Monday, July 13, 2020

If Our Biases are Elusive and Unconscious, How Do We Crack Open These Hidden Brain Codes?









Super Forecasters Disrupt Bias and Re-Write the Code by Adding Some Friction


By Linda E. Pickard Ph.D.

July 13, 2020

“The fox knows many things but the hedgehog knows one big thing.”
/attributed to Archilochus, Greek Poet


‘Tip-of-your-nose’ perspective

We live our lives as perpetual forecasters. “Tip-of-your-nose” reactions and decisions predominate, as Philip E. Tetlock and Dan Gardner describe in Super Forecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction. We need these speedy, intuitive forecasting beliefs and skills to navigate through life’s moment-by-moment and long-term challenges. Otherwise, we risk overloading our brains and our wellbeing. Efficiency via intuition based on our accumulated life experiences allows us to be productive.

Errors in forecasting

When an aspect of our intuition is an outdated ideology in certain situations, causing a descent into hedgehog status, it’s time for an update. Super forecasters know the perils of personal ideology and ‘group think’. Tasked with peering into the present or the future to estimate the probability of something being or becoming a reality, they disrupt their intuitive knowledge by pursuing a ‘dragonfly perspective’.

Perpetual beta

The eyes of dragonflies see in almost every direction at the same time enabling them to capture insects at high speeds. Building on this analogy for improving thinking, super forecasters first note their own view and then test its veracity by seeking out many views. Tapping into the ‘wisdom of the crowd’, they aggregate the views of many who have different bits of information about an issue, reflect on the findings and then update their prior beliefs accordingly as probabilities. By deliberately checking out the accuracy of their viewpoints they add some friction to their existing ‘brain codes’. Re-writes naturally follow, transforming the state of “I don’t’ know what I don’t know” to “Now I know what I didn’t know”. ‘Perpetual beta’ is a way of life in a super forecaster’s brain.

Force Fit Reflection

On a practical level, most of us do not have the luxury in the ‘spur-of-the-moment’ situation of doing extensive research into others’ viewpoints. But we can bring to bear some ‘on the fly’ approaches to checkmate our looming biases.

·        Slow down your thinking

Use assessment tools

Jennifer Eberhardt, a Stanford University professor of social psychology and author of Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think and Do describes in her June 2020 TED Talk that ‘friction’ helps. They can include checklists and any other tool that helps us to reflect. For example, based on her research, a simple three-item mental checklist for use by police enables them to diagnose a situation quickly to determine the best course of action. The benefits include reducing unwarranted escalation, making incorrect assumptions and stereotyping.

In the same vein, for decades surgeons with their teams have used checklists to avoid errors and put the spot light on hidden blind spots. Highly productive teams, in general, make ample use of assessments tools when formulating and testing out the viability of a possible future scenario, the pathway to it and what might go wrong if enacted.  

Activate the here and now (H&N) response

This strategy builds on Thinking, Fast and Slow described by Daniel Kahneman in his Nobel Prize winning research with partner Amos Tversky about biases. The metaphors of two systems 1 (intuitive, fast thinking) and 2 (deliberate, slower, reflective thinking) illustrate a vital brain partnership (emotional and rational). System 1 scans the future in microseconds. It is a probability sensor drawing on all of our life experiences in search of an appropriate action. In the absence of friction and complete information, System 1 estimates the probability of a match of our current brain codes or algorithms with the challenge confronting us. In milliseconds, we think and act accordingly rewarding System 1 (“I’m right!”).

Under certain circumstances, System 2’s role is to spark a re-think of System 1’s thoughts and actions. But, it needs our conscious invitation to challenge System 1.That invitation means a switch in time (in 1-2 seconds) and space (to the present).

Daniel Z. Lieberman and Michael E. Long in their book The Molecule of More describe the shift to being present-oriented as H&N (Here and Now). Mindfulness training is one useful tool. It activates being in the moment. For example, in the context of an irritating situation, take three deep breaths or count to three. With time to think, System 2 (H&N) provides a rescue exit from a potentially inappropriate response.

Like a pebble in a pond, the more we use the H&N response (with any mind tool that snaps our attention to the present not the future), the more valuable it becomes. Our robust thinking continues to strengthen in multiple other situations threatening not only our peace of mind but also our sensible mind. In effect we each become a self-styled scientist collecting feedback data on ourselves and correcting as we go. The late K. Anders Ericsson, eminent researcher on expertness, would label the approach as ‘deliberate practice’.

       Practice ‘Active Open Mindedness’ (AOM)

Slow down your ‘refutation mode’

Think about all the disagreements you have had in the last six months or so in a team or otherwise. What percentage of the time do you think you were right? Most of us answer 50% or more all the way up to 100%! That’s a barrier for discovering errors in our brain codes, unleashing hitherto unknown biases.

The antidote - slow down your ‘refutation mode’ as Alan Jacobs describes in How to Think, where listening takes a hit. The emotional/intuitive response of “I do not agree” blocks incoming information that may be enlightening. This telescopic thinking prevents disrupting bias blind spots.

Instead shift into a coach approach, asking open-ended questions. “Be interested rather than interesting” described by Dale Carnegie in his 1936 book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. “Tell me more” is a particularly useful approach when someone expresses an opinion that is diametrically opposed to yours. At the least your ‘olive branch’ deepens your understanding of another’s point-of-view, revealing in more detail key ‘friction’ points. The latter may encourage further investigation on your part. Some common ground may emerge or you may stick to your opinion but at least you allowed your brain the space to check its current wiring.

Boost your intellectual humility

It takes effort to re-calibrate our beliefs, especially when we are not aware of them. Super forecasters, scientists, highly experienced intelligence experts and curious, open-minded people, for example, have a head start. By using a dragon fly perspective, among other tools, they detect and correct brain errors that were formerly invisible. Our malleable, learning brains adapt and re-code ready to sense and predict a refreshed set of probabilities.  

Humility offsets an automatic tendency to fall into ‘refutation mode’. None of us can rest on our laurels. Our ‘tip-of-the-nose’ intuitions are confident drivers of our lives. But equating competence with confidence is an illusion. Competence is always in ‘perpetual beta’.

In the spirit of checklists, Daniel Pink in his June 9, 2020 Pinkcast, How to boost your intellectual humility, drew attention to four questions from Warren Berger’s The Book of Beautiful Questions. They can challenge our assumptions (provide friction), guiding us to different perspectives. In reality, how we answer each of the following questions depends on the situation:

  1. Do I think like a soldier (defend) or a scout (explore)?
  2. Would I rather be right or better understand? (as in Stephen Covey's classic first book - 7 Habits of Highly Successful People, avoiding short-term victory that may undercut long-term knowledge)
  3. Do I solicit and seek opposing views? (If you disagree, tell me why)
  4. Do I enjoy the present surprise of discovery if I am mistaken? (something new)


·        


How you think interrupts what you think

Know thyself by thinking with others

From ancient times to now “know thyself” is a common refrain with the promise of greater life satisfaction and personal effectiveness. It is a call to self-improvement and learning by poets, philosophers, inventors, novelists, researchers, educators and leaders from all walks of life. It hints at the mystery of the unknown – a deeper sense of our identity that is based on our self-perceptions, how others perceive the world and simultaneously ‘see’ us. We may resist its mystery fearing that unwanted surprises will undermine our confidence.

On the other hand, multiple decades of research on super forecasters by Phil Tetlock and his associates consistently reveal that “know thyself” rewards can be a boost to wellbeing enhancing a sense of control in a universe full of uncertainty. Accuracy improvement in assessing the probability of a future occurrence is the ultimate reward for super forecasters. But this is achieved only if they follow one key principle of improvement – focus on how you think rather than what you think.

Super forecasters recognize that uncertainty is impossible to eliminate. At the same time, nuggets of evidence from many sources build resilience for withstanding and adapting to the next ‘surprise’ including changes in society’s view of appropriate behaviour.

Embrace hard ‘sleuthing’ work

The label of unconscious bias presumes we ‘don’t know what we don’t know’. But it is not an impermeable barrier if we open our minds to different realities from our own. That requires hard sleuthing work on our part using tools already in our tool boxes with familiar names like ‘active listening’, ‘mindfulness’, ‘conflict management’, ‘coaching’ and research. Used intentionally, the data generated by the tools in various contexts reveal deeper insights about thought patterns and behaviours in need of a ‘tune-up’. The mystery surrounding our biases is not solved by asking – “What are they?” but instead, “How am I going to discover them?”

The power of auto-feedback

We can train ourselves to ‘see’ as dragonflies do. Various tools with which we are already familiar provide the necessary ‘friction’ for discovering hidden habits of mind. By slowing down our thinking to boost self-reflection, being open to and seeking others’ viewpoints and resisting the ‘refutation mode’ as our automatic default reaction, we can disrupt and make visible outdated brain algorithms. The rewards are great. The world of ‘perpetual beta’ makes more robust our ‘tip-of-the-nose’ knowledge while boosting our social acumen. The journey is transformational.

But many studies highlight that the environments in which we experience the world play a huge role in bias awareness. Supportive, equitable and inclusive environments in a team, organization and society make the personal task of dragon fly bias interruption considerably easier. A culture of caring elevates feeling psychologically safe – being heard, included and respected for one’s expertise and views. That feeds a virtuous cycle of openness to change.

Counter-intuitively, massive upheaval, as we are experiencing with COVID-19, has provided ‘friction’ challenging systems and attitudes. The pandemic has starkly revealed where change must happen to correct inequities and the leadership needed. It has made evident the best of human nature, one person at a time - hence the value of working on our super forecasting skills.

A caveat – chronically negative environments are not conducive to improving our blind spots. In the face of little hope, survival in the form of ‘us’ versus ‘them’ rises to the forefront, reinforcing stereotypes and exacerbating long-standing grievances.

“Thinking: the power to be finely aware and richly responsible.”
/Alan Jacobs, How to Think, p.49.

 Originally published in LinkedIn on July 12, 2020.


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