Narrator: Imagine a team of top scientists and executives at a major state-owned oil company, backed by the President and Prime Minister of France, pouring the equivalent of a billion francs into a revolutionary new technology. The invention? A pair of airplanes that could supposedly "sniff" out oil reserves from high in the sky, eliminating the need for costly drilling. For four years, they chased this dream, convinced by compelling images and the promise of energy independence. The only problem was that it was all a complete fraud, orchestrated by two con artists with no experience in the oil industry. How could so many brilliant minds be so catastrophically wrong? This question lies at the heart of Olivier Sibony’s book, Decisions: How to Decide Better, which reveals that even the most competent leaders are susceptible to predictable, systematic errors in judgment.

Narrator: The human mind is an explanation machine, constantly seeking narratives to make sense of the world. This instinct, however, leads to the first major decision trap: the Storytelling Trap. When faced with a compelling story, people fall victim to confirmation bias, unconsciously seeking evidence that supports the narrative while ignoring anything that contradicts it. This is precisely what happened at Elf Aquitaine. The story of a magical oil-finding technology was so alluring, especially during an energy crisis, that its leaders, scientists, and even the French government overlooked glaring red flags and fell for a simple scam.

This trap is not just about falling for cons; it also manifests as "champion bias" and "experience bias." A prime example is the case of Ron Johnson at J.C. Penney. Hired in 2011, Johnson was the celebrated "champion" who had masterminded the Apple Store's success. The board was so captivated by his past achievements that they greenlit a radical, untested strategy to transform the retailer. Johnson, a victim of his own "experience bias," tried to replicate the Apple model, eliminating the promotions and discounts that J.C. Penney's core customers relied on. He famously declared that "skepticism takes the oxygen out of innovation." The result was a disaster: sales plummeted by 25 percent, and Johnson was fired in just 17 months. The board had bought into the story of a retail genius, ignoring the fact that the context at J.C. Penney was vastly different from Apple.

Similarly, the Imitation Trap causes leaders to copy the habits of successful figures, falling for the halo effect and survivorship bias. For years, companies emulated Jack Welch’s "forced ranking" system at General Electric, believing it was a key to GE's success. This system required managers to fire the bottom 10% of performers annually. However, many companies that adopted it found it destroyed morale and teamwork. They were copying a practice without understanding its full context or negative consequences, blinded by the halo of GE's success and ignoring the countless companies that might have failed using similar harsh tactics.

Narrator: Even when not swayed by external stories, internal biases can prove just as destructive. The Overconfidence Trap is one of the most pervasive, leading organizations to overestimate their abilities and underestimate competitors. In the early 2000s, Blockbuster was the undisputed king of video rentals. When the fledgling startup Netflix offered to be acquired for $50 million, Blockbuster's executives reportedly laughed them out of the office. Overconfident in their market dominance and brick-and-mortar model, they failed to see the disruptive potential of Netflix's subscription service. By the time Blockbuster tried to launch its own version, it was too late. Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy in 2010, while Netflix grew into a global media giant.

This overconfidence is often coupled with the Inertia Trap, an organizational resistance to change. This is driven by anchoring, where decisions are tethered to past information, and the sunk-cost fallacy, which is the tendency to throw good money after bad. Polaroid, the icon of instant photography, is a classic victim. As early as the 1990s, its leaders recognized the threat of digital photography. Yet, the company's resource allocation remained anchored to its profitable instant film business. Its entire economic model was built on selling film cartridges, and the organization was too culturally and financially invested to make the necessary pivot to digital. As one observer noted, "Polaroid’s shipwreck didn’t happen because the captain didn’t see the iceberg. It happened because the ship was just too hard to turn." The company filed for bankruptcy in 2001, a casualty of its own inertia.

Narrator: Decisions are rarely made in a vacuum; they are shaped by social forces that can lead even well-intentioned individuals astray. The Groupthink Trap is a powerful phenomenon where the desire for harmony or conformity within a group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome. The disastrous 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion is a textbook case. President John F. Kennedy's team of brilliant advisors, including figures like Arthur Schlesinger Jr., suppressed their personal doubts to maintain consensus. Schlesinger later admitted his failure to "blow the whistle on this nonsense was simply undone by the circumstances of the discussion." The pressure to conform led to a humiliating military and political failure.

This pressure isn't limited to politics. Warren Buffett, a paragon of independent thinking, admitted to falling into this trap. On the board of Coca-Cola, he privately disagreed with a generous equity compensation plan but chose to abstain from voting against it. He explained that voting no would be "like belching at the dinner table," a breach of social etiquette. He succumbed to the pressure for social cohesion, even when it went against his better judgment.

This is often compounded by the Conflict of Interest Trap, where personal interests, often unconsciously, cloud judgment. This isn't always about overt corruption. It's about "bounded ethicality," where self-serving biases cause honorable people to make unethical choices without realizing it. For example, studies show that surgeons whose income depends on the number of operations they perform are more likely to recommend surgery, and lawyers paid on contingency are more likely to recommend quick settlements. They sincerely believe they are acting in their client's best interest, but their judgment is subtly skewed by their own incentives.

Narrator: After identifying these traps, the logical next step seems to be to try and "debias" ourselves. However, Sibony argues this is largely a futile effort. We suffer from a "bias blind spot"—it's far easier to see the speck in our brother's eye than the beam in our own. Even when we are made aware of our collective biases, like the fact that 88% of Americans believe they are safer-than-average drivers, we tend to believe we are the exception.

The true solution lies not in changing human nature, but in changing the environment in which decisions are made. Leaders should stop trying to be infallible heroes and instead become "decision architects," designing processes that mitigate bias. The contrast between the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis, both handled by President Kennedy, is telling. After the Bay of Pigs fiasco, Kennedy redesigned his decision-making process. During the missile crisis, he assembled a diverse group, encouraged vigorous debate, broke them into sub-groups to avoid groupthink, and explicitly sought out dissenting opinions. He didn't become a better decision-maker overnight; he built a better decision-making process. This shift from focusing on the individual to focusing on the system is the core of making better decisions.

Narrator: A robust decision architecture rests on three pillars. The first is Dialogue. This means moving beyond sterile PowerPoint presentations and fostering genuine, constructive conflict. Amazon famously bans PowerPoint, instead requiring that meetings begin with everyone silently reading a detailed six-page memo. This ensures that discussion is based on shared, well-articulated information, not bullet points. Another technique is the "premortem," where a team imagines a project has failed and works backward to identify what could have gone wrong, making it safe to voice concerns.

The second pillar is Divergence, or actively seeking out different angles. This can mean appointing a "red team" to argue against a proposal, as military and intelligence agencies do. It can also mean taking the "outside view" by looking at a reference class of similar past projects to ground forecasts in reality, rather than falling for optimistic, inside-view plans. For example, while the organizers of the Paris 2024 Olympics may be confident in their budget, the outside view shows that every modern Olympics has gone significantly over budget.

The final pillar is Dynamics. This involves creating a culture of psychological safety where people feel they can speak up. It means rewarding sensible risk-taking and recognizing the right to fail, understanding that not all failures are mistakes. It also means leaders must have the humility to change their minds. As Odysseus knew he could not resist the Sirens' song, he had his men tie him to the mast—he designed a system to protect himself from his own predictable weakness. A great leader does the same, building an architecture that fosters better decisions for the entire organization.

Narrator: The single most important takeaway from Decisions: How to Decide Better is that the quality of a decision should be judged by its process, not its outcome. A good outcome can be the result of pure luck, just as a bad outcome can happen despite a sound process. By focusing on building a robust decision architecture—one that encourages dialogue, embraces divergence, and fosters agile dynamics—organizations can deserve success, rather than just hoping for it.

The book challenges the modern myth of the heroic, gut-driven leader. The real challenge for any leader is not to have all the answers, but to have the humility to admit they don't and the wisdom to build a system that finds them. The question it leaves us with is this: Are you trying to be the smartest person in the room, or are you building a room where the smartest decision can emerge?