Debias by Design – How to Use Visualization to (Recognize) and Avoid Thinking Errors

Professor Martin Eppler, Professor of Communication Management and Prorector of the University of St. Gallen, showed how cognitive biases worsen our decisions and how we can improve our decision-making processes with a five-step plan, the Decision TUNER, and corresponding visual tools.

Neither managers nor consumers are consistently rational in their decisions. The way we perceive the environment and judge information is distorted by so-called biases. Examples of such biases in decision-making are:

• Reusing an old solution or decision, even if it is not a good fit for the problem (problem-solving set),
• Searching for information that confirms our preferred decision option and ignoring evidence to the contrary (confirmation bias), and
• Overestimating our own understanding of a decision domain (overconfidence).
   

At the NIM Insights Lunch, there were exciting insights into how our brains trick us when making decisions and what you can do about it! 

NOTE: Interested parties who are not yet members of the NIM can attend an NIM Insights Lunch twice for free and then decide. If you have any questions about membership, please feel free to email us at hello@nim.org.