Olivia: A survey of two thousand executives revealed a shocking truth. Only 28% believed their company generally makes good strategic decisions. Jackson: Whoa, hold on. Only 28%? That means nearly three-quarters of top leaders are looking around the boardroom thinking, "We're basically flipping a coin here." Olivia: Exactly. They feel bad decisions are just as common as good ones. It begs the question: what if they're all falling into the same hidden traps, over and over again? Jackson: That is a terrifying thought. It’s like everyone’s flying blind, but they’re all wearing expensive suits. Olivia: That's the core question in Olivier Sibony's book, Decisions: How to Decide Better. And Sibony is the perfect person to ask. He spent 25 years as a senior partner at McKinsey, watching brilliant leaders make terrible mistakes, and then went on to get a PhD in behavioral strategy, even co-authoring a book with the legendary Daniel Kahneman. Jackson: So he's seen it from the inside of the world's biggest boardrooms and studied it from the outside as a scientist. That's a powerful combination. He’s not just an academic in an ivory tower; he’s been in the trenches where these bad decisions actually happen. Olivia: And Sibony argues the reason for all those bad decisions isn't incompetence. It's that our brains are wired to fall for seductive, predictable traps. The first one he talks about is my absolute favorite: The Storytelling Trap.

Jackson: The Storytelling Trap. That sounds… deceptively simple. What does he mean by that? Olivia: It means we are absolute suckers for a good story. Our brains are wired to connect dots and create a narrative, and once we have a story we like, we cling to it. We start looking for evidence that confirms our story and ignore everything that contradicts it. It’s a powerful form of confirmation bias. Jackson: Okay, that makes sense on a small scale. Like when you decide you want to buy a certain car, and suddenly you only read the five-star reviews and ignore the ones about the transmission failing. Olivia: Precisely. But Sibony uses an example that is so much bigger, it’s almost unbelievable. It’s the story of Elf Aquitaine, the French state-owned oil company, in the 1970s. Jackson: A state-owned oil company? Okay, my ears are perked. This sounds like it’s going to be expensive. Olivia: You have no idea. It's the height of the oil crisis, and France is desperate for energy independence. Two con artists approach Elf with a revolutionary invention: airplanes that can "sniff" oil from high in the sky. No drilling, no expensive exploration. Just fly over a country and find oil. Jackson: Come on. Oil-sniffing airplanes? That sounds like something out of a cartoon. Olivia: I know! But the story was just too good to be true. The leaders at Elf, including their top scientists, wanted to believe it so badly. The con artists put on a show. They faked images on a screen during test flights, making it look like the machine was finding vast oil reserves. The CEO got excited. He convinced the Prime Minister. He even convinced the President of France. Jackson: Wait, the President of France signed off on this? How is that even possible? Olivia: Because the story was perfect! It solved their biggest national problem. It was innovative, it was futuristic, it was a source of national pride. They were so caught up in the narrative that they ignored all the red flags. And over four years, they invested the equivalent of one billion francs in today's money. Jackson: A billion francs on… magic airplanes. That’s staggering. It really shows that the more you want something to be true, the easier you are to fool. Olivia: And here’s the kicker. Sibony points out this wasn't a one-off. Decades later, in 2004, a Silicon Valley startup called Terralliance raised half a billion dollars from sophisticated investors like Goldman Sachs and Kleiner Perkins with the exact same idea. Jackson: You’re kidding me. They fell for the oil-sniffing airplane scam again? Olivia: They did. Because the story was, once again, too good not to be true. This is the Storytelling Trap in action. It’s not about intelligence; it’s about the power of a compelling narrative to short-circuit our critical thinking. Jackson: That’s one trap. What else does he highlight? Olivia: Another huge one is the Imitation Trap. This is where we see a successful person or company and mistakenly copy the wrong things. Sibony uses the brilliant example of Ron Johnson. Jackson: Oh, the guy from the Apple Stores! He was hailed as a retail genius. Olivia: A genius! He was the golden boy. So in 2011, the struggling department store J.C. Penney hired him as CEO to work his magic. The board, the investors, everyone was suffering from what Sibony calls the "halo effect." They saw his success at Apple and assumed everything he did was brilliant. Jackson: Right, they were copying the 'genius' without copying the context. It's like trying to copy Steve Jobs' black turtleneck and expecting to invent the next iPhone. The turtleneck isn't the magic ingredient. Olivia: That’s a perfect analogy! Johnson came in and tried to turn J.C. Penney into Apple. He got rid of sales and coupons, which were the lifeblood of J.C. Penney's loyal customers. He brought in sleek, minimalist designs. He didn't test any of it. He just assumed what worked for a premium tech brand would work for a budget-conscious department store. Jackson: And it was a catastrophe, right? Olivia: An absolute train wreck. Sales dropped 25% in a year. The stock price collapsed. He was fired in 17 months. The board fell into the Imitation Trap. They attributed Apple's success solely to Johnson's genius—the attribution error—and ignored the most important factor: Apple had revolutionary products that people were desperate to buy. J.C. Penney had… towels and blenders. Jackson: It’s the classic survivorship bias. We study the one who succeeded and ignore the hundred who tried the same thing and failed. We don't hear about the guy who wore a black turtleneck and went bankrupt. Olivia: Exactly. And this is where Sibony makes his most controversial point. You'd think the solution is to just... be aware of these biases, right? To try harder to be objective.

Jackson: Of course. Isn't that the whole point of reading books like this? To get smarter and stop making these mistakes? Every self-help book on the planet is about increasing self-awareness. Is Sibony saying they're all wrong? Olivia: He’s saying it’s not that simple. In fact, he argues that trying to "debias" yourself is mostly a futile effort. His argument is built on a concept called the "bias blind spot." Jackson: The bias blind spot? Olivia: It’s the fact that we are fantastic at spotting cognitive biases in other people. We can listen to the J.C. Penney story and say, "Oh, obviously, they had a halo effect and survivorship bias!" But we are constitutionally blind to our own. Jackson: I can see that. It’s easy to see when your friend is dating someone who is clearly wrong for them, but you can’t see the flaws in your own relationship. Olivia: That’s a great way to put it. Sibony uses the classic example of driving ability. If you go into a room and ask, "Who here is an above-average driver?" almost everyone raises their hand. Jackson: Guilty. I definitely think I'm an above-average driver. My parallel parking is a work of art. Olivia: We all do! I do too! But it's statistically impossible for 80% of people to be in the top 50%. And Sibony says that even when you point this out to the room, people don't change their minds. They just sit there thinking, "Okay, but the other people are wrong. I actually am a great driver." Jackson: That’s so true. You just assume you’re the exception. Olivia: And that’s the core of the problem. Sibony, drawing on Kahneman's work, says trying to debias yourself is like trying to un-see an optical illusion. You can know intellectually that the two lines are the same length, but one still looks longer. You can't will your brain to perceive it differently. You can't just decide to not have confirmation bias. Jackson: Okay, if we can't fix ourselves, this sounds pretty hopeless. Are we just doomed to make terrible mistakes forever? Is the book just a depressing catalogue of our own flaws? Olivia: No, and this is the hopeful part, the real genius of the book. Sibony says we need to stop trying to be better decision-makers and start being better decision-architects.

Jackson: 'Decision Architect.' Okay, that sounds a bit corporate and jargony. In plain English, what does that actually mean? Is it just having more meetings? Olivia: It’s about designing the process by which a decision is made, instead of focusing on the individual genius of the person making it. It’s about building a system that protects you from your own flawed brain. And the perfect example he uses is President John F. Kennedy. Jackson: JFK? How so? Olivia: In 1961, Kennedy presided over one of the worst fiascos in American foreign policy: the Bay of Pigs invasion. The plan was deeply flawed, but in the room, there was a powerful sense of groupthink. No one wanted to be the dissenter. The CIA presented a single, confident plan, and the discussion was rushed. Kennedy's advisors, even those with serious doubts, kept quiet. The result was a humiliating disaster. Jackson: I remember reading about that. He apparently asked his advisors afterward, "How could we have been so stupid?" Olivia: Exactly. But just over a year later, in 1962, the same man, with largely the same team, faced an even bigger crisis: the Cuban Missile Crisis. The world was on the brink of nuclear war. But this time, Kennedy deliberately changed the process. He became a decision architect. Jackson: What did he do differently? Olivia: Everything. Instead of a quick, high-pressure meeting, he created a special committee, ExComm, that met for days. He explicitly encouraged fierce debate and dissent. He even had his brother, Robert Kennedy, play the role of a devil's advocate, challenging every assumption. Crucially, JFK would sometimes leave the room so that his advisors would argue freely without trying to please the boss. Jackson: Wow. So the same leader, with largely the same team, faced two crises. One was a catastrophe, the other a masterclass in decision-making. The only thing that changed was the process. Olivia: Precisely! That's the 'decision architecture.' He built a system designed to fight groupthink and overconfidence. And Sibony says we can all do this, even on a smaller scale. He offers 40 practical techniques. Simple things, like, never allow a decision to be a 'yes or no' on a single proposal. Always force the team to present at least two viable alternatives. Jackson: That alone seems like it would change everything. It’s not "should we do this project?" but "should we do project A or project B?" Olivia: It completely reframes the conversation. Another technique is the 'premortem.' Before you approve a project, you get the team together and say, "Okay, let's imagine it's a year from now, and this project has failed spectacularly. It's a total disaster. Now, let's all write down why it failed." Jackson: I love that. It gives everyone permission to be critical without sounding negative or disloyal. You’re not attacking the plan; you’re participating in a thought experiment. Olivia: It takes the oxygen out of overconfidence and groupthink. These tools aren't about making you a smarter person; they're about making the system you operate in smarter.

Jackson: So the big takeaway here isn't just a list of biases to watch out for. It's a fundamental shift in how we should think about leadership and intelligence. Olivia: Exactly. Sibony challenges that 'lonesome cowboy' model of the leader—the John Wayne figure who just sizes up a situation and knows what to do. He argues that model is dangerously flawed. The real genius isn't having the right gut feeling; it's being humble enough to know your gut is probably wrong and building a process that protects you and your team from it. Jackson: It’s about orchestrating the debate, not just making the call. Olivia: That's the perfect way to put it. It’s a new model of leadership, one that values collaboration, process, and intellectual humility over solitary, gut-driven confidence. Jackson: I love that. It's less pressure to be a hero and more focus on building a heroic team. It makes me wonder, what's one small thing a listener could do tomorrow to start being a better 'decision architect' in their own life? Olivia: Sibony suggests a simple one: the next time you're presented with a single option, whether at work or at home, just ask, "What are our other alternatives?" Forcing a choice between A and B is always better than a 'yes or no' on A. It's a small change that can make a huge difference. We'd love to hear from our listeners if they try it. Let us know how it goes. Jackson: A simple, powerful first step. This is Aibrary, signing off.