RAFFIAPALM

Resources for product teams from industry experts.

mental models

  • System 1 is gullible and biased to believe, System 2 is in charge of doubting and unbelieving, but System 2 is sometimes busy, and often lazy. Indeed, there is evidence that people are more likely to be influenced by empty persuasive messages, such as commercials, when they are tired and depleted. The operations of associative memory contribute to a general confirmation bias “…”

    A deliberate search for confirming evidence, known as positive test strategy, is also how System 2 tests a hypothesis. Contrary to the rules of philosophers of science, who advise testing hypotheses by trying to refute them, people (and scientists, quite often) seek data that are likely to be compatible with the beliefs they currently hold.

    — Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

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  • The manager role is the “catalyst” role. As with all catalysts, the manager’s function is to speed up the reaction between two substances, thus creating the desired end product. Specifically, the manager creates performance in each employee by speeding up the reaction between the employee’s talents and the company’s goals and between the employee’s talents and the customers’ needs.

    When hundreds of managers play this role well, the company becomes strong, one employee at a time. No doubt, in today’s slimmed-down business world, most of these managers also shoulder other responsibilities. They are expected to be subject-matter experts, individual superstars and sometimes leaders in their own right. These are important roles, which great managers execute with varying styles and degrees of success. But when it comes to the manager aspect of their responsibilities, great managers all excel at this catalyst role.

    — First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently by Gallup Press

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  • Use tools to collect data and process it into conclusions and actions. Imagine that virtually everything important going on in your company can be captured as data, and that you can build algorithms to instruct the computer, as you would instruct a person, to analyze that data and use it in the way you agreed it should be used. In that way, you and the computer on your behalf could look at each person and all the people together and provide tailored guidance.

    — Principles: Life and Work by Ray Dalio

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  • Algorithms are principles in action on a continuous basis. I believe that systemized, evidence-based decision making will radically improve the quality of management. Human managers process information spontaneously using poorly thought-out criteria and are unproductively affected by their emotional biases. These all lead to suboptimal decisions. Imagine what it would be like to have a machine that processes high-quality data using high-quality decision-making principles and criteria. Like the GPS in your car, it would be invaluable, whether you follow all of its suggestions or not. I believe that such tools will be essential in the future.

    — Principles: Life and Work by Ray Dalio

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  • Soon enough, virtual reality environments may overtake our physical world as the primary locus of our experience, which means every aspect of our environment will have been designed by someone.

    Even today, it is hard to go anywhere that has not been deliberately shaped by human design. The concept of ontological design posits that in the act of designing our environments, we actually design ourselves, as the human mind is shaped greatly by its experiences. Hence there is a continual cycle of shaping between the individual and his environment.

    The earliest opportunity we have to shape our own behavioral algorithms is through the active structuring of our environments. This process allows us to avoid the inputs which trigger unwanted behaviors or ensure that we encounter those that trigger desired behavior. However, the purpose of environmental design does not just lie in avoiding negative cues, but in using cues to condition habits, making us invulnerable to threats when they inevitably come along.

    — Designing the Mind: The Principles of Psychitecture by Ryan A. Bush

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