Posts

Intuition

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  In my last post I introduced Colin Powell's 40 - 70 rule for decision making.  This rule dictates that decisions should be made when you possess no less than 40, and no more than 70 percent of available information.  With less than 40 percent of the information your decision is no better than a "stab in the dark".  This lower limit is relative easy to comprehend.  Without a map or knowledge of an area how do you travel to a given address.  Even if you have an accurate address a map guides you to the correct street in the correct city.  The upper limit is justified by balancing the time used to acquire the information with the utility of the information.  If a decision takes too long to make, opportunities could be lost, competitors could enter the market first or enemies could discover your strategies.  What I failed to present is how to fill in the missing information.  How do we confidently decide when we only have 70 percent of the ...
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Proper time to make a decision

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  In my last post  I explored how certain flexibilities gave us substantial freedom when making decisions.  Having an emergency fund allowed one to make monetary decisions without panicking.  Or how a salesperson attempts to accelerate your decision process buy making you focus on certain aspects of a decision, i.e. a monthly payment.  Another forced "panic" would be an implied scarcity.  "Buy now they won't last long."  Having certain flexible assets is important at a tactical and strategic level, but what about at an operational level?  When a decision is needed how long should it take?  The obvious answer is dependent on the decision itself.  Having acknowledged this variance, are there frameworks or guidelines to help us make decisions within an appropriate time frame. Before looking at any type of framework it would be best to review our basic decision making.  In its simplest form our decision making is comprised of a few basi...
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Decisions and Time

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  My last  post delved into the concept of enough.  One of the main points was the benefit of defining "enough" prior to consumption.  The simple example is to define how many drinks I would consume on a night out.  One drink was enough.  It may be a cocktail before a meal or a glass of wine with the meal.  One drink allowed me to enjoy the evening and still make it home safely.  If I felt the desire for more drinks I would need to make alternate travel arrangements before going out.  Uber is usually one of the better options.  I am also a fan of public transit. I just went on a cruise.  While on this vacation traveling to and from dinner was a short stroll from our cabin to the dining room.  Did this change how much I drank?  I did drink a little more but not much more.  I did enjoy a glass of wine with dinner.  Other than a cocktail during the day I did not have much else to drink.  My main reason for my ...
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Enough is enough

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  I have come across a number of sources lately that probe the notion of "enough".  Enough is a term whose meaning appears endless.  You could possibly categorize it as undefined.  One of the first impressions of enough, is a barrier.  Generally defining an imposed end point.  When I was a child I was always told that I had enough dessert.   Or more generally told that's enough of that.  Enough of what?  The ultimate in ambiguity "enough is enough".  Enough what is enough?  As we age into our teenage years we get told that we have enough clothes, enough shoes and that's enough fooling around and time to get a job.  Heading to university and visiting campus pubs we get asked to leave because we've had enough.  Had enough, I just had a couple beers.  We then become adults and have children of our own and suddenly we are the ones telling them enough dessert, enough clothes and enough is enough!  Oh no, adulting...
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Advice to your 25 year old self

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  I was watching the  Prof G podcast with Scott Galloway and his guest Fareed Zakaria.  The podcast was entertaining.  It was Professor Galloway's last question that I found intriguing. He asked Fareed: What advice would you give to your 25 year old self?  What did you get right and what did you get wrong? This is actually 2 questions from very different perspectives.  The first questions asks one to look back and give advice to your younger self.  Basically, knowing what you know now what advice would you give.  The second part has one look back and assess the decisions your younger self made.  I have been blogging about decisions and information for several years so I found these questions intriguing.  Most interesting is the general nature of these questions.  Going back in time and advising your younger self could cover a wide range of possibilities.  At 25 you are beginning your personal and career trajectories that will ...
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Risk, Optimism and Guardrails

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  This post has several roots.  Some of these have lingered in my thoughts for quite some time while others are quite recent.  How do risk and optimism interact?  The title of this blog; "Is it safe to go to Town" characterizes this very dichotomy.  As a reminder this blog was started during the covid shutdown and its seeds are in the simple dilemma of the risk I would take in walking from our home to one of the shops in the downtown core of the town we live in.  Optimistically I would walk to the town square and eat a meal and return home.  The risk would be that I would be exposed to covid and become ill.  Another kernel is our 401k.  Certain stocks or indices increase in value for no other reason other than the markets optimism for a company's future.  Recently I came across this  podcast  with Andrew Ross Sorkin.  The video is focused on his latest book about the 1929 stock market crash.  The title of the video is...
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Nothing but feelings.

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  I have been writing about how we make decisions for about 5 years now.  One of my main goals is to be confident about how we process information and how we work through our decisions.  This confidence will then allow us to live with our decisions.  It is not about getting everything right.  One will never get every thing right.  I would like us to be confident in our decisions regardless of the outcomes.  Sometimes things go awry despite our sound understanding of the issues and our tactical approach to the problem.  Sometimes we blunder blindly and land on our feet.  What is the saying "even a blind squirrel finds a nut".  A decision does not need to be complex to be difficult.  Sometimes logic and tactics are not applicable to a particular decision. Just to be clear I am not talking about emotional aspects that may influence a decision, such as a automobile purchase.  We all envision ourselves driving that new convertible a...
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