fabulous new book entitled Zero Sum - The Arc of International Business in Russia. It largely covers the time starting from the fall of the Soviet Union to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. It's utterly fascinating on so many levels. International business in Russia, as you will hear, is almost like a huge natural experiment in decision-making. You will hear about complex to nuanced decisions, bad decisions, good decisions, and downright batshit crazy decisions.
To fully understand and appreciate a topic as complex as Russia, you need to live and breathe it, and Charles has and does. He studied in Russia during the Cold War. He was a journalist there with Moscow Times in the 1990s and also led Control Risks Russia office in the country. Control Risks is a specialist risk consultancy where Charles and I were colleagues. Charles is also a great storyteller. That will come through in this conversation and it also comes through in the book which is filled with colour. In reading it, one can almost see, and smell vodka dripping from the page and imagine oneself in Russia in the nineties and the noughties. While it's impossible to go back in time and fully understand what people were thinking and feeling when they made decisions when it comes to business decision-making in Russia, Charles's account comes about as close as you can get.
Show notes:
Charles’ website - https://www.charleshecker.com/
Zero Sum - The Arc of International Business in Russia
Charles on LinkedIn
The loans for shares scheme
The BRICS
Mikhail Khodorkovsky
Yukos
The Kursk submarine disaster
TNK-BP
The Beslan school siege
The Moscow theatre siege
Putin’s 2007 speech at the Munich Security Conference
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD)
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Today, I bring you my conversation with an absolute legend, Gary Klein. Gary is a renowned pioneer in naturalistic decision-making. He has extensively researched how experienced professionals (e.g. experienced physicians, firefighters, police officers, etc.) make decisions in high-pressure environments, relying on their intuition without extensive analysis. This led Gary to develop the “Recognition Primed Decision Model”. And if you've ever come across the PreMortem technique, Gary invented that. The PreMortem is something that helps decision-makers anticipate failures before they occur.
He's also collaborated with Nobel laureate, the late Daniel Kahneman, but did so as “collaborative adversaries” as he has a different take on cognitive biases. And you will hear more about that directly from Gary. Gary's work also inspired Malcolm Gladwell's book, Blink, and so much more. He is an absolute legend. In this conversation, we talk about the role of intuition and decision-making in reducing errors and enhancing insights, which Gary has done extensive work on. Gary shares some great context and advice on the PreMortem and so much more. I think Gary's work is essential to understanding and practising quality decision-making.
Show notes:
Gary’s website
Naturalistic Decision-Making - www.naturalisticdecisionmaking.org
Gary’s firm, Shadow Box Training: www.naturalisticdecisionmaking.org
Gary’s “Masterclass in Practical Decision-Making”
QR code to the masterclass:
Gary’s latest book, Snapshots of the Mind
Recognition-primed Decision Model
PreMortem method
Gary’s article with Daniel Kahneman, “A Failure to Disagree”
Gary’s book Seeing What Others Don’t – The Remarkable Ways We Gain Insights
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This episode is a bit different. It’s a “Decision Clinic” in which Dr. Melina Moleskis and I offer some views on three “decision dilemmas” submitted to us by wonderful listeners. The format is a bit like an “ask me anything” podcast.
Enjoy!
Show notes:
Sign up for our Decision Navigators course: https://tdo04pxyq8y.typeform.com/to/Bgn3Qd5K
FOCUS framework
Weight and rate tool
Hot and cold empathy gap
Base rates
Premortem
Inversion
Trip wires
Susan David
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This episode is all about how to perform better in a crisis. I am joined today by Dr. Dan Dworkis. He's not only an emergency physician, he's someone who's taken the high pressure experiences of the emergency room and turned them into a framework for performing better under pressure across all kinds of fields from emergency medicine to the boardroom.
He's the founder of The Emergency Mind Project. In this episode, we deep dive into how Dan helps teams and individuals build the skills needed to handle unpredictable situations. We get into understanding emergencies, decision-making under pressure, training for these types of situations, recognizing and responding to them, listening and learning from errors, debriefing, recovery, and so much more.
Show Notes:
The Emergency Mind Project
Dan’s book: The Emergency Mind: Wiring Your Brain for Performance Under Pressure
The Emergency Mind’s “Crisis Skill Test”
Annie Duke
Dave Snowden
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In this episode, I sit down with Joel Pearson, a professor at the University of New South Wales in Australia where he is a Director of the Future Minds Lab and a leader in the science of intuition and decision-making. This conversation will make you rethink everything you thought you knew about intuition.
We often hear that intuition should either be suppressed in decision-making or trusted like some kind of mystical superpower. The reality, as Joel reveals, is far more nuanced—and far more fascinating—than either of those extremes. Joel and his team have developed groundbreaking methods to measure intuition and mental imagery, offering a rare glimpse into how these elusive processes work in our brains.
Throughout the episode, he breaks down his five rules for knowing when to trust your intuition and when to ignore it. He explains how intuition is a learned skill, not an innate talent, and how it can be both a powerful tool and a dangerous trap depending on the situation. He also introduces the concept of "mis-intuition," where our gut instincts lead us astray, and shares compelling examples of when intuition works and doesn’t.
From life-or-death decisions in the military to everyday choices in business, this episode will challenge your assumptions and give you practical insights on making better decisions. This episode is a must-listen if you’ve ever wondered whether to trust your gut or dismiss it.
Show notes:
Joel’s website
Joel’s book - Intuition: Unlock Your Brain's Potential to Build Real Intuition and Make Better Decisions
Future Minds Lab
Joel on LinkedIn
Joel’s Five Rules for Using Intuition
Self-awareness: Understand your emotional state before making intuitive decisions, as anxiety or stress can cloud judgment. Mastery: Intuition should be based on experience and repeated exposure to a domain, like a firefighter sensing danger in a burning building. Impulses and Addiction: Avoid confusing cravings or compulsions with intuition. Low Probability Events: Intuition is often unreliable when dealing with probabilities or rare events. Environment: Intuition is context-specific. What works in one environment might not transfer well to another, so be cautious in unfamiliar settings.Associative Learning (Pavlov’s Dogs)
Context-Dependent Memory
System 1 and System 2 Thinking (Daniel Kahneman) and Thinking Fast, and Slow by Kahneman
The Monty Hall Problem
The Gambler’s FallacyAlchemy by Rory Sutherland
Gary Klein
Box breathing
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get in touch: [email protected]
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This is Part Two of Two of our conversation with Marischa van Zantvoort and Alasdair Philip. You will probably get more out of it by listening to Part One.
Show notes:
Marischa
Alasdair
Magnifor Consulting
William Gibson
Gemba walks
Neil Gaiman’s commencement speech – “Make Good Art”
Sir James Black
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Our latest episode and this is Part One of Two. My guests are Marischa van Zantvoort and Alasdair Philip. Both Marischa and Alasdair are partners in their own consulting firm called Magnifor Consulting. They call themselves business interventionists who co-create solutions. Both are incredibly interesting thinkers and doers. They are both incredibly open-minded, incredibly experienced, and incredibly insightful.
I loved every single second of this, so much so that I decided to turn this into two episodes. Partly that's because of the length, but partly also because there's so much good stuff here that I think it's useful to let part one kind of sink in and then move on to part two, which will be out tomorrow if you're listening to Part One on the day of its release. Part One covers both Marischa and Alasdair's backgrounds, which are fascinating by the way, navigating complexity and uncertainty, leadership traits for the modern era, listening and the importance of weak signals, plus much more.
Show notes
Marischa
Alasdair
Magnifor Consulting
William Gibson
Gemba walks
Neil Gaiman’s commencement speech – “Make Good Art”
Sir James Black
Webinar: How to Practice Good Judgement in a World We Don't Fully Understand
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https://thedecisionmaking.studio/
get in touch: [email protected]
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Today, my guest is Dave Snowden, a leading expert in complexity theory and knowledge management. Dave is the creator of the Cynefin Framework, which is a tool for understanding challenges and helping us make decisions within the right context. His work is international in nature. It covers government and industry, looking at complex issues relating to strategy and organizational decision-making. He is a popular and passionate keynote speaker on a range of topics, and he's well-known for his pragmatic cynicism - and you will hear that come through as you listen to this episode.
I wish I had come across Dave's work earlier in my career because I think I'd have made some different career choices. In particular, his 2007 Harvard Business Review article with Mary Boone is excellent. It was on the cover of the November edition of the HBR and won the Academy of Management Award for Best Paper of that year.
In this episode, we dive into the nuances of decision-making in complex environments. He walks us through the Cynefin Framework and how it helps us understand the challenges at hand. Dave shares insights into how organizations can avoid the pitfalls of traditional decision-making approaches that often oversimplify complex issues. We also explore the role of narrative in making sense of complexity and how his work with something called SenseMaker, supports capturing and interpreting diverse perspectives. If you're interested in how to navigate complexity and make better decisions in uncertain times, this episode is a must-listen.
Show notes:
Dave Snowden
The Cynefin Framework
Dave and Mary Boone’s 2007 HBR Article, “A Leader’s Framework for Decision-Making”
SenseMaker
Estuarine Mapping
EU Field Guide to Managing Complexity (and Chaos) in Times of Crisis
Wardley Maps - A strategic mapping technique that helps organizations understand and adapt to their competitive landscape.
Gary Klein’s Pre-mortem
Max Boisot’s I-Space
London taxi drivers’ “The Knowledge”
Taylorism
Agile
Hawthorne effect
Cynefin’s ‘risk matrix’
Abductive thinking
Dave on algorithmic induction
Dave on AI: “anthropomorphising idiot savants”
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Today, we delve into the role of our nervous system in decision-making, and we explore whether the best decision-making is emotional. This one will perhaps make you think differently about that. That does not mean that we ought to decide impulsively or like a toddler, but it does mean that we should integrate our emotional states into our decision-making. And doing that is a skill that involves knowing how to work with our nervous system.
My guest is Jonny Miller, who makes his second appearance on the show. Jonny works with leaders and founders on burnout and how to regulate their nervous systems. He was a successful startup founder himself, but for the last several years has studied and practised nervous system mastery intensely, he has curated the most effective evidence-based practices he's found, and he leads a program called Nervous System Mastery.
On this episode, we cover breathwork and how to regulate our nervous system, how to work with our emotions, the body and its role in emotions and decision-making, why Johnny believes that the best decision-making is indeed emotional, making decisions in triggered states and how to avoid that, leadership, and so much more.
Show notes:
Jonny’s website
Jonny’s Nervous System Mastery programme
Jonny’s article “Why The Best Decision-Making is Emotional”
Curious Humans with Jonny Miller
Rory Sutherland
Iain McGilchrist
Confabulation
The Hour Between Dog and Wolf by John Coates
The Sports Gene by David Epstein
Patrick McKeown, The Oxygen Advantage – Ep. 137 of our podcast
The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
Non-sleep deep rest
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Today, our focus is on timing. How much of a success or failure is because of timing? To answer that question, I welcome Paul Orlando back to the show. Paul is an expert in the world of startups, having built and operated startup accelerators around the world. He teaches at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
He is the author of a fascinating new book, Why Now? How Good Timing Makes Great Products. Paul and this conversation will make you think differently about the role of timing in decision-making. You will understand why you never want to be “ahead of your time”, you want to be at the right time.
That is driven home by an example that Paul shares at the outset and something that I didn't know about. The first video phone was launched back in 1964. And the reason why it didn't take off is because of timing.
This is a fabulous conversation in which Paul shares the myth of first-mover advantage, serendipity, his timing drivers, problem-finding versus problem-solving, AI and timing, and so much more.
Show notes:
Paul on LinkedIn
Why Now – How Good Timing Makes Great Products
Startups Unplugged
Paul’s previous episode on the podcast
YouTube version of the episode
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We are changing our name. Why?
This tongue-in-cheek Inbetweenisode explains
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Today, I am delighted to welcome Alex Edmans to the show. You may have heard of him or you may have come across him. He is a Professor of Finance at London Business School. He was voted professor of the year by Poets and Quants. He is also a prominent speaker and an author, including of his most recent and fabulous book, May Contain Lies - How Stories, Statistics and Studies Exploit Our Biases. He joined me to talk about the book.
The book is excellent because it emphasises a number of things crucial to good decision-making, including things like why a fact is not data, data is not evidence, and evidence is not proof. Alex shares his work on things like football results and their impact on stock market performance, biases, evaluating research, ESG investing, trade-offs, cognitive diversity, dissenting viewpoints, and much more related to decision-making.
Show notes:
Alex’s website
May Contain Lies – How Stores, Statistics and Studies Exploit Our Biases
Alex on football results and stock market sentiment
McKinsey’s “Diversity Matters” results revisited by Jeremiah Green and John Hand
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Today I welcome fellow Canadian Michael Hartley to the show. Michael is the director of InterKnowlogy, mining and energy. And that is a firm that operates at the intersection of risk management, human factors and data science to enhance decision-making. This conversation covers a wide range of fascinating stuff, mostly about how decisions get made during complexity and crises, mostly from Michael's background in energy and mining. However, the insights are applicable to a huge number of other contexts. And we cover the importance of decision making and critical thinking, understanding when decisions get made in organizations, data quality and presenting information, managing crises, AI and much more.
Show Notes:
Michael on LinkedIn
InterKnowlogy
Books and Papers
"Thinking in Systems: A Primer" by Donella H. Meadows Amazon Link "The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb Amazon Link "The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization" by Peter M. Senge Amazon LinkConcepts and Tools
Goodhart's Law Goodhart's Law Explained Cynefin Framework by Dave Snowden Cynefin Framework Overview Scenario Planning Scenario Planning OverviewAdditional Resources
Deepwater Horizon Incident Wikipedia Article Shell's Scenario Planning Shell's Scenario Planning Page Resilience Engineering Resilience Engineering Association_ _ _ _
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Today, I am joined by Monique Borst, who is a coach, a strategist, a CEO catalyst, and as she describes it, "Human WD-40." She helps leaders thrive and wants to redefine modern business leadership.
And this is a conversation all about leadership, including self-leadership, self-awareness, and emotional mastery. And if you are or if you aspire to be in a leadership position or you work with leaders, then I think you are going to be in for an eye-opening conversation.
We cover so much here from how to think about our personal and professional lives, emotions in decision-making, seeking diverse perspectives when making decisions, and experience over analysis, and we also have a fabulous, fascinating conversation about the concept of time.
Show notes:
Monique’s website
Monique on LinkedIn
Monique’s newsletter
Andrew Huberman scandal
Niksen – the Dutch concept of doing nothing
HBR Article – Manage Your Energy Not Your Time
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Today, we talk about fraud and human behaviour. And my guest is Marta Cadavid. Marta describes herself as a “fraud fighter.” She's worked in anti-fraud roles for many years. And her interest, as you'll hear, started in her native Colombia. And she's now a partner in a very interesting firm called No Fraud, which uses prediction models to anticipate criminal behaviour. Yes, you heard that right, to anticipate criminal behaviour. So there's lots to discuss here.
Marta also hosts her own podcast called “Fraude al Desnudo”, or “Naked Fraud”. And we get into lots of interesting stuff in this episode, including the role of decision-making environments in fraud and financial crime, monitoring employee behaviour, and some of the intricacies of that using AI, bias in AI, eye, cultural and behavioural factors, the cost of fraud, sexual harassment, and much more. I do have my questions on this as you'll hear. I am sure you will find this one contains lots of food for thought. Marta is very insightful.
Show notes:
Marta on LinkedIn
NoFraud
Fraude al Desnudo
The Fraud Triangle
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Today, I am delighted to be joined by fellow decision-making professional Melina Moleskis. I came across Melina via Christian Hunt, who I've had on the show a couple of times now. Melina and I featured in a two-part series on decision-making in Christian's Human Risk podcast
Melina is the founder of Meta Decisions, a consultancy that leverages decision and behavioural science to help people and organizations make better decisions. She has a PhD in managerial science, an MBA from NYU Stern, and a bachelor's degree in mathematics.
And she takes all that training and applies it in very useful and interesting ways. You will hear a lot of that reflected in this wonderful conversation that covered so much interesting ground from:
what the decision and behavioural sciences are; the concept of indecisiveness and how to overcome that; dealing with complexity documenting decisions -This is something that is actually quite overlooked at times: “Kill criteria” the state of decision education· And we even get into some discussion about sport and its role in decision-making as a microcosm of good decisions. Melina has a great perspective on that because she's also a former competitive basketball player.
Show notes:
Melina on LinkedIn
Melina’s firm Meta Decisions
What’s Your Problem by Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg
Adam Grant
The Alliance for Decision Education on Keeping a Decision Journal
Emotional Agility by Susan David
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This is Part Two of Two with Fraser Battye of the NHS Strategy Unit. If you haven’t heard Part One, I suggest you give it a listen, although it’s not strictly necessary. This episode is a continuation of the same conversation and covers creativity, uncertainty, cognitive biases and the limits of nudges.
Show notes:
Fraser Battye on LinkedIn The Strategy Unit Iain McGilchrist's The Master and His Emissary Dave Snowden Isaiah Berlin’s The Fox and The Hedgehog Philip Tetlock “AI and the Rise of Mediocrity” – essay in Time Magazine The Design Council’s Double Diamond Cass Sunstein Liberating Structures Bent Flyvbjerg Angie Hobbs Annie Duke_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Like what you heard?
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Today we have Part One of my two part conversation with Fraser Battye. Fraser is a Principal at the Strategy Unit of the UK National Health Service the NHS, and the Strategy Unit provides analysis and strategic change expertise. As part of that role, Fraser provides expert guidance on decision-making. And this is a two-part conversation which covers a huge number of fascinating dimensions of decision-making. In Part One, we cover :
balancing values with ethical considerations, integrating the two brain hemispheres into the decision-making process decision options as theories to test AI and decision-making, and a lot more thereShow notes:
Fraser Battye on LinkedIn The Strategy Unit Iain McGilchrist's The Master and His Emissary_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
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Today, I have the pleasure of welcoming Nuno Reis to the show. I came across Nuno via his LinkedIn posts on uncertainty and in particularly around something called Bayesian Analysis or Bayesian Thinking. If you’ve never come across the term, Bayesian Analysis is the mathematical interpretation of probability. And it underpins so much of our world - and increasingly so because many AI models are built on Bayesian Thinking.
Nuno is quite critical of how Bayesian Thinking is applied – because we can never remove the human from the numbers and the models. He says that an embrace of Bayesian Thinking – useful as it is, has become an unhealthy dogma. And – that resonated with me particularly because as I looked at Nuno’s background I saw someone saying this who is a trained mathematician with a PhD in Mathematics in String Theory and did a postdoc at Oxford. He worked in the financial sector during the Global Financial Crisis where he sees parallels now in the worlds of AI and related areas.
So, I invited him to the show and we had a great conversation that covers not only the topics of Bayesian Thinking, the financial industry, but also the topic of uncertainty, lots of philosophy and running.
I hope you enjoy it and find it insightful. Here is Nuno Reis.Show notes:
Nuno on LinkedIn
Nuno’s free book, Beyond Luck
Bayesian Thinking
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In this episode, we talk about “tuning in” – into a noisy world so that we can make the best decisions possible. My guest is Nuala Walsh. Nuala is a best-selling author, an adjunct professor of behavioural science at Trinity College in Dublin, an independent non-executive director, a TEDx speaker and one of the 100 Most Influential Women in Finance. She is the author of the fabulous new book Tune In: How to Make Smarter Decisions in a Noisy World.
This conversation covers that and it is incredibly insightful and fun. Nuala shares several misjudgement ‘traps’ from her book – everything from ego to memory, power, identity and more. We also discuss whistleblowing, regret and so-called “deaf spots”. Nuala shares a number of solutions and ways forward so that we can start to “tune in” and make smarter decisions.
Show notes:
Nuala’s website
Tune In: How to Make Smarter Decisions in a Noisy World.
Nuala on Linkedin
Nuala’s Harvard Business Review article “How to Encourage Employees to Speak Up When They See Wrongdoing”
Innocence Project
Fred Clay – found innocent after 38 years for a murder he didn’t commit
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