What gets us off track

By Francesca Gino

We care about following through on our goals and wishes. And, yet, even when we have spent time developing our plans and are fully committed to our best intentions, our decisions often veer off course in unexpected ways...

Three different sets of forces influence our decisions in ways we commonly fail to anticipate: (a) forces from within ourselves, (b) forces from our relationships with others, and (c) forces from the outside world. Forces from within are factors that reside in both our minds and our hearts, and exist because of the very nature of being human.

We will explore the accuracy — or lack thereof — of our beliefs about our abilities and competence, the effects of our emotions on unrelated decisions, and the consequences of having an (overly) narrow focus when evaluating information and making decisions.

Forces from our relationships are factors that characterise our relationships and interactions with others. I will discuss the difficulty of putting ourselves in others’ shoes, how sharing even superficial features with others — such as having the same first name — colours our viewpoint and decisions, and how we are affected by comparing ourselves to others.

Finally, forces from the outside are factors that characterise the context in which we operate and make decisions. We will examine why subtle differences in the way a question is framed lead to different solutions.

From “Sidetracked: How Decisions Get Derailed, and How We Can Stick to the Plan”