Brett F. Whysel Let’s do something completely different this week. How about a photo-essay? When I began my study of decision-making, I assumed that the coldly rational, quantitatively financial-economic approach was the best. How else can you avoid making the systematic errors that our cognitive biases can cause? I’ve since learned that emotion, intuition, empathy and even unconscious … Read more
Ethical Decisions are Everywhere The homeless guy I walked past. The hamburger I ate and the tip I left. The verbally abusive parent on the subway that I ignored. The $20 bill I found in the back of a cab. The elections. Life, at work and at home, is full of ethical decisions, choices about … Read more
Decision Fish Interviews Kim Stephenson, an occupational psychologist. Perhaps the greatest benefit of the World Wide Web, is contained in the first two words. Decision Fish’s blog has readership worldwide, self-selected to be some of the most thoughtful and smartest people anywhere. Kim Stephenson, an occupational psychologist from the UK is one of those people. Here’s a … Read more
Time for a Quick Update Besides blogging and tweeting about decision-making, Decision Fish has been building apps that help people make wise financial decisions. If you ever feel under-prepared, overwhelmed or intimidating by big financial decisions, we’ll be there. We are building trusted, easy to use apps that give people just the education and analysis they need to make … Read more
I recently visited with a 27 year old who asked me for help in figuring out what to do with his life. He is about to start at a prestigious graduate school and is feeling pressure to make some big career decisions quickly. Here’s the letter I wrote him, inspired by Seneca’s Letters from a Stoic. Before you … Read more
Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) is a decision process that makes you put a number—usually dollars—on the costs and benefits of every alternative. One chooses the alternative that has the greatest total benefit net of total cost. We can estimate the value of hard costs like construction, opportunity costs like alternative uses of money as well as benefits like improved … Read more
Just in time (actually a day late) for #FinHealthMatters day, try this quick financial health check up! Don’t worry: zero co-pays here and your answers are confidential because they’re not tracked. The Center for Financial Services Innovation has developed an eight-point scale to help financial institutions adjust their products and services to “… focus on improving consumers’ lives.” … Read more
Our decisions, and the actions they lead to, make us who we are. In that sense, decisions are fundamental to our identities, our humanity and even the future of our planet. But what is a good decision and how do we get great at making them? I want to share with you my answers to … Read more
Try Decision Fish’s First Release We are proud to share our first (not even beta yet) release of our mobile website to a select group of valued supporters—like you. Please: We will donate $1 for each survey completed by June 15 to New Visions for Public Schools, a 4-star charity dedicated to helping students achieve their … Read more
Group Decision-Making is Really Hard Whom should we hire, promote or fire? Who should we put on this proposal writing team and what should we propose? I’ve made or participated in such group decisions hundreds of times and I’ve never felt confident in the process or the outcome. Did we come up with the right … Read more