Outsmart Your Instincts

This book is a good read whether you are familiar with cognitive biases or not. It goes beyond the normal definitions and onto practical tools which can be used to become aware of and overcome the biases of yourself and those around you to drive your business/ideas forward.

There are some very interesting illustrations about how the various points raised work in a real life setting, along with plenty of ideas to work on.

I’m not sure that I’m the main target audience for this book since I work alone, or with others remotely through the computer and the activities are geared towards physical groups of people, but I was able to take a lot away from it and will find the techniques very helpful when adapted to my situation slightly. The biases highlighted are of course still applicable even when working alone, and the solutions can be worked through by myself or with some willing victims/ volunteers. I can also see how the principles in this book can be applied to aspects of my personal life.

I look forward to putting the exercises into action – there is a lot here to think about and this book will stay with me for some time.

Enriching, fascinating, enlightening and empowering book!

I've enjoyed it from start to finish. The authors are brilliant, have intertwined and communicated their ideas in a rich, fun, stimulating way, all aimed at innovating intelligently and improve how we think. The book brings together important discoveries from the last three decades, presenting them with examples, exercises and effective tools. The potential it has to empower us, to transform our mentality, to improve in all areas of human behavior, is enormous!

The fascinating thing about all this information is that it helps us to understand the way our brains have evolved and we have developed certain biologically adaptive behaviors - and cognitive wiring - but which in the face of the circumstances of our modern civilization limit our creative thinking, which affects our way of facing and interpreting reality. By having a deeper understanding of how these cognitive biases operate in our decision making and overall thinking process and resulting behavior, it is critical to deal with these and move forward.

The authors provide us with techniques and tools from the Behavioral Innovation approach to achieve mental states of innovation and overcome the cognitive barriers. These tools are not only applicable to the innovation of new products or services, but also to solve work problems, to make more assertive and aligned decisions with our well-being, to improve our family relationships, to expand our horizons, to integrate ways to be more effective and efficient. We can incorporate them gradually in our personal transformation, for example to expand our mentality, to be open to new knowledge or paradigms, new ways to face difficult situations and to go in new directions, develop our authenticity, to be more aligned with our growth, to break with one way of doing things that sabotage or deenergetize us, get rid of family behaviors or beliefs that result in detriment of our quality of life or relationships. The way they can help you transform and empower you starts from the moment you catch yourself in the face of automatic behaviors and outdated interpretations of reality, and decide to move into new ways!
My gratitude to the Publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to review the book