Sunk cost bias: when persevering beyond a reasonable doubt turns out to be a bad idea
We are reading a book that we are not liking at all. But we paid 20 euros for it, so we decide to finish it, in spite of Pennac and the third of his list of reader’s rights which states “It is not necessary to finish a book”. We are not satisfied with our work, […]
Shiny object bias and organic innovation processes
In collective folklore, the magpie is accused of being attracted to shiny objects, going so far as to steal them. But the magpie is not the only one to be inexorably attracted to shiny objects; human beings also suffer from this fatal attraction. One possible explanation could be sought in the ancestral need to have […]
Why do we collectively look away while our house is burning?
During the last course of each term, with my ESSEC master’s students, after having explored organisations from the point of view of people, analysing the dynamics and functioning of subsystems (groups, cultures, organisational subcultures, etc.) and collectives, we move on to analyse some contextual variables that serve to talk about the ethics of organisational action. […]
Positive Stereotyping: another way of putting people into boxes
It often happens to me, when working on unconscious bias issues with groups, during the dialogues that follow the nudge exercises that are proposed, to hear statements that seem to aim at paying a compliment, at saying something positive about a specific category. Some examples of these statements are “eh but you know, behind every […]
Backfire effect: why debunking does not regenerate our thinking
I’m sure each and every one of you has had occasion to get carried away and enter into a politically motivated discussion. The COVID crisis we have collectively gone through has created many opportunities for polarisation: lockdowns yes or no, vaccines yes or no, chloroquine yes or no etc. The arena in which many of […]
Women’s leadership and second-generation gender bias
The lean in model I was preparing a webinar on the topic of leadership and women. The talk was about a model of leadership more suitable for women, which allows to overcome the so-called “double constraint“, so to get out of the dualism “take care = woman, empathetic, emotional etc, take charge = man, strong, […]
Dragons of Inaction: the diffusion of responsibility in teams and in macrosystems
This week we introduce the “Bias of the Week” column with an interesting article written by Giovanna Prina, Managing Partner of BB7, the company with whom we developed our INSIDIAE bias card game. Giovanna makes us think about how, within the work team, the diffusion of responsibility bias can cause drops in productivity and also […]
Paula’s principle: When Paula and Peter are mirrored
Many years ago, a series of circumstances that started with one of my husband’s Eurostar journeys and a conversation he started with his train neighbour, commenting on the French elections and Sarkozy’s arrival in power, passed through a beautiful summer evening in a Parisian attic, led me to meet the author of the book “Paula’s […]
“Less is more” but what a struggle!
Instinctively, when I started writing this blog post, my first reaction was to go in search of other sources, other material that could help me enrich my ideas. How Klotz’s book came about And I find it really hard to think of enrichment in any other way than adding more reading to multiply my thoughts, […]
IKEA effect: when work leads to love
The IKEA effect The title of this week’s bias recalls the research conducted at Harvard by M. Norton, D. Mochon and D. Ariely. Ariely, in which the participants were asked to assemble products, fold origami and build Lego elements. This study showed how, once the assemblies were produced, the estimated value of their work […]
