This is going to be a series on some of the thinking frameworks or mental models I have picked up over the last few years. I am writing these down to more indelibly etch them in my psyche and also hoping some of you may find them useful. In this first part I discuss the eight models I use most commonly at work and in life.
One way to find if something is true, is to question what else must also be true or false for it to be true. In other words, invert what we are trying to find and find that which proves or disproves the original thing. Sometimes the opposite of what we’re thinking about is easier to observe or prove. Nobody ever saw quarks but we know they exist because we can observe their effects which proves their presence.
When people come to us with options, we must ask for more. In effect, we need to move the spotlight to options not presented or kept in the dark. One way to do this is to ask what would one do if the original options presented are no longer feasible. This line of thinking generally allows one to move the spotlight to other areas and widen our options.
Popularised by Thinking fast and slow, this is one of the most common biases that blocks us from making good decisions. We generally think our situation is unique and we ignore what usually happens. Base rate is the usual rate at what things happens. Rate is basically a catchall term that can be anything like time, money, space, etc. It is particularly useful in deciding timelines and budgets. We must always question what happens usually with the world and start with that number and then add our unique context, capabilities and constraints.
Simply put, never attribute to malice, what can be attributed to stupidity. This is almost a golden rule to live by at work. Believing that someone is out to get us, comes naturally to us but by making it our knee jerk reaction, we make escalations that we could have been avoided. There are almost always more plausible reasons behind anybody’s actions and once we rule out the less likely, personal motivation, we develop a more healthy attitude towards life and our colleagues.
Coming up with ideas and evaluating those ideas needs to happen by two different kinds of thought processes. Divergent thinking is about letting your brain explore different territories in an unbridled fashion and make connections across totally unrelated concepts. Convergent thinking is all about evaluating the different options, ranking them using an analytical system. Unlike divergent thinking this is all about keeping the objective front and center. We cannot perform both these activities together. Either diverge for a while and then converge or delegate one of the two.
This is an interesting concept that is useful for decision making by keeping our ego under check. When trying to work on a problem, we must try to come up with multiple ideas so our ego isn’t linked to any single one. Use the spotlight effect to come up with more ideas or explore more options. Once we’re not banking on any one concept, we are less likely to defend it and be more objective.
Ergodicity
I got introduced to this concept in Taleb’s Fooled by Randomness and wrote about it in detail here. Ergodicity is the conceptual difference between many people doing something once and one person doing the same thing multiple times one after the other. Consider a casino where n people play a game once and one person plays the same game n number of times. The financial loss of the losers in the scenario of multiple players does not affect the non-losers. In the case of the single player playing multiple times one after the other, when the player loses once, the playing stops and the player is ruined. This time series case vs multiple together (ensemble case) presents itself far more frequently than you can imagine. Be wary of applying averages across scenarios. What happens with many once, may not be the same to one person doing the same thing n times over time.
Psychological distance
Similar to the base rate effect, gaining some psychological distance by thinking of our situation as it is playing out with a friend, helps us gain some objectivity. A popular way to do this is to ask oneself if what you’re going through, happened with a friend, what would we advise them. It also, at times, helps to not delve too much in the details and look at an objective in totality. Gaining psychological distance helps in becoming more objective, less emotional and makes us more likely to avoid falling for biases.
I run a startup called Harmonize. We are hiring and if you’re looking for an exciting startup journey, please write to jobs@harmonizehq.com. Apart from this blog, I tweet about startup life and practical wisdom in books.