Our brain is very intelligent, but it is also very stupid sometimes. It always falls into all kinds of judgment traps from time to time. Why is the efficiency so low? What is holding you down? The following is a collection of reasons I collected for you. Let's have a look!
It's too late to judge whether the level of work is 5 or not
Wen / Wang Shimin
Foreword
Our brain is very intelligent, but it is also very stupid sometimes. It always falls into all kinds of judgment traps from time to time.
There are five judgment traps, which not only often mislead our work, but also we often don't know it.
These five judgment traps are:
① overestimate individual examples ② only believe what you believe ③ believe in absolute truth ④ ignore multiple reasons ⑤ hard find correlation
01 judgment trap 1: overestimate individual examples
Last week, a post-95 girl who had started a business with someone for seven months was going to say goodbye to her business and go back to work in her original company.
One, two or three little girls thought clearly about the reasons for quitting, but hesitated after talking to the boss, because her reasons were rejected one by one by the boss. The most important thing is that she felt that the boss spoke well and reasonably.
For example, one of her reasons is that she has only received 1800 yuan a month since she started her business, but the 1800 yuan salary has not been paid for three months, which has affected her personal survival.
For this reason, the boss gave a good reply. An old employee of the company he used to work in didn't get paid for two years. Now he is an executive of the company and has achieved omnipotence from a grass-roots employee.
After hearing this, she was very shaken: others have become executives for two years without getting paid, and I have only been for three months. If I insist on it again, I can't do it well
Here, the post-90s girl has successfully fallen into the judgment trap of "overestimating individual examples".
Overestimation of individual examples is mainly caused by survivor bias.
Survivor bias is a common logical fallacy. It means that when we get information only from survivors (because the dead can't speak), the information may be very different from the actual situation.
Take a popular example to understand.
An animal hospital was surprised to find that the mortality rate of cats falling from floors 9 and above was only 5%, and that of cats falling from floors less than 9 was 10%.
So doctors in the hospital concluded that this is because cats falling from higher floors can spread their bodies, forming a parachute effect, resulting in lower mortality.
Is that really the case?
On the contrary, because most cats falling from high-rise buildings die immediately, the cat owner will not be sent to hospital.
The example of employees who haven't been paid for two years given by the little girl's boss after 1995 is similar to the cat falling from the top. He is a survivor who can survive the company, but more companies with unpaid employees have basically closed down, but their story is too normal and no one tells it.
So how to crack the survivor bias?
The easiest way is to let the "dead" speak. Don't just look at the data of "survivors", but use the full data to compare.
For example, as long as we know how many startups have survived without paying wages in the next two years (optimistic estimation is less than 0.1%), the post-95 girl will know how to judge.
02 judgment trap 2: only believe what you believe
I have a friend who started a business a year earlier than me. He has a very special principle when recruiting people: resolutely not recruit boys from Hainan.
Why is there such a wonderful principle?
It turned out that he had been to Haikou and Sanya several times. Each time, he drew a conclusion from others' mouth and his own observation: Hainan men are very lazy.
He told me, for example, that most of the drivers he met in Haikou were female drivers. One of the female drivers also complained to him that he not only had to get up early to drive, but also had to go back to wash and cook at noon, while her husband didn't get up until three poles in the morning. After dinner, he went out to drink tea and chat, and then stayed up late at night to boast.
Not only her husband, but also many Haikou men. The female driver added to him.
Later, when he traveled to Sanya, he found that many of the construction sites were women. After further inquiry, he learned that there were basically women working on the construction sites in Sanya.
From then on, he firmly believed in the conclusion that Hainan men are lazy.
I advised him that we can't look at people with colored glasses. Wow, you'll miss talents.
So he tried to recruit an employee from Hainan and was dismissed in less than a week.
To this end, he did not forget to sneak over to show off his wisdom to me: "I said Hainan men are lazy, and you still strongly advised me to recruit. You see, the young man I recruited said he could bear hardships, but he was unwilling to work overtime and was under great pressure. He didn't work for a week."
This phenomenon of my friend is the second judgment trap we are easy to fall into in our work: only believe what we believe.
The judgment deviation of "only believing in yourself" is mainly caused by two reasons: belief fixation and confirmation deviation.
① belief fixation once people have established a certain belief in something, especially a theoretical support system for it, it is difficult to break people's view. Even when the opposite evidence and information appear, they often turn a blind eye.
② confirm that people only want to see information that supports their views.
When faith fixation is combined with confirmation deviation, you will find that your judgment will be confirmed everywhere in your work and life.
You must not underestimate the power of the combination of faith fixation and confirmation deviation. All religions (whether the three major religions or various cults) are based on these two foundations.
Like my friend, even if he recruits male employees from Hainan in the future, he will still think they are lazy.
Because he has established the belief that "Hainan men are lazy", he can only see their "lazy" behavior in his eyes, but will selectively ignore their diligent behavior.
So how to crack the belief persistence and confirmation deviation?
The only feasible way is to let persistent people explain from the perspective of opposite beliefs.
For example, if you think Hainan men are lazy, try your best to explain why Hainan men are not lazy.
03 judgment trap 3: believe in absolute truth
In recent years, people who can't make up their mind often come to me for advice.
One very interesting phenomenon is that they often ask other people's opinions after chatting with me, and then come back to ask me what to do after getting the opposite opinion.
For example, a girl asked me how to choose my next job and then asked her best friend. As a result, she was violently rejected: don't you know what you think? Why ask someone else? Have you worked in vain these years?
So she sent me this chat record of her being defeated.
Its meaning is self-evident: should I listen to you? Or should I listen to her?
This is the third judgment trap we are easy to fall into in our work: believing in absolute truth.
Mankind has not yet found out the essential law of the universe, and we are now more ignorant than we know.
As Shi Yigong said in his speech "the limits of life science cognition" at the annual meeting of the "future forum":
With the development of science and technology, the world we see is only 5% of the whole world. Compared with 1000 years ago when human beings didn't know there was air, electric field and magnetic field, and didn't know the elements, they thought the sky was round and the place was round, our unknown world was much more and unimaginable.
The world is so unknown and mankind is so stupid. What else must we forget?
Therefore, there is no absolute truth in the world at present, and all theories, methods and suggestions are not absolutely correct. It is useless to crown them with "first principle" even if people are afraid of it.
Back to the case of the girl above, in fact, the suggestions I gave or the "follow your heart and follow your ideas" suggested by her best friend are all based on certain premises and assumptions. If you leave these premises and assumptions, they will have no meaning.
Therefore, when you use a certain theoretical method or adopt a certain suggestion, you must find out these theoretical methods and the premise and hypothesis behind others' suggestions. Just as the girl did below.
04 judgment trap 4: ignore multiple causes
From Monday to Friday, we will hold a short regular meeting of about 30 minutes before work to check and discuss the completion of tasks on each hand.
Everyone's task is challenging, so it is almost inevitable that there is a gap in the promotion. Therefore, basically every meeting, we should analyze the causes of the gap and give follow-up improvement countermeasures.
At this time, an interesting thing happened: some students will only find out one reason at the meeting, and then give a follow-up thing to do.
For example, the number of participants in a workshop did not reach the target number. During the regular meeting, the students in charge of the workshop gave a reason that the external channels were not exposed enough.
Therefore, the countermeasure he gave was to open the members of a platform, because the operators of the platform told him that the resources would be given only when the members were opened.
In fact, even if this platform gives resources, the number of new applicants is not enough to make up for the number gap; Moreover, even if members are opened, the platform may not give resources, which is just a marketing strategy of the other party's operators.
The mistake made by this classmate is not an isolated case. Most of us fall into such a judgment trap in our work: ignoring the influence of multiple reasons, we only look for the so-called "magic bullet" - that is, the only reason they are interested in and cause the gap.
For example, when app was still in the boom period in 2015, I once saw a small company's quite funny business decisions.
At that time, the company's revenue fell month by month. The boss thought that the market development means were too traditional (telemarketing), so he put all his treasure on the development of an app. The whole company thought that as long as the app came out, customers would come to the door automatically, and they would no longer need to rely on inefficient telephone invitations to expand customers.
As a result, the app came out, but everyone was dumbfounded: how can customers know and download this app? Compared with the original telephone invitation, the difficulty of this promotion has not been reduced at all.
Therefore, it is very important to have the concept of diversity of reasons.
On the one hand, it reminds us not to rely too much on a single reason explanation; On the other hand, although it is said that a certain reason is only one of the many reasons for the gap, it cannot be said that this reason can be ignored.
So how to apply the concept of diversity of reasons to specific work?
Two methods:
① use the framework to organize the reasons leading to the gap, and it is required to comply with MECE (no repetition and no leakage), so as to find out the reasons for diversification.
② for each countermeasure given for the reason, the possible effects must be estimated, and the sum of these effects shall be enough to make up for the gap.
05 judgment trap 5: hard find correlation
I especially like the following passage:
Three people take the elevator to the tenth floor. One is running in place, one is doing push ups, and the other is hitting his head against the wall. They all arrived at the tenth floor. The media interviewed them. How did you get to the tenth floor?
Come on, I said one. One said, I came up in push ups. One said, I hit my head against the wall.
This elevator is the fast-growing Chinese economy, and those three people are entrepreneurs who preach successful experiences.
This passage vividly illustrates the judgment trap of "hard looking for correlation".
The judgment trap of hard finding correlation is mainly caused by pattern tendency and illusion correlation.
① pattern tendency we are born to understand the world in a certain pattern, so even if it is a purely random event, we must find out the law.
② illusion correlation when we expect to find some important connection, we can easily connect various random events and feel an illusion correlation.
The combination of pattern tendency and illusion correlation makes it easy for us to find all kinds of pseudo laws, and many times we still believe in them.
The practice of hard finding relationships is common in our lives and work. Whether successful entrepreneurs, highly educated university professors or ordinary grass-roots employees, we are tirelessly discovering, refining and sharing all kinds of nonexistent pseudo laws.
How to crack it?
There are two methods:
① psychologically willing to accept that the "law" found by yourself is overturned
② verify the newly discovered "law" in practice, rather than blindly adopt or apply it.
06 summary
Overestimate individual examples, only believe what you believe, believe in absolute truth, ignore multiple causes, and hard find correlation. On the one hand, these five judgment traps are caused by our biological characteristics. For example, the tendency of pattern leads us to find a correlation.
But the main reason is that we lack the necessary basis of statistics and social psychology.
For example, the survivor deviation regardless of the basic probability leads to blind faith in individual examples; These social psychological concepts of unclear belief persistence and confirmation deviation lead to their own paranoia and narrowness.
However, if you can master the following main thinking and judgment methods, you can easily avoid these judgment traps and greatly improve the quality of your decision-making.
① psychologically recognize that you may make mistakes, and do more reverse thinking and verification on your judgment. ② Don't just look at the data of "survivors", but use the full data to compare. ③ Be sure to find out the theoretical methods and the premises and assumptions behind other people's suggestions. ④ Think in a frame rather than scattered.