Podcasts about behavioralsight

Linnea Gandhi is a researcher, teacher, and practitioner of behavioral science in business settings. And she's obsessed with error; studying it, fixing it, and even embracing it to enable better decisions by individuals and organizations.Her work on error intentionally straddles academia and the real world: She teaches decision science at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, studies it as part of her PhD at the Wharton School of Business, and consults on it through her company, BehavioralSight. Linnea's team is launching an online course called "Beyond Bias: How Noise May Be Drowning Out Your Decision Accuracy". This course is designed to complement the recently released book on the topic, called NOISE, by Daniel Kahneman and two coauthors. Linnea spent the last three supporting with research and editing behind the scenes.For listeners interested in the course, check out https://behavioralsight.teachable.com/p/beyondbias. If you enter MCMAHON75 you will get $75 off the price tag.Mentioned In This Episode:Behavioral SightDaniel KahnemanSteven LevittRichard ThalerNoise: A Flaw in Human Judgement By Daniel KahnemanDecision HygieneThinking in Bets by Annie DukeTime Codes:(3:21) - Linnea's origin story(5:35) - How did you come to work with Daniel Kahneman? (8:26) - Who is Daniel Kahneman?(9:49) - What have you learned from working with top-tier experts?(12:48) -  The importance of Mentorship in helping you step out on your own(17:56) -  Working on the book Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgement(20:26) - What is ‘Noise'?(22:03) - What is the difference between Noise and Bias? (29:30) - Bias' effect on Risk Management(35:47) - BUD/S training(40:28) - Linnea's consulting firm... Behavioral Sight(41:25) - Building the machine vs. Running the machine(43:16) - Where do people go to figure out how to put this in place for their own life?(44:28) - Linnea's course on Noise(48:21) - What do you believe about people or business that might be contrarian?(51:48) - What are you sick of talking about?(53:31) - The need to explain our world gets in the way of our ability to predict it (55:57) - What is the purpose of business?

It is our pleasure to welcome back Linnea Gandhi to the podcast! Linnea manages the boutique consulting firm BehavioralSight; develops and teaches applied behavioral science courses at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business; is pursuing her Ph.D. at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania; and lately has been keeping busy with helping to edit and organize the newly published book, “Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment,” written by renowned behavioral economists Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony, and Cass Sunstein. She also loves her puppies, and your puppies too.   In today's episode, Erik and Zarak explore with Linnea the differences between bias and noise, as well as the difficulty in designing behavioral interventions that are easy, relatable, and impactful. A lack of psychological safety in corporate culture makes it difficult to even find error and failure in companies, let alone try to improve them. The reason is because professionals (and people in general) are programmed to provide solutions. We're rewarded for fixing things, or making them better – not so much for pointing out glaring errors that no one has noticed if we don't have a ready-made answer for how to solve them.   How to address this gap, you ask? Well, you might start with a “noise audit.” Tune in and find out how to get started! Or sign up for her new online class on the subject at https://www.behavioralsight.com/online-learning.

Linnea Gandhi is one of our favorite people to talk with and we had the pleasure of welcoming Linnea back to Behavioral Grooves recently. We last spoke to her in 2018 when she confessed to having a crush on statistics (a crush she clearly still harbors!) Since that time though, she has made a significant contribution to the infamous new book Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment by Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony and Cass Sunstein (https://amzn.to/3heyr5r). Linnea served as the chief of staff; project managing, researching and editing the groundbreaking work on the book. When we interviewed Olivier Sibony about Linnea’s contribution, he was glowing with compliments about her: “it took someone as miraculously organized, helpful and smart, always positive and in a consistently cheerful, good mood. And I can't imagine anyone else on the planet who could have pulled this off, but Linnea did. So she's amazing.” Linnea is a researcher, teacher, and practitioner of behavioral science in business settings. And she’s obsessed with error. Studying it, fixing it, and even embracing it – to enable better decisions by individuals and organizations. Linnea is passionate about bridging the gap between behavioral science in academia and its application in the real world. She teaches decision science at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, studies it as part of her PhD at the Wharton School of Business, and consults on it through her company, BehavioralSight (https://behavioralsight.teachable.com/). This foothold in both worlds, has given Linnea the expertise for her current project which sees her teaching the topic of noise in an “edu-tainment” online video course.  The tremendous new course (we got a sneak peak...it’s fantastic) is called Beyond Bias: How Noise May Be Drowning Out Your Decision Making Accuracy which is due to be published in June 2021. The course is purposefully designed for busy professionals who want to understand noise and how to mitigate it in organizations. Linnea and her team have meticulously planned the course videos so that they are short yet informative and entertaining. She is well aware that they are competing with Netflix for people’s attention! Our conversation weaves in some endearing anecdotes about her personal experience of working with Kahneman, Sunstein and Sibony on the book. As well as some of the hurdles of working (and recording) from home that many of us can identify with from the last year. But Linnea’s passion for her work on noise and her enthusiasm for statistics is contagious. So much so that it has almost convinced Kurt to start reading about statistics in his spare time (almost!) We hope you enjoy listening to Linnea’s work in behavioral science. At Behavioral Grooves, we are passionate about bringing you cutting edge interviews with the world’s best behavioral science practitioners, researchers and authors. If you would like to help support our work, please consider becoming a Behavioral Grooves Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/behavioralgrooves, we really appreciate the support. © 2021 Behavioral Grooves   Topics We Discuss With Linnea (3:07) Speed Round (6:39) About Linnea’s new course on NOISE (16:45) Why humans don’t see easily see randomness (19:58) Working behind the scenes on NOISE (22:48) How did the authors first collaborate on NOISE (26:53) What finally convinced Linnea to get a PhD  (36:12) Decision Hygiene and Linnea’s favorite technique (41:20) Music (43:20) Grooving Session Links “Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment” by Kahneman, Sibony and Sunstein, 2021 https://amzn.to/3heyr5r Statistics As Principled Argument https://amzn.to/3uhRU8c  Linnea’s Video Course on Noise (coming in June 2021) “Beyond Bias: How Noise May Be Drowning Out Your Decision Making Accuracy” https://www.behavioralsight.com/online-learning  Episode 224: Why Is Noise Worse Than Bias? Olivier Sibony Explains https://behavioralgrooves.com/episode/noise-with-olivier-sibony/ Episode 38: Linnea Gandhi: Crushing On Statistics https://behavioralgrooves.com/episode/linnea-gandhi-crushing-on-statistics/ Daniel Kahneman https://amzn.to/2QQksId  Cass Sunstein https://amzn.to/3uj61Kp  Olivier Sibony https://amzn.to/3u8LBnp   Noise: How to Overcome the High, Hidden Cost of Inconsistent Decision Making https://hbr.org/2016/10/noise  Episode 176: Annie Duke on How to Decide https://behavioralgrooves.com/episode/annie-duke-on-how-to-decide/ Tania Lombrozo (Explanations) https://psych.princeton.edu/person/tania-lombrozo  Mona Lisa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_Lisa  A Structured Approach to Strategic Decisions https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/a-structured-approach-to-strategic-decisions/  Duncan Watts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan_J._Watts  Angela Duckworth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angela_Duckworth  Episode 99: Katy Milkman: Behavior Change for Good https://behavioralgrooves.com/episode/behavior-change-for-good/ Barbara Mellers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Mellers  Maurice Schweitzer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Schweitzer  Richard E. Nisbett “Thinking: A Memoir” https://amzn.to/341F4A4  Pareidolia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia  Musical Links Macklemore & Ryan Lewis “Thrift Shop” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QK8mJJJvaes&ab_channel=MacklemoreLLC   White Noise https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMfPqeZjc2c&ab_channel=RelaxingWhiteNoiseRelaxingWhiteNoiseOfficialArtistChannel 

University of Chicago MBA professor Linnea Gandhi talked with Kurt and Tim recently about her consulting work, her passion for statistics, grading papers and how a good improvisational theatre production can be sheer joy. Self-descriptions of her own achievements are blanketed with modesty; however, her passions shine through when discussing her work, both past and present. Linnea is a remarkable person. After completing her undergraduate at Harvard and an MBA at the University of Chicago Booth School, she worked with the Boston Consulting Group, then with ideas42. And since last year, she’s operated her own consultancy based on the application of behavioral sciences while teaching MBA students at the University of Chicago. Her consultancy, BehavioralSight, takes clients beyond simple biases and into the methodologies of scientific measurement that are critical to professional and personal decision-making. When we caught up with Linnea, she was busy preparing a presentation for a conference she was invited to speak at and, simultaneously, was deep into reading a book on statistics.  Statistics became central to our conversation and she even admitted to having a CRUSH on statistics! She sees a need to understand how we calculate decision probabilities and believes the world could be a better place with better application of statistical tools.   In addition to her extensive work as consultant and teacher, she is one of the very special fraternity of people who have co-authored a paper with Nobel Laureate, Danny Kahneman. The paper, coauthored with Kahneman, Andrew Rosenfield and Tom Blaser, is called “Noise: How to Overcome the High, Hidden Cost of Inconsistent Decision Making.” Published in the October 2016 Harvard Business Review, the article shares the important lesson of how to differentiate biases from noise – you know, that thing we often refer to as chance variability. The authors write: “We call the chance variability of judgments noise. It is an invisible tax on the bottom line of many companies.”  Kurt and Tim found that tremendously insightful. On the topic of excellent articles, Linnea’s piece on the People Science site, “Testing, Testing: Not All Failures Are Created Equal,” hit home with us, too. Her chart featuring the taxonomy of failure breaks down the need to focus on process failures, rather than outcome failures, which led us to discuss thinking in probabilities, a favorite topic of Annie Duke. We also talked about how people are particularly challenged when it comes to grasping uncertainty and developing concrete probabilities around difficult-to-identify risks. Quite frequently, Linnea puts these ideas to work in her consulting business. Clients often overreact to the freshest data or recent market changes, and she helps guide their way through the decisions that can be improved by relying on a broader data set. Stumbling on Kurt Lewin was a stroke of luck. If you’re not familiar, Lewin was a prolific creator of psychological observations and theories. His work is wide-ranging and our own Kurt Nelson, PhD has been a fan of Lewin’s for some time. Noteworthy is Lewin’s Equation, or so it is often called, that simplifies human behavior with a direct and unpretentious approach: behavior is a function of the person in their environment. When Linnea brought up Lewin, it was clear Kurt was loving the conversation. We discovered that Linnea’s connection to music is through movement – like dance and improvisational theatre – and leaves the singing up to people with better vocal cords. However, she’s a fan of Billy Joel and shared her fondness for “For the Longest Time,” which led Kurt and Tim to discuss our own favorite Billy Joel songs. We ended our conversation with Linnea with three succinct tips for those interested in improving their decision making. Look for disconfirming data. If you don’t write it down, it doesn’t exist. (Stolen from Linda Ginzel, a professor at the University of Chicago Booth School and author of “Choosing Leadership.”) Take a course in statistics! With that, we’ll end our comments with a quotation from the great Edwards Deming that reminds us to remain diligent in designing and implementing processes in our work and personal lives: “Every system is perfectly designed to produce the results it gets.”  

Linnea Gandhi is adjunct professor of Behavioral Science at the University of Chicago Booth and founder of BehavioralSight—an advisory firm helping businesses to integrate insights and methodologies from behavioral science into their research and decision-making processes. Linnea also coaches leaders on ways to reduce error in their own everyday decisions. Her work has been published in Harvard Business Review. Prof. Gandhi has also written and spoken about topics such as noise in decision-making, nudging strategies, and experimentation in business. She aims to teach students to understand and design for the nature, causes, and implications of human decision-making patterns in real-world settings.

Understanding how your customers make decisions when confronted with things like pricing, limited time offers, and diverse choices, can help you as a business owner make better decisions in your own business. There are certain patterns that can be extrapolated and accounted for when building your products and services. My guest is adjunct assistant professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Linnea Gandhi. Along with teaching, Linnea runs a company called BehavioralSight, which applies insights and methodologies from the growing field of behavioral science to everyday business problems.  Our discussion revolves around behavioral science and the information we can extract as business owners from the behaviors of our customers that will help us provide better service. What You’ll Learn in This Episode: Why customers (aka humans) are working with limited cognitive resources and aren’t very logical in their decision-making The common decision-making errors that all humans make and how business owners can understand those better Anticipate decision-making errors that consumers might commit so you can build your products and service to help them avoid them As a new entrepreneur with no existing clients, how do you begin to understand the behaviors of your prospective customers?  Writing the narrative of how your new product or service could be a failure, you begin eliciting all the risks and errors and that allows you to get the benefit of hindsight prospectively How the left-digit bias affects how you price your products/services How many choices are too many? In-n-out and Cheesecake Factory sit on both ends of the spectrum when it comes to how many food items they offer so which one is more effective? Enriched vs. impoverished offerings – which one will a customer select? The importance of social proof like testimonials, especially when there’s uncertainty around your product/service Time scarcity and the role urgency plays in getting customers to take their wallets out Resources: Daniel Kahneman  Sheena Iyengar – “jam” study Robert Cialdini – Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion Contact Information: Twitter: @linneagandhi www.behavioralsight.com Thanks for Checking Out the Show Notes and for Listening! I really hope you enjoyed this episode. I would really appreciate it if you shared this show with a friend who could benefit from listening to this particular episode. Please don't forget to SUBSCRIBE so you can get each new episode delivered directly to you when it’s ready. You can find the show in Apple Podcasts, Stitcher Radio, Google Play, and TuneIn. Leaders sure do love company so be sure to get social with me:  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nic_abboud/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/nicoleabboud Or email me at nicole[at]nicoleabboud[dot]com 

In this week’s episode, our hosts sit down with Linnea Gandhi, managing partner of the boutique consulting firm BehavioralSight and Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Linnea, Erik, and Zarak discuss the importance of following the scientific method. This process applies to all settings, including the corporate world where the demand is always for results – and getting them today (or yesterday, if possible). Avoiding gut reactions, intuition, and emotional responses – and instead replacing them with statistics, data, and algorithms – will lead to more optimal decision-making. But how do we apply this process, especially in situations where important decisions are at stake? Linnea’s focus is on getting executives across industries to realize that we are all more capable of creating algorithms than we may think – even when it comes to decisions such as whether to merger with or acquire another company, or whether to lay off a significant amount of their workforce. Linnea argues that research and psychological literature are not useful to most people unless you can apply it somewhere practical. So she urges us to make our brains work more like an algorithm by removing intuition from the equation as much as possible. Reduce the “noise” as much as you can and isolate the data. Then, translate your behavioral science improvements to the language of the stakeholders. That is what will truly grab attention. And never forget to be painfully aware of your own confirmation bias.