Product Description

Leaders in all fields-business, medicine, law, government-make crucial decisions every day. The harsh truth is that they mismanage many of those choices, even though they have the right intentions. These blunders take a huge toll on leaders, their organizations, and the people they serve.

Why is it so hard to make sound decisions? We fall victim to simplified mental routines that prevent us from coping with the complex realities inherent in important judgment calls. Yet these cognitive errors are preventable. In Think Twice, Michael Mauboussin shows you how to recognize-and avoid-common mental missteps, including:

-Misunderstanding cause-and-effect linkages

-Aggregating micro-level behavior to predict macro-level behavior

-Not considering enough alternative possibilities in making a decision

-Relying too much on experts

Sharing vivid stories from business and beyond, Mauboussin offers powerful rules for avoiding each error. And he explains how to know when it's time to think twice-to question your reasoning and adopt decision-making strategies that are far more effective, even if they seem counterintuitive.

Master the art of thinking twice, and you'll start spotting dangerous mental errors-in your own decisions and in those of others. Equipped with this awareness, you'll soon begin making sounder judgment calls that benefit (rather than hurt) your organization.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1375 in Books
• Published on: 2009-10-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 204 pages

About the Author
Michael J. Mauboussin is Chief Investment Strategist at Legg Mason Capital Management. He has been an adjunct professor of finance at Columbia Business School since 1993. BusinessWeek's Guide to the Best Business Schools highlighted him as one of the school's "Outstanding Faculty"-a distinction received by only seven professors.

Customer Reviews

Think Twice Because Your Habits and Mind Tend Not To Let You
Over the millennia, our brains have been developed to be the most energy conserving part of our bodies due, in part, that our distant forefathers had to make quick decisions of friend or foe. Therefore, we rarely take time, and energy, to think or rethink things over. If one does not spend a little extra time to think thru your important decisions, you tend to be on "Thin Ice". For example, take another look at the title of the book, did you notice the double entendre ?!

This book is about mistakes and bad decisions of smart people, business executives, doctors, and others. Many of the reasons all these people and professions make bad decisions, in part, is that we all have a similar framework of having the same mental software basics. This can and does lead to false beliefs and bad decisions due to mental traps as the author describes. These default false beliefs that we all have inherited prevent clear thinking. As the author continues to describe throughout the book, "To make good decisions, you frequently must think twice - and that is something our minds would rather not do."

The book is a nice enjoyable read, very clear with the necessary psychology jargon, and has a very nice set of notes to follow-up on if you would like. All in, though short, this book comes highly recommended for any bookshelf on how to make better decisions.


As a side note: I have pointed out in other reviews, of other books below, that are in the same genre and which are some of my favorites. So if you like this somewhat introductory book, then you may be interested in more hidden traps our minds fall into, or other social influences, I provide the following recommendations: Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (polymath classic), How We Know What Isn't So (very good), Mean Markets and Lizard Brains (Hidden Gem), The Psychology of Judgment & Decision Making (Classic), and Poor Charlie's Almanack (Charlie's Insights). Good reading and enjoy :)

Mauboussin Does It Again!
Michael Mauboussin has done it again, as the Chief Investment Strategist at Legg Mason Capital Management and professor at Columbia Business School is out with a provocative and page-turning book about how to improve your decision making. Mauboussin's Expectations Investing focused more on the nuts and bolts of investing, while Think Twice's precursor, More Than You Know, explored psychology, strategy and the science of money management. The latest work, Think Twice, delves into how to actually improve decision making and even exploit the behavioral pitfalls that others may fall into. Mauboussin's experience within the field of behavioral finance becomes immediately obvious when reading this book, and Mauboussin serves as a unique guide for readers looking both to improve their thinking process in a practical way and gain a more holistic picture of how their mind works.

As a reader, I found the book to be engaging and entertaining, with stories serving to make the relevant behavioral points. I flew through the book and decided I needed to read it again. I now feel like I have a greater awareness of how I think and the all-too-common errors in judgment I might make without due consideration. The key for me has been to make sure I am aware of when I am in the crosshairs and could potentially make a sub-optimal decision. I then make sure I slow down and apply some of the lessons from the book in the hopes of making a better decision. No matter what I always try to make sure I am aware of what factors are leading me to make the decision I am making so that I can ultimately analyze what might have made me do a particular thing on a particular day. I view such a project as an effort to improve one's decision-making process, for the long term. This book provides a framework for such an undertaking and does so in an easily understandable and pragmatic way.

Deep Survival for Investors
It is a curious thing that Nobel Prize winning economists specializing in finance can start up an investment management company, run it successfully for several years, and then blow up. In fact, in my 25 years on Wall Street, I've learned that an academic grounding in modern portfolio theory is not a ticket to financial nirvana, as many would believe. Rather, it is often the way to financial ruin. When I began managing money professionally, after years of academic trainings, I realized that the great Jedi master Yoda was right: I had to unlearn what I had learned to be successful as an investment manager. In the process of unlearning, I had to learn to think twice and harness the power of counter intuition, which is the subject of Michael Mauboussin's perceptive book.

Think Twice is all about decision making. It goes without saying that nobody's decision making is perfect. We can all improve our ability to make better decisions. And therein lay the value of this book. Mauboussin takes readers through numerous real life stories - from betting on Big Brown to win, to the unexpected wobble in the newly constructed Millennium Bridge - where faulty decisions led to unfortunate consequences. Analyzing these situations in a colorful and easy to digest manner, he provides fresh insights based on psychology and complexity theory to tell us how to avoid bad decisions and improve future outcomes. As Aldous Huxley once observed, experience is not what happens to you; it is what you do with what happens to you.

Oh, if only I were armed with the power of counter intuition when I first started out on Wall Street. I could have saved myself many sleepless nights and a lot of money along the way. If you are an investor, I urge you to pick up a copy of Think Twice. It is deep survival for investors. If you are not investor but desire to improve your decision making ability, I highly encourage you to read this book. If you take to heart what Mauboussin says in his book you will undoubtedly learn to make better decisions.