Confronting uncertainty
How can I become more confident when faced with conditions of uncertainty? How can I contribute to an organisation that utilises effective heuristics?
This 1-2 day course provides a simple framework for how people make decisions. It shows how heuristics have the potential to enable effective judgments, but that they can also lead us to mistakes. It also provides a tool kit – the scenario method – to confront complex and uncertain situations. We will also understand what makes us us, and how this relates to personal and professional activities.
Case (must be read in advance)
- “Sun: A CEO’s Last Stand”, Business Week, July 26th 2004
Pre-class reading:
- “Explained: Knightian uncertainty” by Peter Dizikes, MIT news office, June 2010
- Quassim Cassam’s review of Kay, J., & King, M., 2020 ‘Radical Uncertainty’
- “Can we measure uncertainty?” Kaleidic Economics, March 2013
- Evans, Anthony J.. “Projections Past and Future: Economic Imagination and the Financial Crisis 2007 – 2012.” Working Paper, Mercatus Center at George Mason University, August 2009.
And any 1 of the following articles:
- Wack, Pierre, 1985, “Scenarios: Uncharted Waters Ahead.” Harvard Business Review 63, 5: 73-89.
- Wilkinson, Laurence, 1995, “How to Build Scenarios” Wired Magazine
- Roxburgh, C., 2009, “The use and abuse of scenarios” McKinsey Quarterly
Course overview:
Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Behavioural economics + [worksheet]
Part 3: Scenario Workshop + + [worksheet]
Additional readings:
The course incorporates content from the following important books. Prior knowledge of these insights are valuable but not mandatory:
- Kay, J., & King, M., 2020, Radical Uncertainty, The Bridge Street Press (Chapter 1 serves as a useful reading on its own)
- Hanson, R., and Simler, K., 2018, The Elephant in the Brain, Oxford University Press
- Peters, S., 2012, The Chimp Paradox, Vermilion
- Kahneman, D., 2011, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Penguin
Recommended audio:
- ‘The Road to the Iraq War‘, Slowburn Season 5
Recommended movies: