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dominik's review against another edition
3.0
Starts strong, then goes off in an unexpected direction that feels ... tenuous at best for a book that seemed to be about decision science and instead ended with an odd evaluation of the author’s personal cross-country move and then an extended mediation on Middlemarch. Still, the early chapters are a neat, engaging read — though they offer little beyond what’s found in Tetlock or Kahneman or Taleb. Ultimately an enjoyable, if light, read.
kapsar's review against another edition
5.0
Steven Johnson is always an interesting read. I've been a fan of his since I initially read "Where Good Ideas Come From." In this book, he clearly begins with the question of "how do we make good decisions?" In a way, this book is the natural sequel (if it can be said that non-fiction books can have sequels), to Ideas. If you wonder how you come up with an interesting idea, the process is similar to coming up with a good decision - or at least an informed methodical decision.
Like ideas, decisions don't really come from the blue. Even the famous stories that Gladwell discusses in Blink, come from a long history of experience and relate to the amount of information that we have about a given situation. Now, we can of course, come to a decision without all the information we need. In fact, it's guaranteed that this will happen. We never have all the information we ever need to make a decision. This book takes that as an axiom, clearly stated and referenced throughout the book. It's not just a one off obvious statement. Johnson notes that the uncertainty of the outcome prevents a perfect decision plus, the fact that we cannot test what a decision would do before taking action. The best we can do is simulate and for most decisions, the best way to simulate is to tell a story.
In fact, day dreaming is one of the best ways for us to tell a story about how life could be different or how we could positively impact our lives. For example, if you're thinking of getting a new job, day dreaming about how that job can improve your life is a great way of helping understand the impacts of your decision making process.
This book includes a number of real life examples of complex decisions that went well or went poorly. In the cases where things went well he digs into the decision making process and how these tools made an effective case for following the decision that was ultimately used. In the cases where things went poorly, he investigates the blindspots that lead to the poor decision (including a couple personal anecdotes) and the result.
I found this book to be really helpful and believe that it provides tools that can help improve our deliberation process.
Like ideas, decisions don't really come from the blue. Even the famous stories that Gladwell discusses in Blink, come from a long history of experience and relate to the amount of information that we have about a given situation. Now, we can of course, come to a decision without all the information we need. In fact, it's guaranteed that this will happen. We never have all the information we ever need to make a decision. This book takes that as an axiom, clearly stated and referenced throughout the book. It's not just a one off obvious statement. Johnson notes that the uncertainty of the outcome prevents a perfect decision plus, the fact that we cannot test what a decision would do before taking action. The best we can do is simulate and for most decisions, the best way to simulate is to tell a story.
In fact, day dreaming is one of the best ways for us to tell a story about how life could be different or how we could positively impact our lives. For example, if you're thinking of getting a new job, day dreaming about how that job can improve your life is a great way of helping understand the impacts of your decision making process.
This book includes a number of real life examples of complex decisions that went well or went poorly. In the cases where things went well he digs into the decision making process and how these tools made an effective case for following the decision that was ultimately used. In the cases where things went poorly, he investigates the blindspots that lead to the poor decision (including a couple personal anecdotes) and the result.
I found this book to be really helpful and believe that it provides tools that can help improve our deliberation process.
deedireads's review against another edition
4.0
All my reviews can be seen at https://deedireads.com
I read Farsighted as part of my subscription to the Next Big Idea Club. It was fun to have it paired with [b:Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness|37946426|Joyful The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness|Ingrid Fetell Lee|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1530799908s/37946426.jpg|59674250], which was about the small things, because Farsighted is about the big things. Big, important decisions and the ways you can ensure that you’re making the best choices possible.
The information was presented in a straightforward, digestible way, with plenty of engaging examples that Johnson told like stories. He also had a couple of big examples — like Obama’s team’s mission to find and kill Osama Bin Laden — that were threaded throughout the entire book, which tied it all together nicely.
I also appreciated the fact that Johnson gave readers not only the tools to make good decisions, like a pre- or post-mortem and AARs, but also the why behind them. He cites so much research about the benefits of diverse thinking, what kinds of groups make good decisions and what kinds don’t, etc. It’s so important to talk about those topics and keep them at the forefront of our minds.
All in all, not totally life-changing, but a good, quick read.
I read Farsighted as part of my subscription to the Next Big Idea Club. It was fun to have it paired with [b:Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness|37946426|Joyful The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness|Ingrid Fetell Lee|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1530799908s/37946426.jpg|59674250], which was about the small things, because Farsighted is about the big things. Big, important decisions and the ways you can ensure that you’re making the best choices possible.
The information was presented in a straightforward, digestible way, with plenty of engaging examples that Johnson told like stories. He also had a couple of big examples — like Obama’s team’s mission to find and kill Osama Bin Laden — that were threaded throughout the entire book, which tied it all together nicely.
I also appreciated the fact that Johnson gave readers not only the tools to make good decisions, like a pre- or post-mortem and AARs, but also the why behind them. He cites so much research about the benefits of diverse thinking, what kinds of groups make good decisions and what kinds don’t, etc. It’s so important to talk about those topics and keep them at the forefront of our minds.
All in all, not totally life-changing, but a good, quick read.
halfmanhalfbook's review against another edition
3.0
Life is full of decisions; they can be a low impact as to what to eat, which route to take around a town or whether to buy a particular book or not. Other decisions have a much greater impact on our lives, the partner that you want to spend more time within the long term, the place that you choose to live or the path that you take in a career.
We are supposedly living in the age of the shortest attention span, not even being able to read the 280 characters from a tweet before the next notification attracts our attention. Other books have been written on the best way to make that instant decision when presented with the scantest of facts. But in this book Johnson wants us to change the way that we make decisions using a more deliberative decision-making approach.
Mapping
Predicting
Deciding
He argues that this multi-dimension way of thinking about all the factors in a decision helps us make a better decision. He uses various real-life cases to explain the show the methodology behind it, including influence diagrams for the mapping stage to comprehend all of the factors about making a decision.
People who have deemed themselves super-forecasters have been shown to be no better than a primate with a dartboard when their predictions are assessed against their results and in predicting he explains the methods of ensuring that the decision is correct by contemplating all manner of possibilities.
The end result of that is then having to make a decision based on all the information provided. Not easy for very complex problems, but the tools like cost-benefit analysis and weighting assist with this part of the process.
You’d like to think that we as a species would be a better place to do this, but sadly we’re not. Vested interests often ensure that the decision process is skewed or flawed from the very beginning. Also having more diverse teams selected from people with a variety of experience and knowledge and give them the tools to challenge conventional thoughts will produce much better results than similar minded people.
I hadn’t read much about the Bin Laden takedown, so it was fascinating to read the level and layers of detail that went into the investigation of the site he was staying at and the suite of methods that they had at their disposal to accomplish the mission. In theory, then you will have come to a better decision if you follow these principles. Organisations with red teams provide the proverbial spanner in the works, also improve this by testing the resilience of the decisions that are being made. The bottom line is though that people make better decisions by planning in much more detail. Not just what you are intending to do, but the various possibilities could be and what the short and long term implications are.
I thought that it was an interesting book about a subject that we seem the fallout and failure from every day. I would have liked to have had more on the Marine Corps Planning Process that is mentioned in the book, and I’ve not read Middlemarch, so some of what he was describing about the fiction of George Elliot, and how it helped with decision making wasn’t relevant to me. However, I don’t think that this is his best work, my favourite of his Everything Bad is Good For You. has a much superior premise and narrative. That said, he is a good writer and I always find his books entertaining and informative and this was no different.
We are supposedly living in the age of the shortest attention span, not even being able to read the 280 characters from a tweet before the next notification attracts our attention. Other books have been written on the best way to make that instant decision when presented with the scantest of facts. But in this book Johnson wants us to change the way that we make decisions using a more deliberative decision-making approach.
Mapping
Predicting
Deciding
He argues that this multi-dimension way of thinking about all the factors in a decision helps us make a better decision. He uses various real-life cases to explain the show the methodology behind it, including influence diagrams for the mapping stage to comprehend all of the factors about making a decision.
People who have deemed themselves super-forecasters have been shown to be no better than a primate with a dartboard when their predictions are assessed against their results and in predicting he explains the methods of ensuring that the decision is correct by contemplating all manner of possibilities.
The end result of that is then having to make a decision based on all the information provided. Not easy for very complex problems, but the tools like cost-benefit analysis and weighting assist with this part of the process.
You’d like to think that we as a species would be a better place to do this, but sadly we’re not. Vested interests often ensure that the decision process is skewed or flawed from the very beginning. Also having more diverse teams selected from people with a variety of experience and knowledge and give them the tools to challenge conventional thoughts will produce much better results than similar minded people.
I hadn’t read much about the Bin Laden takedown, so it was fascinating to read the level and layers of detail that went into the investigation of the site he was staying at and the suite of methods that they had at their disposal to accomplish the mission. In theory, then you will have come to a better decision if you follow these principles. Organisations with red teams provide the proverbial spanner in the works, also improve this by testing the resilience of the decisions that are being made. The bottom line is though that people make better decisions by planning in much more detail. Not just what you are intending to do, but the various possibilities could be and what the short and long term implications are.
I thought that it was an interesting book about a subject that we seem the fallout and failure from every day. I would have liked to have had more on the Marine Corps Planning Process that is mentioned in the book, and I’ve not read Middlemarch, so some of what he was describing about the fiction of George Elliot, and how it helped with decision making wasn’t relevant to me. However, I don’t think that this is his best work, my favourite of his Everything Bad is Good For You. has a much superior premise and narrative. That said, he is a good writer and I always find his books entertaining and informative and this was no different.
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