One of the more important assets a group can have is the expertise of its members. But, research indicates that even when everyone within a group recognizes who the subject matter expert is, they defer to that member just 62 percent of the time. When they don’t, they listen to the most extroverted person.
People are not naturally skilled at figuring out who they should be listening to. The brain uses shortcuts to manage the vast amounts of information that it processes every minute in any given social situation. These shortcuts allow our nonconscious brain to deal with sorting the large volume of data while freeing up capacity in our conscious brain for dealing with whatever cognitive decision-making is at hand. This process serves us well in many circumstances, but it can be harmful in others, such as when shortcuts lead us to fall for false expertise.
Source: Strategy + Business, March 5, 2018.
Biases are human, a function of our brains, and falling for them doesn’t make us malicious. We have the capacity to nudge ourselves toward more rational thinking, to identify and correct the errors we make as a result of bias, and to build institutions that promote good, clear thinking and decision making.
INSIGHTS: Khalil Smith suggests a few tools to nudge yourself and others toward more reflective, rigorous and objective thinking:
- Set up “if-then” plans
- Get explicit, and get it in writing
- Incentivize awareness
- Cut the cues