A New York Times Bestseller
A tour de force of scholarship and clear writing.”
—New York Times
PRAISE FOR ‘NOISE’
“The gold standard for a behavioral science book is to offer novel insights, rigorous evidence, engaging writing, and practical applications. It’s rare for a book to cover more than two of those bases, but Noise rounds all four—it’s a home run. Get ready for some of the world’s greatest minds to help you rethink how you evaluate people, make decisions, and solve problems.”
Adam Grant, author of Think Again and host of the TED podcast WorkLife
“Noise completes a trilogy that started with Thinking, Fast and Slow and Nudge. Together, they highlight what all leaders need to know to improve their own decisions, and more importantly, to improve decisions throughout their organizations. Noise reveals a critical lever for improving decisions, not captured in much of the existing behavioral economics literature. I encourage you to read Noise soon, before noise destroys more decisions in your organization.”
Max H. Bazerman, author of Better, Not Perfect
“The influence of Noise should be seismic, as it explores a fundamental yet grossly underestimated peril of human judgment. Deepening its must-read status, it provides accessible methods for reducing the decisional menace.”
Robert Cialdini, author of Influence and Pre-Suasion
“Choices matter. Unfortunately, many of the choices people make are fundamentally flawed by the presence of noise, the subject of this absolutely fascinating and essential book. It is deeply researched, thoughtful, and accessible. I began it with a sense of intrigue and concluded it with a sense of celebration. We can make better choices in business, politics, and our personal lives. This book lights the way.”
Rita McGrath, author of Seeing Around Corners
“Brilliant! Noise goes deep on an under-appreciated source of error in human judgment: randomness. The story of noise has lacked the charisma of the story of cognitive bias…until now. Kahneman, Sibony, and Sunstein bring noise to life, making a compelling case for why we should take random variation in human judgment as seriously as we do bias and offering practical solutions for reducing noise (and bias) in judgment.”
Annie Duke, author of Thinking in Bets
ABOUT THE BOOK
Wherever there is human judgment, there is Noise.
From the bestselling author of Thinking, Fast and Slow, the co-author of Nudge, and the author of You Are About to Make a Terrible Mistake! comes Noise, a groundbreaking exploration of why people make bad judgments, and how through controlling both noise and cognitive bias, you can make better ones.
Imagine that two doctors in the same city give different diagnoses to identical patients — or that two judges in the same court give different sentences to people who have committed the same crime. Suppose that different food inspectors give different ratings to indistinguishable restaurants — or that when a company is handling customer complaints, the resolution depends on who happens to be handling the particular complaint. Now imagine that the same doctor, the same judge, the same inspector, or the same company official make different decisions, depending on whether it is morning or afternoon, or Monday rather than Wednesday. These are examples of noise: variability in judgments that should be identical.
A masterful introduction to the state of the art in managerial decision-making. Surprisingly, it is also a pleasure to read.”
—Daniel Kahneman, author of Thinking, Fast and Slow
PRAISE FOR ‘YOU’RE ABOUT TO MAKE A TERRIBLE MISTAKE!’
“A masterful introduction to the state of the art in managerial decision making. Surprisingly, it is also a pleasure to read.”
Daniel Kahneman, recipient of the Nobel Prize in economics and author of Thinking, Fast and Slow
“Finally! Actionable advice for leaders based on decades of decision science. Succinct, accurate, and even-handed. I loved it!”
Angela Duckworth, bestselling author of Grit
“Brilliant, fun, and wise — a tremendous guide to sensible decision-making, in business and in daily life. Filled with vivid stories and big lessons, this book might well be the best investment you make this year.”
Cass R. Sunstein, author of How Change Happens
“You’re probably familiar with many of the biases that can ruin your decisions. The question is what to do about them when you’re building your business strategy. Olivier Sibony has some compelling answers. Drawing on his extensive experience as a consultant and his impressive knowledge of behavioral science, he shows how you can make your team smarter than the people in it.”
Adam Grant, bestselling author of Originals and Give and Take
“An elegant synthesis of the best scientific work on human judgment that will be useful whether your aspirations in life are modest—become a smarter consumer of news—or whether they are grandiose—run a large company or country.”
Philip E. Tetlock, bestselling co-author of Superforecasting
“Olivier Sibony has written the best, funniest, most useful guide to cognitive bias in business. If you make decisions, you need to read this book.”
Safi Bahcall, bestselling author of Loonshots
“Olivier Sibony has that rare and magical ability to take complex concepts and package them in fast-paced, easy-to-understand narrative. Filled with actionable advice on how to make better choices, this book should be required reading for anyone looking to improve their decision process.”
Annie Duke, bestselling author of Thinking in Bets
ABOUT THE BOOK
We all make decisions all the time. It’s so natural that we hardly stop to think about it. Yet even the smartest and most experienced among us make frequent and predictable errors. So, what makes a good decision? Should we trust our intuitions, and if so, when? How can we avoid being tripped up by cognitive biases when we are not even aware of them?
In You’re About to Make a Terrible Mistake!, strategy professor and management consultant Olivier Sibony draws on dozens of fascinating and engaging case studies to show how cognitive biases routinely lead all of us — including even the most renowned business titans — into nine common decision-making traps.
But instead of rehashing the same old “debiasing” techniques that fail managers time and again, Sibony explains that the best way to avoid the pitfalls of cognitive bias is to craft an effective decision-making architecture in your organization — a system of techniques and processes that leverage collective intelligence to help leaders make the best decisions possible — and provides 40 concrete methods for doing so.
Distinctive in the clarity and practicality of its message, You’re About to Make a Terrible Mistake! distills the latest developments in behavioral economics and cognitive psychology into actionable tools for making smart, effective decisions in business and beyond.