One hundred and five deadly cognitive traps to avoid

Everybody wants a profitable, just, humane, creative, interesting, healthy future – it’s just that while we are working in groups to achieve it, a bunch of other stuff happens along the way. Such is life in a world defined by bureaucracy, and instead of complaining about it, we need to realize why we’re having so much trouble actually thinking about the future. Until we recognize our collective problems, all the trends and scenarios in the world won’t help us create organizations with a strong sense of foresight.

The above statement is the central thesis for my next book, which will be a detailed, rich manual on exactly how NOT to study the future. I have identified twenty-five common traps into which leaders fall when attempting to think about the future. Before you get flogged with any more reports about nanogenetics or the rise of the Ghanaian automobile industry or reports on cell phones implanted in your molars, we need to look back at the past fifty years of futurism and see why it didn’t necessarily result in a world full of visionary futurists.

Given my new mission, I was excited to find this beautifully-presented look at cognitive bias in groups.  The authors outline for us all the ways our group dynamics can result in dangerously inaccurate thoughts about the future:

• The 19 social biases
• The 8 memory biases
• The 42 decision-making biases
• The 36 probability/belief biases

I love this presentation in the way in does not invite to blame or ridicule – these are natural phenomena that occur within groups of people. I may have committed 75 of these mistakes before breakfast myself – it’s that easy. When we come around to such self-analysis with a touch of humor and understanding, we may finally be in a position to move on to organizations that are more sophisticated and more effective.

Cognitive Biases – A Visual Study Guide by the Royal Society of Account Planning