Outsmart Your Instincts

Innovation Process Facilitator Cynthia Ryan joins Adam Hansen on The Outsmart Your Instincts Podcast to discuss the Confirmation Bias. Take this for example: According to an MIT study, false information is 70% more likely to be shared on Twitter than true stories. One of the reasons? Confirmation Bias. Tune in to hear how to best surmount this Bias and become a better innovator.  Confirmation Bias definition: Confirmation Bias causes us to seek out and then interpret information based on our preexisting beliefs. Be sure to subscribe to stay-up-to-date on everything innovation and Cognitive Biases!

Innovation Process Facilitator, Dina Pancoast, joins Adam Hansen on the Outsmart Your Instincts Podcast as they discuss Confabulation. Confabulation impedes on innovation in many ways, as it is the mind’s way of filling in our blind spots. In other words, we create reasoning where there otherwise might not be, but that is detrimental in market research. Tune in to hear how to best overcome Confabulation and generate better ideas with the Behavioral Innovation™ approach. Confabulation definition: Confabulation is when we make decisions intuitively and nonconsciously, and rationalize the decisions after the fact. Jimmy Kimmel’s Lie Witness News is a great example of Confabulation—people go along with scenarios that aren’t true and rationalize statements to back their opinions and “knowledge” of the matter. It might be an extreme case of Confabulation, but we all have it. Be sure to subscribe to stay up to date on everything Cognitive Biases and innovation!

Ideas To Go Principal and Innovation Process Facilitator Christine Haskins joins colleague Adam Hansen on the Outsmart Your Instincts Podcast. Listen in as they discuss the Status Quo Bias and how it gets in the way of innovative thinking. This Bias shows up in many places during innovation, but the most apparent area is when companies set parameters for their innovation projects. Often there are too many parameters that limit the scope of innovation, and ultimately the realm of possibilities. Tune in to hear how to best overcome the Status Quo Bias and generate better ideas with the Behavioral Innovation™ approach. Status Quo Bias definition: this Bias makes us default to keeping things the same. When new opportunities arise, we would rather stay with what we have than switch to something new. In other words, we think, “the old ideas have always worked, so why change them?” Be sure to subscribe to stay up to date on everything Cognitive Biases and innovation!

Innovation Process Facilitator Greg Cobb joins host Adam Hansen on the Outsmart Your Instincts podcast as they discuss the Curse of Knowledge. This Bias is so ingrained in our minds that we even have to double check for it while recording the podcast! Curse of Knowledge definition: we assume people know more about a topic than they actually do. We are especially susceptible to the Curse once we gain expert level knowledge of a subject. It makes it difficult to take someone else’s perspective and to think like a novice. And here is the New York Times article about Crazy Ants that we reference: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/08/magazine/crazy-ants.html Be sure to subscribe to stay up to date on everything Cognitive Biases and innovation!

Beth Storz, President of Ideas To Go, joins colleague and co-author Adam Hansen on Episode 2 of the Outsmart Your Instincts Podcast. Listen as they discuss examples of—and define—Availability Bias and provide techniques to overcoming it during innovation. Availability Bias: how our minds retrieve information from the most recent memories first. Along with the most recent events, emotionally charged memories are also easily retrieved. In other words, what’s available is what’s easy to recall. Be sure to subscribe to stay up to date on everything Cognitive Biases and innovation!

Ed Harrington, CEO of Ideas To Go, talks with his colleague and co-author, Adam Hansen, about how to spot, deal with, and even combat Negativity Bias. It’s not just about being kind when you hear a far-out idea. It’s also about being mindful. Negativity Bias refers to the brain giving more weight to negative events, even in the presence of equally important positive events. In this sense, bad is stronger than good. Be sure to subscribe to stay up to date on everything Cognitive Biases and innovation!

Beth Storz, Ed Harrington, and Adam Hansen—co-authors of the book Outsmart Your Instincts: How the Behavioral Innovation™ Approach Drives Your Company Forward—discuss the evolution of Cognitive Biases and identify the 8 that impede innovation. Subscribe to stay up to date on everything innovation!