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In his recent post “To accept or to decline: mapping life’s little dilemmas using IBIS“, Kailash Awati provides a nice case study of using mapping to make a significant personal decision. Interestingly, the “little dilemma” in the case study is just the same kind of issue that was facing Joseph Priestley when he wrote to Benjamin Franklin asking for his advice, resulting in Franklin’s famous letter describing his “moral algebra”. Like most people, when reading Franklin’s letter I didn’t bother to ask what exactly was bothering Priestley so much that he would beg for Franklin’s advice. As described in Steven Johnson’s excellent book The Invention of Air, Priestley was deliberating over whether to accept a particular job offer. And as I discuss here, Franklin’s two-column pro/con method, for all its virtues, is just too simple to accommodate the true complexity of deliberative decision making. Awati’s case study illustrates how the moral algebra can be extended to embrace this complexity while retaining clarity by using the IBIS methodology and supporting software such as Compendium or bCisive.
Posted in Decision Making, Decision mapping, Deliberation, Moral algebra | Leave a Comment »
Daddy, is this true? If there were giants, then a football to them would be the same size as a pea to us.
That was, word for word, a completely out-of-the blue utterance by our 6 year old daughter, Lillian.
Her “if…then” construct is what is known as a counter-factual conditional – If [something that is not in fact true] then [something else that is not in fact true], and to correctly construct such conditionals you use subjunctive verb forms (were… would be…).
I’m amazed that somehow, without any explicit instruction at all, Lillian can spontaneously express counterfactual conditionals with perfectly grammatical sentences of complex construction. (In saying this, I’m not implying that I think Lillian is somehow especially advanced. I assume she’s showing a normal developmental progression. It is that progression which is amazing.)
But what really amazes me is that somehow, without instruction, she’s acquired the conceptual capacity to talk about the truth value of counterfactual conditions. (Aside: in some of our workshops we teach professionals such as intelligence analysts to try to avoid talking (i.e. thinking) about truth of conditionals, where there are regular alternatives, since it is so much more cognitively demanding than thinking about regular statements.)
No wonder linguists have argued that humans have a kind of innate capacity for language acquisition.
[repost of a shorter version posted on another blog]
Posted in Cognition, Language, Thinking | 1 Comment »
Tomorrow Martin Davies and I are conducting a workshop at Melbourne University under the heading “Argument Mapping in Your Subject”. It is intended for university-level educators interested in somehow incorporating argument mapping into their teaching. Around 60 educators are enrolled, with about half from Melbourne University and half from other universities around Australia. It is great to see this level of interest – a sign that there is momentum building argument mapping-based teaching.
Rather than creating a standard paper handout, I created a small website, Argument Mapping in Your Subject. (Google Sites makes it very easy to whip up these kinds of sites.) The website is a kind of portal to resources which might be helpful for educators seeking to better understand argument mapping and how to integrate into the subject they teach, whatever that may be. Mostly the website just links to resources already available elsewhere, but does provide some useful original content including, in particular, some case studies of how educators have incorporated argument mapping into their subjects, one in Economics, and another in Computer Science.
Also there is a new Google Group email list for anyone wanting to join a nascent online community around this topic.
Posted in Argument Mapping, Teaching | 1 Comment »
MECE is a list. It is a list of qualities lists should have. According to MECE, any list should be
- Mutually exclusive – the members of the list should “exclude” each other, i.e. be distinct
- Collectively exhaustive – the members of the list should “exhaust” the relevant field, i.e., contain everything that belongs on the list.
In plain English, MECE says that a list should have
- No overlaps
- No gaps
MECE widely used by management consultants. In fact it seems to have acquired the status of holy writ. According to Ethan Rasiel in The McKinsey Way:
MECE…is a sine qua non of the problem-solving process at McKinsey. MECE gets pounded into every new associate’s head from the moment of entering the Firm. Every document (including internal memos), every presentation, every email and voice mail produced by a McKinsey-ite is supposed to be MECE. Ask any number of McKinsey alumni what they remember most about the way the Firm solves problems and they will tell you, “MECE, MECE, MECE.
It is therefore interesting to ask whether MECE is adequate, even by its own lights. So we should ask:
- Does MECE have any overlaps?
- Does MECE have any gaps?
It seems clear that gaps and overlaps are very different, so MECE looks to be ME. But is it CE? We need to ask whether there are any properties that a properly formed list should have over and above ME and CE.
And obviously there are. For example, what’s wrong with the following list?
- Bashful
- Doc
- Dopey
- Grumpy
- Hannibal Lecter
- Happy
- Sleepy
- Sneezy
The list is ME – all items are genuinely distinct. And it is CE – it “exhausts” the relevant field, which is the seven dwarfs. But it is clearly a stupid list. It violates the commonsense principle that lists should not include things that don’t belong on the list.
And it is not too hard to think of other desiderata which are missing from MECE.
So MECE is not merely not MECE. MECE is obviously not MECE. MECE does not live up to its own standards.
Posted in Grouping, MECE, Management consulting | 7 Comments »
My Austhink colleague and long-time friend Paul Monk was featured today in the Melbourne Age’s journalism innovation The Zone. The site includes a 15 minute video, some of his poetry, and most importantly, his Credo, a humanist alternative to the Christian Creed. The portrait is at once very personal and philosophical.
Posted in Paul Monk | Leave a Comment »
A version of my Quadrant essay ” The Wise Delinquency of Decision Makers” was recently broadcast on ABC Radio National’s Ockham’s Razor program. Audio and transcript available here.
Robyn Williams, the great science journalist and host of Ockham’s Razor, introduced it thusly:
I remember a few years ago being on a committee choosing some prize winners, for innovation, or some such recognition. There was a new system in front of us, with grids, numbers out of ten in about twelve categories, cross-over elimination processes, all in all the same kind of chart you imagine The Pentagon using to invade Iraq in 2003. Now I happened to know who should have won the main prize. It was obvious; Malcolm Gladwell wrote all about this in Blink, you just know. But the process didn’t allow any of that. We ground through the chart system methodically. Hours passed. My winner wasn’t even in the shortlist. A list of the usual suspects was signed off. My guy later went on to win three national awards. I quietly resigned from the committee. So much for the gossip about decision making. Now the theory.
Robyn’s anecdote, and his instinctive antipathy to the officially mandated, matrix-based method, are certainly consonant with the themes of Wise Delinquency. It is just a pity about the passing reference to Blink, a book whose beguiling readability concealed the simplistic and misleading nature of its main message. My point was not the Gladwellian idea that rigorous and painstaking methods should give way to gut feelings or intuitive “blinks”. Rather, it was the certain kinds of rigorous and painstaking methods should not be applied by force in situations where qualitative deliberation is more appropriate. And there are lots of such situations.
A recent article in Slate describes how one of the flagship examples in Gladwell’s book, the supposed predictive ability of marriage researcher John Gottman, only seems impressive because of egregiously lousy statistical methods. These problems had been made public well before Blink was published. I’m told that Gladwell had been informed of these problems, but apparently chose not to mention them; the truth of the matter would have interfered with a good story. That seems like delinquency, but not of the wise kind.
Posted in Decision Making, Intuition, Statistics | 1 Comment »
A few months back I discussed Benjamin Franklin’s “moral algebra,” his simple prescription for good deliberative decision making. We know of Franklin’s moral algebra only because he succinctly summarized it in a now-famous short letter to his longtime scientific colleague and friend, Joseph Priestley. In that letter Franklin seemed to suggest that the moral algebra was his own invention, using phrases such as “My way [of making decisions]…”, but he didn’t explicitly claim it as his own creation.
Recently, one FelixM cryptically commented on this blog that
St Ignatius of Loyola (founder of the Jesuits) recommended this approach, about two hundred years earlier. presumably other people used it before him.This was intriguing. What was the method that St Ignatius allegedly used? Was it indeed the same or very similar to Franklin’s moral algebra? And did Franklin know of it? Was it indeed the original formulation of the method?
I contacted FelixM, who kindly informed me that St Ignatius’ version of the method could be found in his major work The Spiritual Exercises, which to this day remains a key Jesuit text. The full text of the relevant section is appended below.
Felix was quite right; Franklin’s moral algebra, and Ignatius’ version, which we might call his “spiritual algebra,” are indeed very similar.
The Ignatius version is however expressed in what appears (to us) archaic and floridly religious language. Here’s my take: a contemporary, secular version of St. Ignatius’ spiritual algebra:
- Identify the issue you need to decide upon, framed as whether to take a proposed action or not
- Identify and keep in mind your most important values and objectives.
- Cultivate an indifference to the outcome.
- List and weigh up the pros and cons of acting in the proposed way, and the pros and cons of not acting.
- Determine whether acting has the greater net benefit
- Choose what to do based on this determination rather than your gut feeling (“inclination of sense”).
The parallels are striking, but there are some differences:
- St Ignatius’ step 2 – identify and keep in mind your most important values and objectives – is not mentioned by Franklin
- Franklin recommends listing the pros and cons of taking the action only; he doesn’t recommend also listing the pros and cons of not acting. [Arguably, these are just the inverse of the pros and cons of acting, and so there is no need to list both.]
- Franklin provides a heuristic for determining the balance of considerations (i.e. “cancelling out” considerations of equal weight, etc.) whereas St Ignatius simply instructs us to “reckon” the overall balance.
As to whether Franklin knew of St Ignatius’ method, Felix says:
St Ignatius was pretty well known and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Franklin had read him. (In fact, perhaps it would be surprising if he hadn’t!)This may well be right, but I haven’t been able to find any independent evidence for it.
_____________________________
From The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola
THE FIRST WAY TO MAKE A SOUND AND GOOD ELECTION
It contains six Points.
First Point. The first Point is to put before me the thing on which I
want to make election, such as an office or benefice, either to take or
leave it; or any other thing whatever which falls under an election
that can be changed.
Second Point. Second: It is necessary to keep as aim the end for which
I am created, which is to praise God our Lord and save my soul, and,
this supposed, to find myself indifferent, without any inordinate
propensity; so that I be not more inclined or disposed to take the
thing proposed than to leave it, nor more to leave it than to take it,
but find myself as in the middle of a balance, to follow what I feel to
be more for the glory and praise of God our Lord and the salvation of
my soul.
Third Point. Third: To ask of God our Lord to be pleased to move my
will and put in my soul what I ought to do regarding the thing
proposed, so as to promote more His praise and glory; discussing well
and faithfully with my intellect, and choosing agreeably to His most
holy pleasure and will.
Fourth Point. Fourth: To consider, reckoning up, how many advantages
and utilities follow for me from holding the proposed office or
benefice for only the praise of God our Lord and the salvation of my
soul, and, to consider likewise, on the contrary, the disadvantages and
dangers which there are in having it. Doing the same in the second
part, that is, looking at the advantages and utilities there are in not
having it, and likewise, on the contrary, the disadvantages and dangers
in not having the same.
Fifth Point. Fifth: After I have thus discussed and reckoned up on all
sides about the thing proposed, to look where reason more inclines: and
so, according to the greater inclination of reason, and not according
to any inclination of sense, deliberation should be made on the thing
proposed.
Sixth Point. Sixth, such election, or deliberation, made, the person
who has made it ought to go with much diligence to prayer before God
our Lord and offer Him such election, that His Divine Majesty may be
pleased to receive and confirm it, if it is to His greater service and
praise.
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
The free online magazine The Reasoner has recently published an interview with me in their February 2010 issue. Much of it is discussing argument mapping and its uses. However the first third or so of the interview covers my earlier work in the foundations of cognitive science (distributed representation, dynamical systems and such topics).
Thanks to Kevin Korb for initiating and conducting the interview.
Excerpt:
KK: What are argument maps and why are they important?
TvG: Typically an argument map is a box-and-arrow or node-and-link diagram showing the relationships among propositions in some piece of informal reasoning or argumentation. Argument mapping is thus “semi- formal”, blending formal graph structure with natural language. You can think of argument mapping as addressing a design challenge: come up with a maximally transparent way of representing informal reasoning and argumentation for human thinkers, one that makes the reasoning as explicit, rigorous and yet easily comprehensible and communicable as possible. From this point of view, the various forms of argument mapping around today—such as the one embodied in the Rationale software—as particular attempts to come up with that optimal format. No doubt improved schemes, supported by more sophisticated technologies, will arise in coming years.
KK: How does your understanding of their importance relate to what you know about human cognition?
TvG: The diagrammatic format of typical argument maps is useful for humans with cognitive machinery dominated by powerful visual systems. Diagrammatic argument maps complement the idiosyncratic strengths and weaknesses of our evolutionarily-endowed cognitive equipment. For example, argument maps compensate for our limited short-term memory, providing a stable external representation of complex inferential webs. At the same time they facilitate access to this externally represented information by exploiting our powerful visual scanning capacities. In computer terms, our eyes constitute the high-capacity bus connecting the argument map, stored in external RAAM, to our brains as the CPU…
Posted in Argument Mapping, Intelligence Augmentation, Mapping, Rationale, Reasoning | Leave a Comment »
The central responsibility, for Boards and for individual Directors, is to make good decisions. What can Directors do to improve their decision making ability?
First, it is important to understand that decision making is a complex cognitive skill. It is not an innate talent that some people were granted at birth. Nor is it something that simply builds up with lots of experience – though experience is certainly relevant.
Rather, decision making is a cultivated skill, or in other words a domain of acquired expertise. So the question becomes – how can Directors acquire more of this expertise, particularly with regard to the specific kinds of decision challenges that come before Boards?
We can look to contemporary cognitive science for some insights here. A sub-field of cognitive science addresses the problem of expertise. Scientists in this area are basically asking “How do people get really good at something?”
The dominant answer that has emerged over the past few decades is not really all that surprising. To get really good, you need to do lots of good practice. To be the best, you need to do the most, best quality practice. The main reason Tiger Woods has been the top golfer is that he practised more, and more effectively, than anyone else.
For Directors, this means that to enhance your decision expertise, you need lots of practice making Board-type decisions. Note that it is quality practice you need, not necessarily experience. A Sunday golfer can accumulate lots of experience over the years, but their game never really improves because they are not working “on” their game. In fact, lots of experience can make it harder to improve skills, because it can entrench bad habits.
This is where Julie Garland Mclellan’s “Director’s Dilemma” newsletter, and her new book Dilemmas Dilemmas, are so valuable. They present lots of realistic case studies of decision problems of the kind that Directors regularly confront. They give lots of opportunities for Directors to work on their game.
However, simply working through the case studies – and reading the “model answers” provided – may not be enough. What really matters is how you practice. And here the key insight is the obvious point that if you’re not in some way changing the way you do things, then your expertise will not improve. To really get the benefit of working through case studies, you need to be expanding and refining your skill set.
Directors’ decision challenges, as illustrated in Dilemmas Dilemmas, are typically complex deliberative problems. That is, they involve clarifying the problem, recognising a range of options and perhaps suboptions, understanding the advantages and disadvantages of those options, and weighing up them up. The core skill is disentangling and evaluating a complex set of issues and arguments. How can a Director come to do this better?
One approach is to exploit the visual. We know, in general, that when confronted with complexity, the human mind performs better with suitable visualisations. A simple example: to understand how all the streets, train lines, etc., in a modern city are laid out, we use diagrams such as the maps found in a road atlas or, these days, the displays on GPS devices.
What is true for roads is even more true for deliberative decisions, which are abstract and indefinitely complex. The human mind can cope more easily when the options, pros and cons, arguments and detailed evidence are laid out in a visually attractive, easily scannable form. And the process of laying out the problem in this form can help introduce clarity and rigour. The overall result is better understanding of the problem, better evaluation of the options, and, on average, better choices being made.
This approach to decision making has been pioneered by Austhink, who have developed a software tool (bCisive) to support the process.
Austhink has teamed up with Julie Garland Mclellan to offer workshops combining her Board expertise and case studies with Austhink’s methods and tools. The workshops are intended primarily for “emerging” Directors – those who have recently become Directors, or hope to become Directors, or hope to take their directorial activity to a higher level. Our ambition is that these workshops would be one of the most effective things that Directors – at any level of experience or expertise – could do to enhance their decision making expertise. And if individual Directors can improve their game, Board decision making in general should also improve.
Posted in Boards, Decision Making, Expertise | Leave a Comment »
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