Book review: Think Again: Why Good Leaders Make Bad Decisions and How to Keep it From Happening to You
 Book author: Sydney Finkelstein, Jo Whitehead, Andrew Campbell
Publisher: McGraw-Hill
It’s not hard to find management books that profess some understanding of the cognitive, behavioural and neurological aspects of successful leadership. In fact, many claim expert knowledge in finding convergences between two traditionally distinct areas of scholarship: business and science.
Too often, though, authors of such books make embarrassing leaps. Often coming from the business end of scholarship, they start with a limited understanding of brain science and extrapolate misleading, overly simplified or blatantly incorrect conclusions.
With these thoughts in mind, I picked up Think Again with some reservation. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the three authors had clearly done their homework, crafting an equally original and compelling thesis.
The first indicator of this is that they readily dismissed the often cited – and basically incorrect – pop psychology assumption that decision-making is a linear, rational process.
They support this with a clear understanding that up to 30 different areas of the brain are used in forming decisions in even the simplest of tasks.
More so, they not only acknowledge the theory of emotional tagging, but integrate it as a key aspect of their model of decision-making. Essentially, when we gather a new experience into our lives, we attach an emotional tag to that experience, one that we draw on every time we face a similar choice later in life.
Wisely, the authors – who do not actually have any formal background in brain science – ensure that this fascinating book is neither dry nor didactic. The book is liberally peppered with detailed anecdotes of how good leaders – often with all the right logical inputs – nevertheless made very bad decisions.
A key example concerns the response and handling of Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. A detailed analysis of the then director of the Homeland Security Operations Center, Matthew Broderick, reveals a person whose extensive knowledge and expertise in handling similar disasters let him down at this crucial time.
In fact, having previously witnessed hurricanes that turned out to be relatively benign, Broderick had attached less anxiety-laden emotional tags to them, which formed part of his poor decision-making in 2005.
The authors also present fascinating stories from contemporary cognitive–behavioural research, which elaborate on their key arguments. One study shows that when faced with a simple decision of picking cards from either a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ deck, people with brain damage that had left them unable to form strong emotions were unable to discard the ‘bad’ deck, even though they could articulate the negative consequences of their decisions.
Skillfully, the authors present clear arguments about how the evidence from brain science meets with real-life decisions – whether they be from politicians (e.g. Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs) or CEOs (Quaker (US food company) almost going under after a bad take-over of Snapple).
As the book’s subtitle suggests, the Think Again delivers on its promise of presenting strategies to keep bad decisions from happening. They present four key safeguards that can reduce the odds of bad results occurring. Based on the authors’ combined research, these safeguards include providing decision-makers with new experiences that ideally foster positive emotional tags, creating healthy debates before decisions are made, and ensuring that governance and monitoring are in place.
For readers looking for a quick guide to decision-making, one that at best offers snappy truths and words of encouragement, Think Again will not suit.
Rather, people in leadership and key decision-making roles who are serious about raising the awareness of their own cognitive functions, life experiences and decision-making processes, will be highly rewarded in making the investment in reading this important Harvard Business Press book.
Our rating: 10/10
By Ben Zipper, Co-editor, Women & Leadership Australia eNewsletter
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