March 28, 2023 • 58 mins
Cheryl Strauss Einhorn is an award-winning investigative reporter at New York Times and Foreign Policy Magazine, Barron’s who wanted to be sure she could navigate complexity and ambiguity in the high stakes world of finance with confidence and good conscience. To solve for this she innovated an evidence-based decision-making system that uniquely controls for and counters cognitive bias to expand knowledge while improving judgment called the Area method In todays chat, well be talking about specific tools we can use to better trust our intuition - and address our biases and new book Problem Solver.
You can learn more by watching her Ted talk and visiting areamethod.com.
Intro and Outro music kind courtesy of Taraval.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Bill Duane (00:00):
Hi, welcome to the heart of innovation Podcast. I'm
Bill Duane former civilengineering executive and
Superintendent of wellbeing andcourage consultant and speaker
on innovation strategy. We'regoing to be diving deep into the
internal innovation thatunlocked external innovation and
the surprisingly practical wayswe can become better innovators.
We'll be in conversation withinnovators from many different
(00:22):
backgrounds and contextsincluding business, science,
social change and technology andnot only benefit from their
expertise, but also theirpersonal stories of their
innovation journey. Today, we'llbe talking about Cheryl Strauss
Einhorn, an award winninginvestigative reporter at The
New York Times Foreign Policymagazine in Barron's wanted to
make sure she could navigatecomplexity and ambiguity in the
(00:44):
high stakes world of finance,with both confidence and good
conscience. To solve for this,she innovated an evidence based
decision making system thatuniquely controls for encounters
cognitive bias, to expandknowledge while improving
judgment called the area method.
In today's chat, we're gonna betalking about specific tools we
can use to better trust ourintuition, and address our
biases, all of which iscontained in her new book
(01:07):
problem solvers. So Cheryl,thank you so much for being
here. I'm really excited to talkabout this method of decision
making. And happy to have you,Bill, I'm so glad to be here.
Thank you. So we'll start offwith the usual conversation
starter.
(01:27):
What does the word innovationmean to you? And how has it been
showing up in your liferecently.
Cheryl Strauss Einhorn (01:33):
So to me, innovation is an update, or
something that is new or novel.
Traditionally, when we think ofinnovation, we tend to think of
it as something like the ladder,an iPad, or a Tesla, or some
kind of product, but ideas andthinking systems. They can be
innovations, too. So if you takesomething like my area method,
(01:56):
decision making system, it's anexample of an update for how we
collect how we engage and how weanalyze information, to check
and challenge our cognitivebiases.
Bill Duane (02:13):
Yeah, that's amazing. And I think that's so
important to bring out becausewhen we think about innovation,
it seems like a lot of times,and this is something you
mentioned in your book, also,that we are archaeologists
looking for the truth with acapital T. And if we're clever
about where we dig, we will findour way towards where the
treasure is hidden. Butsomething you talk about is that
(02:37):
it's much more of a process ofexploration. And it's not, it's
not sort of goal oriented inthat way. But the way that you
do the exploring is actually youknow, where the innovation comes
from, rather than this image oflike being in the dark with
your, with your hands out sortof searching for the searching
(02:58):
for the treasure. And, you know,the one thing that really jumped
out at me, is when you say, wedon't see the world as it is, we
see it as we are. And to me,that's a really profound way of
articulating that it's not, it'snot the thing that's out there
that we're looking for, butrather, it's our it's our
(03:20):
process of of looking for it.
And that idea of knowing yourown frame, your own lens with
which you look at the world. Andone of the things I really and
so if you if you say that thatsounds like a pretty nebulous
thing about to become aware ofyour own lens, but your your
work is quite specific that witha little bit of effort and
(03:43):
framework that you can actuallybegin to understand your own
lens and God help us the lensesof the people around you who
have shockingly different,seemingly crazy as lenses. So
Cheryl Strauss Einhorn (03:59):
what got you started on this on this
journey of it? Because it's soimportant, and I think it's so
overlooked. What made you go,Hey, this is so this is really
important. Well, first, I lovethat phrase that we don't see
the world as it is. But as weare and I have to give credit
where credit is due that is fromthe Talmud.
(04:20):
And what got me started onthinking about decision making
is that my background is ininvestigative journalism. And
for over a decade, I wrote forthe business magazine as an
editor and columnist inBarron's, and Barron's is a
publication that takes aviewpoint on something related
(04:41):
to the markets. And so I wouldwrite stories about companies
and about management teams thatwere often considered bearish
companies stories, stories thattake a skeptical look at what a
company was doing. And whenthese stories were published,
that often be a Very large shareprice reaction. Sometimes the
(05:04):
stock exchange would hold theshares, sometimes regulators
would get involved. For onecompany in a series of expos A's
that I wrote, the CEO actuallyended up being sentenced to 10
years in jail, and companieswent out of business. And what I
realized is that these storiesdon't just have an impact on
(05:26):
somebody's investment portfolio,these stories also had an impact
on somebody's ability tosafeguard their retirement
money. Or if they weren't thesecompanies, their ability to show
up for their job, or if youhappen to buy a product or
service that one of thesecompanies made your ability to
(05:46):
feel like you could trust theproduct. And for one of the
companies that were the largestmaker of diabetic test kits in
the United States, that's aproduct that people use multiple
times a day that help them tobetter define their health. And
so I just started to think aboutwho am I as a decision maker?
How do I know that when I'mwriting these stories that are
(06:08):
causing these outsized outcomes,then I'm actually telling
stories that should be told thatI am listening to information
with an open mind. And then I amable to think about the
incentives and motives of thepeople who share their thoughts
and their experiences aboutthese companies, with me. And so
(06:32):
that was really how I started tothink about what kind of mental
mistakes and flaws could I bebringing to the table? And could
I set up a way with mybackground and research to
better check and challenge theway that I collect, engage and
analyze information?
Bill Duane (06:50):
Yeah, yeah. So underneath that, it sounds like
and let me know if I have this,right, is that the the key
values are? Accuracy, and I'mnot sure if accuracy is the
right word, given that it's ait's a subjective world. But as
I want to use words likeaccuracy, truth, fairness,
(07:13):
they're sort of one grouping ofwords. And then the other is to
see that which is not obvious,or in the cases of this, which
is actively obfuscated, so So itseems like there's these values
of truth and accuracy and alsodigging to find out what's there
(07:33):
that may be hidden, or that one,is that correct, and two, are
there any other values thatunderlie this, this drive, and
maybe the third one is to makesure that you're not doing harm.
At the end, you mentioned tomake sure that your own biases
are not are not or are accounted
Cheryl Strauss Einhorn (07:49):
for, here's how I would define the
goals. One is to have anopportunity to hear the
different stakeholders involvedin the decision to get up close
on their perspectives tounderstand how they see and
(08:10):
understand the issue that we'retalking about. And then to have
an opportunity to check andchallenge my own cognitive
biases, so that I have a betteropportunity for a fulsome
understanding of the problem.
I'm not sure at all that I wouldsay that there is an objective
(08:31):
truth. I'm saying that whatwe're trying to do is to have an
inclusive opportunity tounderstand the situation before
us. And that way we can evaluatethe facts and the diagnostic
capacity of those facts, toarrive at a decision that we
(08:54):
have confidence in.
Bill Duane (08:59):
Hmm, and I love that word in confidence. So it's,
it's it's a way of creatingconfidence, confidence in a
field of ambiguity andcomplexity, right. One of the
things I love about your modelis, from first principles, it
assumes complexity andambiguity, and how can we then
(09:19):
trust our intuition, as well asour fact based finding abilities
knowing that there is no, youknow, maybe truth with a capital
T, but how can we narrow down asmuch such that we have
confidence about describingsomething that is complex? And
maybe
Cheryl Strauss Einhorn (09:38):
actually what my area method decision
making system does is itdifferentiates between what is
uncertain and what is ambiguous.
Those things that are ambiguous,are inherently subjective and
they're a matter of your values.
Those things that are uncertainyou're never going In a truly
(10:00):
software, you can triangulate tomitigate uncertainty, but you
can actually solve forambiguity. Hmm.
Bill Duane (10:10):
So for those that haven't had the good fortune to
read your books yet, can youtalk a little bit about the area
method?
Cheryl Strauss Einh (10:18):
Absolutely.
So area is an acronym for thesteps of my decision making
process that really works tohelp you expand your knowledge
while improving your judgment.
So the first day is absoluteinformation from up close on the
target of your decision. Thenext concentric circle is
(10:39):
relative information. That's theare those are sources related to
the target of your decision.
From there, you move into areaII, which are exploration and
exploitation, the twin enginesof creativity, exploitation is
expanding your research breadthbeyond documents, to identify
good sources, and ask them greatquestions. So it's interviewing,
(11:00):
then exploitation asks you toconfront your own cognitive
biases through a series ofcreative exercises that I've
learned from experts in otherfields, such as the intelligence
gathering community, ormedicine. And then the final a
of area is analysis, where youthink about failure and how the
(11:20):
decision could go awry. So youcan strength test your decision.
And it helps you put all of yourinformation together so that you
can come to conviction aboutyour decision.
Bill Duane (11:37):
I, I love and I see the way the reason why you use
the word inclusive decisionmaking, because each one of
those, not each one of them. Butsome of those categories are
very unpleasant to think about.
And as a result, it's normal andnatural to not do that. Oh, so
when you say inclusive decisionmaking, like when I'm listening
to you, I'm like, that's all. Imean, not only is it allowed,
(11:59):
but it's welcome and soughtafter me put it
Cheryl Strauss Einhorn (12:03):
for a minute in a way that I think you
and your listeners mightappreciate, given your
background, think of the areamethod as the opposite of
Google. Normally, when we have adecision to make, we type an
answer into Google, we type ourquestion rather into Google. And
immediately, we come up with allthese answers instantaneously,
(12:24):
with no idea about the validity,or the value of the various
stakeholders who are providinginformation. And therefore no
idea if they're solving theproblem for the same reason that
we are. So we're in allperspectives at once, without
any idea of the quality. Whatarea basically says is that we
(12:47):
want to think about carefullythe information that we're
gathering, and we want toseparate out the sources of our
information. So that we can getup close to each one to
understand their incentives andmotives, and have a way to think
about whether or not that alignswith why we're solving the
(13:09):
decision, and be able to piecethe information together in a
way that helps us to hear thesedifferent voices, and to also
hear our own voice.
Bill Duane (13:24):
And then, one of the things that jumped out at me in
your in your new book that justcame out this week called
problem solvers is this idea ofthe cheetah pause. So when you
when you describe this, a lot oftimes when we take shortcuts, we
do so either because it's like Imentioned, it's unpleasant, or
it takes more time. And one ofthe things that I think that's
(13:46):
really interesting about yourbackground is that the stakes
were so high when you werereading these articles that you
had to but if it's importantthen that it's important and you
mentioned again in the book islike our whole day to day life
is made of these smallerdecisions. But time a lot of
times one of the key factorswhere we make shortcuts is this
(14:07):
idea of of time and you havethis idea of a cheetah pause
that will let you unpack and youknow your your hypothesis is
that this method, the area typemethod is actually more
efficient in the medium and longterm.
Cheryl Strauss Einhorn (14:26):
Right, the idea of the area method is
to make your work work for you.
And so the cheetah paws isintegral and I coined this term
because the cheetah while it'sthe fastest land animal
accelerating up to 60 miles anhour in a single stride. That's
not where the hunting prowesscomes from. It comes from the
fact that in a single stride,the cheetah can decelerate up to
(14:51):
nine miles an hour. And nowyou're talking about agility,
flexibility, maneuverability.
That's what We need inequalitydecision making system. And
what's really been missing oneof the many things that's been
missing in our thought processabout decision making is this
issue of timing and strategicstops. So everywhere along the
(15:15):
area method where I think youwant to chunk your learning, I
insert a cheetah paws. Andeverywhere that I have a cheetah
pause, I have a cheetah sheet.
And these sheets are meant to bethe graphic organizers of the
area method. So that when youtake these pauses, I'm giving
you guidance on what to do onproviding you with a set of
(15:36):
questions for reflection, orsuggestions about quality type
of places to look forinformation. And so these citta
pauses become an easyterminology and way to remind
ourselves of the true importanceof strategic stops, and what to
do when we're in those moments.
(16:01):
Huh,
Bill Duane (16:02):
yeah, that idea of the of the pause so hard again,
one of the things well, one ofthe things when I first met you,
that really drew me to you ishow good you are at articulating
things that can be prettynebulous. So one of the things
I'm excited about, and is, youknow, your work really gives
people very practical ways toactually action this because it
(16:27):
is, you know, I think, you know,to deal with complexity and
ambiguity with overly simplisticmethods. Well, we see the
downsides of that all around us.
So one is I'm really in awe ofyour ability to articulate these
things quite clearly. And thenthe idea that there's these
actual, you know, there, haveyou ever read The Checklist
(16:48):
Manifesto?
Cheryl Strauss Einho (16:50):
Wonderful.
I love all of his books.
Bill Duane (16:53):
Yeah. And so the checklist for anyone that hasn't
read it, it's the idea that evensuper bright, super smart
people, like surgeons, and anairline pilots need to have
these reminders of the rightsteps to go through. And the one
hand, you think about using achecklist is slow. But on the
(17:15):
other hand, the cost of missinga step is really high. So, you
know, we talked, we talked thatthis method was really born of
this very high stakes invest infinancial investigative
journalism, you know, arena, butyou and I met actually, at a
meditation retreat, we bothshare a deep interest in being
(17:38):
good at becoming a human andkind and all of that. How can
these methods be brought intoour not just our professional
lives when we're sort of doingwhere we have like a grownup
outfit on? And we're, we'redoing things on a project plan,
but how, how does this methodshape to making decisions in
your personal life where theymight be a different kind of
(18:01):
high stakes, and with the timeand maybe with less of a less
formal context?
Cheryl Strauss Einhorn (18:08):
So first, I Atul Gawande is I
think, a wonderful example ofsomebody who takes very complex
ideas and is able to write soclearly. And I also want to say
he, he wrote me an endorsementfor my first book for problem
solved. Which just meant so somuch to me, I think your point
(18:35):
about often making decisionsdifferently between personal
life and professional life issomething that I find all the
time when I work withindividuals and companies and
nonprofits, that people seethemselves and give different
quality to decisions indifferent spheres of their life.
(19:01):
And I find that the investmentthat they put in themselves
professionally, is often notgiven in their personal life.
And I think it would benefitpeople to realize that they
deserve they deserve that sametime personally, that they spend
(19:21):
in their life, professionally ontheir decisions, because it's
the only thing we ever havecontrol over in our entire life
is how we decide whether we'regoing to decide when we decide
for the most point, most part.
So for me, I think it's beenreally important to recognize
that I can use area as anoperating system for every
(19:46):
decision all the time. When youread problem solved my first
book, I show you all of thesteps and it can look like there
are a lot of things that we cando to improve prove our decision
making. But the truth is, isthat since time is always a
factor, once you know area andyou know why all the steps exist
(20:08):
and how they actually work, youcan pick and choose which ones
you use, so that you can alwayshave it running in the
background. And what I loveabout the idea of it as an
operating system is that it isconstantly reminding me to come
with inquiry, which is exactlywhat you and I were doing at
(20:32):
that meditation retreat, we werecoming to really have the
benefit of communal inquirytogether, while we were also
being in our own heads, andhaving that experience that
everybody is always constantlystruggling with the decisions
that they face. Right?
Bill Duane (20:57):
There's two, two directions, we'll have to choose
which one to go to go first. Socan you think of an example
where you've applied area toyourself in your personal life,
and it's been a real benefitinto a decision that you made?
Cheryl Strauss Einhorn (21:14):
Oh, yeah, I think it's a benefit all
the time. And I kick myself whenI don't use it, because when I
don't use it, I'm just reacting.
And you know, I think ofmeditation as the universal
cheat applause. When you thinkabout it, right? It's the space.
And it's the time to be herenow, to notice what we're
thinking. And to literallychoose how to respond to our
(21:38):
thoughts and feelings, right?
It's that investment in our wellbeing, to know that we're giving
our minds time and attention,just like we do for our bodies
with our food or our exercise.
So, you know, I used area tofigure out if I was going to go
on this huge two month trip, todo work stuff at the same time
(22:00):
that my new book Problem Solverwas launching, I used it, in
order to decide with my youngestchild, whether or not we were
going to hold him back a yearand have him repeat a grade. And
whether we were going to havehim switch schools to do this,
if we were going to do it. Andwhat I find every time that I
(22:23):
use it, and I'll speak to theexample with my son and holding
him back, was that I sat himdown. And I said this is going
to be a huge decision. This ishow we're going to go through
it. And I walked him through howwe were going to move through it
using the area method. And so wehad this process that was
(22:45):
objective that he understood howand where he could engage with
it, how we were going to collectand analyze information. And so
at the end of the process, afterwe'd evaluated these schools,
and we talked to schoolpsychologists and on and on, and
people who have held their kidsback and people who didn't hold
(23:06):
their kids back, he was able tosay I feel really comfortable
with how we went about this, Isee the benefits of it. And I'd
like you too, to say which waywe should go. And I'm going to
be happy with that outcomebecause I really had a chance
to, to see and experience whatit's like to make a huge
(23:29):
decision that's going to changemy life like this.
Bill Duane (23:36):
And so the decision was to hold back for one year,
Cheryl Strauss Einhorn (23:39):
we not only held him back, we also
switched his school, and he isone of these kids who makes
friends really easily and keepsthem. And so this was just
enormous on every level, withthe amount of trust that I built
with him at a critical stagewhen he's forming his own
(24:02):
identity. And this could makehim very angry. And to seem like
this is a conflict. We justreally built an unbelievable
platform of a collaborativedecision. Where where I think it
has just set us up for for theunbelievable relationship that I
(24:26):
get to experience with him nowand now he's 21
Bill Duane (24:31):
Excellent. The reason why I ask is I actually
took an extra year of highschool as I was the youngest kid
in my class, you know, when Istarted school, it wasn't a
thing to know that being theyoungest person in your class
was a distinct disadvantage interms of developmental stuff.
(24:53):
And so one is thank you forbeing the kind of parent that
would even entertain thatbecause you are inviting so much
complexity and potentialdifficulty. Knew I feel like I
did okay by resetting the clockessentially the end of the high
school period. But certainly, Ihad way more seasoned DS, I
(25:17):
mean, my, my mom tells me thatthe guidance counselor told her
that I wasn't college material.
So this this can, these sorts ofsystems can really create harm.
And you know, when we look backto this idea of innovation, to
even realize it's on the table,to have this degree of agency,
but in order to access thatagency, it means inviting a lot
(25:40):
of complexity and difficulty.
But the thing I've really wentout with is that when we go to
the extra trouble of thisinvestigation, and as you point
out with the story about yourson is very heartfelt, invested,
(26:00):
I mean, it's clearly driven bythe values of wanting what's
what's best for him. Andespecially in eighth grade, as
we step into this idea of, ofhaving a voice in our own lives,
that's part of the output isrelational. And I mean, to me,
that's what jumps out about thethe newest book problem solver.
Sorry, go ahead, I
Cheryl Strauss Einhorn (26:20):
was gonna say is that area because
of the perspective taking isuniquely built on a
collaborative backbone. And sothe idea is that you're
strengthening your relationshipsas you make decisions, because
relationships withoutrelationships without people
getting along. Together, wecan't ever really make a
(26:40):
decision that holisticallysolves a problem. But I want to
just mention one other thing,you keep talking about
complexity, big decisions aremessy. They are messy. And the
idea is what do you do with allof the possibilities and the
emotions and the differentinformation that you gather and
(27:04):
need to analyze? An areauniquely shows you what is a
system for complex problemsolving step by step, following
a logical progression, that is afeedback loop. Because it's not
linear problem solving, we'dlove it to be linear, but it's
not, it's circular. At times,you need to go back to gather
(27:28):
more information, or to gain newinsight. So it gives you the
guardrails of how to enter intothe chaos, to grant you, the
agency that is uniquely yours ina way that can build your
confidence. Because we need andcan feel so much more
(27:50):
comfortable engaging with thesebig decisions, when we know what
it looks like to go through aprocess in a way that is going
to show us the steps.
Bill Duane (28:04):
Hmm, amazing. In the same way, I honor you for you
know, being a great mom from myperspective, and and going
through this process. And it's,you know, my my own operating
definition of integrity is youractions match your intentions
that you walk the talk and youjust give us a great example of
(28:26):
how when the stakes are mostemotional and dear, that that
this method really works. And Iwould be remiss if I didn't
mention my own mom, who stood upfor me in the same way that you
stood up for your son in thismoment to make sure that the the
right thing happened. So yeah,thanks, mom. And then, so that
(28:48):
brings us into then, in my mind,what's what's most notable about
the the newest book is that, youknow, when we think about
decision making, a lot of timesthere's this idea, there's a
unitary agent, a lot of my workin artificial intelligence, and
ethics assumes that there's anindividual piloting their way
through the world and makingdecisions and then other agents
(29:10):
are then reacting to those. Thereality is quite Messier, that
the world is full of otherpeople. And in your new book,
you talk about these problemssolver profiles, where we have
our own set of preferences anddefault. So I was wondering, and
which I think is amazing,because then all of a sudden,
(29:33):
we're sort of taking all thecomplexity of what's going on
between our own ears, which isand then on top of that, there's
a bunch of other people who haveall their craziness going on
between their own ears. And sotell me about the problem solver
profiles and how that
Cheryl Strauss Einhorn (29:48):
maps.
Absolutely. So the new book iscalled problem solver, and it's
on the psychology of personaldecision making and what I call
Problem Solver profiles. What Ilearned after putting my first
two books out into the worldproblem solved on personal and
professional decision making.
(30:09):
And then my second book iscalled Investing in financial
research. And it's applying thearea method to financial and
investment decisions, is itanybody can use area doesn't
matter if you're a high schoolstudent deciding about where to
go to college, somebody midcareer, designing a better
career decision, or somebodylater in life choosing the right
(30:32):
aging home facility, everybodycan use it. But people use it as
they are not as it is, whichmeant when I was working with
the State Department and counterterrorism professionals, they're
comfortable with exploration,and interviewing people, but
they don't really think thatthey need absolute and to gather
(30:54):
the data. When I'm working withstudents, they're very
comfortable with area, ourrelative, which looks at
literature reviews, andcomparing pieces of information
against each other. But theymight not be comfortable with
doing some of the workcombatting their cognitive
(31:14):
biases in the exploitationphase, and so on. And so what I
realized was the missing pieceis if we don't use knowledge
systems as they are, but as weare, who are we as decision
makers. And so what I'veidentified is that there are
(31:34):
five different ways that peopletend to approach their
decisions. And I call themProblem Solver profiles. And the
five are the adventurer, thedetective, the listener, the
thinker, and the visionary. Andeach of these profiles are not
prescriptive, they're not goingto tell you what you're going to
(31:54):
do in the future. So they'reunlike Myers Briggs and these
other tests. Simply, this is whoyou are, and now fit yourself
into the world. Think of problemsolver profiles like handedness,
you have generally a dominanthand, and you can learn to be
ambidextrous, but it's a littleuncomfortable, and it takes
(32:16):
work. And you can become a moredynamic and different decision
maker than you are. But youfirst need to know which one of
these five reo. So theadventurer is somebody who's a
decisive decision maker who isoptimizing for forward momentum.
The detective is the decisionmaker that sometimes puts data
(32:39):
above all else, even beforepeople. And they're optimizing
for facts and evidence. Thelistener is somebody who is
optimizing for being able to beinclusive, and hear the opinions
and facts of other people. TheThinker is somebody who values
(33:00):
understanding the why they arepeople who are interested in the
problem solving even more attimes, then the decision making.
And so they're optimizing totruly understand their options.
And then the visionary. Last butnot least, they're the ones that
see the rainbows that we justhaven't even identified yet.
(33:21):
They are the big idea creativepeople who are generally
optimizing for something that isnew or novel. Each of these
problem solver profiles havebeautiful strengths. And each of
them come with some corecognitive biases that tend to
impede clear thinking. Foranybody who is interested in
(33:43):
reading, problem solved. I'vebuilt a quiz that you can take
that will help you self identifyinto which of these five Problem
Solver profiles you are. Andthen the book obviously takes
you through how to understandhow to use this information in a
very practical and actionableway for you to make better
(34:05):
decisions alone and with others.
Bill Duane (34:09):
So the obvious question is which one is the
right one? Which one is the bestone?
Cheryl Strauss Einhorn (34:14):
I always love this question because it
misses. It misses. The point ofthe matter is, is that they're
all good. Donald Rumsfeldfamously said, you go to war
with the army that you have, notthe army that you wish you had.
Right. So we all have thesedifferent stakeholders in our
lives, and understanding howthey make decisions can help us
(34:37):
come to them with theinformation that they need. We
each need different kinds ofinformation, which means we're
each good at something, but weeach need all of the other
profiles. And so by learningabout all of them, we can bring
in the types of questions andthe perspectives that these
(34:58):
other problem solver profilewould ask us so that we can have
a more fulsome understanding ofthe decision before us to make
better decisions.
Bill Duane (35:11):
And so for example, a failure mode I can see is, you
know, at Google, we weredefinitely the detectives. I
will admit that at one point, Ihad a sticker on my laptop that
said, Fuck you, I have chartsand graphs to back me up. And
the whole place was full ofthose titles, I
Cheryl Strauss Einhorn (35:31):
fall into that too. And I want to say
a word about intellectualdiversity, because that's really
what the problem solver profilesshow the value of oftentimes,
I'll go into companies ororganizations, and on first
blush, Wow, great diversity,diversity that we can see
sometimes with languages andaccents, diversity that we can
(35:54):
hear. But the truth of thematter is, is we don't see
intellectual diversity we'venever thought about until now,
in problem solver, how is itthat we make decisions
differently, so even with whatlooks like diversity, once I use
(36:14):
the problem solver profile withteams, you'll all of a sudden
see that almost everybody tendsto be one particular problem
solver profile, and that we arenot really getting the benefit
of intellectual diversity in ourplaces of work the way we assume
(36:34):
we are by having diversity thatwe can see or hear.
Bill Duane (36:40):
Right. And, you know, we started off our
conversation talking aboutvalues, I think, particularly
within disciplines, there tendto be clumping of certain kinds
of problem solver profiles,where other ones are, are less
valued. So for example, again, astory. At at Google, somebody
(37:03):
was saying, well, so So someonewas, was arguing to someone
else. And she said, Well, you'retechnically correct. And this
person who is an engineer said,that's the best kind of correct,
and everyone fell out of theirchair laughing. But at the same
time, it strikes me that it's anexample of that we can have
these cultures that hold up somekinds of problem solver
(37:25):
profiles, you know, while whilevaluing other ones less and then
that sets us up. And then theother thing is that you know,
and you bring this up in a fewof your books is the danger of
groupthink is that groups, Idon't think this gets enough
attention. Groupthink feelsamazing. When you're in it.
(37:45):
You're it's like being in love.
You're like we finish each othersentences. It's amazing. But as
you point out with that theabsence of this sort of
intellectual diversity leads toa paucity of different kinds of
data. You know, it's and youknow, going back to the very
beginning of our conversation,is valuing different sorts of
intellectual frameworks meansthat we don't see the world as
(38:13):
it is, we see it as we are, butwe're blind. Like, we had no
idea that we were alldetectives. And that having, you
know, with maybe the oddvisionary thrown in for good
measure, have you found teams?
Yeah, go ahead, I
Cheryl Strauss Einhorn (38:28):
was gonna say is that there are
three things that I think are soimportant about the problem
solver profiles, and those threethings are lexicon, community
and situation ality. So thefirst thing is until now, and
until this book, we haven't hadthe language to be able to
(38:51):
actually talk about differentapproaches to decision making.
And so first, to be able toreally think things through we
need the language, we need thewords because we think in words.
So that is one way that theproblem solver profiles are so
(39:12):
powerful. It gives us theability to actually wrestle with
these ideas, that there aredifferent approaches to decision
making. The second is because wecan gain an awareness of our own
problem solver profiles and theothers. We don't have to
denigrate the other ways ofthinking it's not that he's
(39:34):
hasty, or that she is always offon a tangent that we weren't
actually discussing. It's thatthey're optimizing and valuing
different things in in theirdecisions. They're not better or
worse than one another. I thinkthat leveling of the playing
field is very important from thelexicon. The second idea, the
(39:58):
situation out It is theenvironment that we find
ourselves in, and how that canimpact our problem solver
profiles. This idea that youasked earlier that we could make
decisions one way at work. Andone way at home, I know for
instance, this one doctor whomakes decisions all day at work,
(40:21):
when he comes home, it kind ofinfuriates his wife, he refuses
to make a decision, because heneeds so much willpower at work
that he wants to be. Hespecifically tries to be a
different decision maker athome. And you can learn about
how you can be a decision makerand a problem solver profile in
(40:44):
one way, in one and you and adifferent way in another and I
have cheat sheets for this, anda whole chapter that goes
through this, even though ofcourse, you can have a whole
book on it. And then the thirdpiece, is this idea of community
who we make decisions with, whatis that intellectual diversity?
What do we do about the factthat we may be missing certain
(41:07):
problem solver profiles? And howis it that we can work better
together by understanding howour group of problem solver
profiles fits together so thatwe can give each other the kind
of information that we need tomake decisions in a way that
(41:28):
continually helps us moveforward and solve problems?
Well,
Bill Duane (41:34):
right. So you know, we're talking about this
inclusivity of our own directself experience, and then
inclusivity at the groupdecision making level, right, so
it sounds like we have bothlayers going on at once and
again, is I think it's reallyeasy to be overwhelmed by that.
(41:54):
But one of the things I reallylike about the work that you do
is the ability to deconstruct itin a way that's not reductionist
and, and make it actionable.
Something you mentioned was thisidea of, of lexicon, and
applying, you know, analyticaltools to this very human part.
(42:19):
I'm curious, so something that'sbeen really important for me in
my own life, and also in in myprofessional life is the role of
emotion and nonverbal data. Soessentially, just to provide a
quick recap as the entericnervous system of of where
emotions are felt evolved priorto our species ability to use
(42:41):
language, and as a result, thedata that it sends is nonverbal.
And people like me, like in my20s, I went through this spell
of like, emotions are bullshit,like the world would be better
without emotion. And as we say,in engineering, that's the naive
approach, because it's sononverbal, non declarative
memory, non narrative. Cognitionis such a core part of human
(43:07):
cognition, you just can't wishit away. And I think people that
do, like I did run the risk ofcutting themselves off from a
very valuable rich source ofdata. So we're rounding the bend
on an actual question. So a lotof times our creativity comes in
this nonverbal, less analytical,more somatic, more embodied,
(43:30):
mentioned, sources of data whereit comes across as a as a
feeling. So how do thesenonverbal how does this
nonverbal data fit intoeverything you've talked about,
because of course, it happenswithin us as our own individual
selves, but also it becomesmassive at the at the
(43:50):
interpersonal level. So I
Cheryl Strauss Einhorn (43:54):
want to address that. But I also want to
go back to something else thatyou said about solo decisions. I
think that's a huge disserviceto think of our decisions as
solo. And I think that'ssomething that area and my books
really addresses, there's almostno decision that you're going to
(44:17):
make that at some level doesn'timpact somebody else. And that
is why this idea of having acollaborative backbone in your
decision making process witharea is is so powerful, because
we can't solve any of theproblems in the world if we
(44:38):
can't have an opportunity tobuild relationships. So we're
never truly so low when we makea decision. As for the role of
emotion, I have an article thatyou can look up in Harvard
Business Review that I wrote alittle while back called
emotions are not the enemy ofdecision. Making, because the
(45:03):
idea is that our emotions areimportant information. We don't
necessarily want to react tothat information, but we may,
it's telling us something. So ifwe can use a system like area,
and use the problem solverprofiles, we can have an
(45:24):
opportunity to have the cheetahpause to strategically stop and
label the emotion. What am Ifeeling? Am I feeling something
that is related to thisdecision? Or am I feeling
something that's related to mypast that may not be
appropriate? What do I think inthe exploration phase of area,
(45:45):
for example, that I'm seeing orexperiencing with somebody else?
When you are conducting aconversation, or an interview,
you're exactly right, thatyou're receiving multi sensory
information, right? You'rehearing something, you're seeing
something and you're you'refeeling something, and the way
that the person's body languageis talking? is information that
(46:11):
you want to respond to? Do theyseem comfortable in the
conversation? Why are why not?
And what can you do to help beable to strengthen that
relationship while you'regathering information and
engaging together? So I thinklabeling the emotion becomes
very important. And I have thisidea I call emotional
(46:33):
bookending. When you're making abig decision with a team, for
example, if you can askeverybody, how are you feeling
about going into this project orthis decision making, you have
an opportunity to betterunderstand who are the problem
solver profiles, right in frontof you, sometimes you can ask
(46:54):
somebody to take the problemsolver profile quiz. And I also
have cheat sheets that can helpyou to diagnose when you have an
opportunity to sit down withwith the cheat sheet to figure
out somebody else's problemsolver profile if they don't
take the test, but sometimesasking these questions and using
(47:14):
the emotional bookending byhearing what concerns they have
what the emotion is at theoutset of problem solving, you
have a window into what's theproblem solver profiles in front
of me, therefore, what are theyoptimizing for? What are they
going to need? And then you cansay them? Well, how do we want
to feel when we finished this.
(47:35):
And that also gives a tremendousamount of information. Some
people want to feel comfortablethat they're going to meet the
deadline. Some people want tofeel comfortable that they've
made the best possible decision.
Some people are going to want tofeel like they've made the best
decision possible. These areeach different, different
things. And so understanding theemotional journey that somebody
(47:56):
needs to take and problemsolving can help give a place
for those emotions and give youinformation about the problem
solving approach.
Bill Duane (48:08):
I love that. And it makes me think of my mentor
Phillip Moffitt encourages tothink about feeling goals versus
doing goals. A lot of times wewe give ourselves doing goals or
outcome or metrics goals,because there's an implicit
assumption about how they'llmake us feel. But a lot of times
(48:31):
when we hit our doing goals,we're like, oh, actually, the
Vice President title didn't fillthe hole that additional
resources or assets didn't fillthe hole. But it's really
important to say how we want tofeel. And I think in particular,
you know, one thing thatresounds through the work is
(48:52):
like how do I feel safe? In acomplicated world, like safe as
I define it not and with thecars safe might feel like, oh, I
took the right amount of risk.
Cheryl Strauss Einhorn (49:04):
You're speaking as a detective. Now I'm
a detective too. And detectivesdo like to feel safe. And we
feel safe with the data. But theadventurer, and the visionary in
particular, are not looking forsafety. I am so blessed to work
with my colleague, Emma atdecisive and she is an
(49:25):
adventurer. And it constantlyreminds me that the world is
even bigger than I think it is.
And so if I don't know that whatwe're just because detectives
might be optimizing for safety.
That's not That's not theviewpoint of all the different
problem solver profiles. And weeach can be optimizing for
(49:49):
something different and stilluse area and the idea that the
system can help anybody get toan outcome in their own way
recognize I think that we do itdifferently. But following the
steps can help all the differentproblem solver profiles to help
mitigate some of our ownlimitations, so that we have an
(50:15):
opportunity to get somethingthat is more fulsome than maybe
we initially imagined. Becausethere's oftentimes some
serendipity that just changesthe picture for us.
Bill Duane (50:29):
I think so and then, you know, as I mentioned, we we
met in a context of people thatwere under, you know, a group of
people getting together. And oneof the things I love is the
ability is we don't have to stayin our lane. So for instance, as
someone with with with mybackground, who was very, very
curious, loves learning, and hadsome challenges growing up,
(50:52):
safety is a very reasonablething. But I don't know about
you. But I don't want to live onuneven trajectory, I don't want
to live an extrapolation of whatwas in the past. So I think one
of the things that models likeyours really show us is that we
can be detectives who put ontheir visionary hat, or their
(51:17):
adventure hat, or really see thevalue of people who take us out
of our comfort level, right withthose with those kinds of
things. And so I think part ofany any sort of categorization
method like this allows us tohonor I mean, again, is I think
one of the key words in yourwork is it is radically
(51:37):
inclusive. Right, it's not, whatI want
Cheryl Strauss Einhorn (51:41):
to say about the problem solver
profiles is that I said earlierthat they're not prescriptive.
And once you have an awarenessof them, I invite you to try on
some of these other problemsolver profiles that are a
little bit uncomfortable for yougo on a vacation as an
(52:02):
adventurer, buy insurance, likea detective, plan to dinner
party, like a visionary. Youjust take one example. For
instance, say you're having adinner party, right, the
adventurer might go to thesupermarket, and see the
beautiful tomatoes, and justdecide that the meal is going to
(52:23):
be around the tomatoes, right? Adetective might go with her
list. And she might have thoughtabout what it is that she wants
to make. And she has herrecipes. Right, the listener
might have talked to everybodyfirst figured out all the food
allergies, and makes the menubefore going to the supermarket
(52:46):
that is going to make sure thateverybody is safe for their
eating requirements, the thinkeris going to wonder how everybody
is going to have the best timeand is going to compare
different options, one againstthe other. And think about which
one of the meals is going to bemore successful, the visionary
(53:08):
might come up with a theme forthe dinner party and go to the
supermarket, and might evenprepare an entire meal of things
that she's never cooked before.
So you can see how you couldtake this idea of the problem
solver profiles. And in justsmall ways, you could try
engaging with your decisionsfrom a totally different lens.
(53:30):
And what I like about this isthat discomfort is not a bad
thing. That's where the learningis, that's where the growth is.
And we can grow and change andappreciate the different
decision making approaches bynoticing that they're available
for us to try on in differentways so that we can have an
(53:51):
opportunity to continue toexperience ourselves in new ways
and be better.
Bill Duane (54:02):
Hmm, amazing. So having heard all that, I have an
idea for your next book. I knowI know you're you're you're
you're doing book is just comingout but for the next book. I am
someone who has fairly recentlya detective who has fallen head
(54:23):
over heels in love with anadventurer visionary. So maybe
maybe sort of problem solverprofile dating service because
if you really if you really wantto go on the adventure, if you
really try falling in love withsomebody who has a different way
of seeing the world andcognizing it and I gotta say it
(54:46):
is as you mentioned, it is notcomfortable. It is not easy, but
it is amazingly fun.
Cheryl Strauss Einhorn (54:53):
Well that is wonderful. I do think
that events are amazingly funand having a dish tactic, when
an adventure visionary is awonderful combination, because
adventures keep you moving, andthey want to help you try new
things. And the visionary isdreaming up all sorts of
(55:14):
wonderful possibilities. And thedetective can help ground both
of those. And also help anadventurer and a visionary. To
complete things adventurous,don't really have trouble
completing things, butvisionaries love beginnings.
They love, love starting. Andthe detective doesn't have to be
(55:38):
the stick in the mud. Theadventurer, the detective, can
instead help the visionary torealize her vision by helping,
Bill Duane (55:48):
amazing. So I want to thank you so much, you know,
we covered so much ground fromhow do we as professionals, to
humans, and, you know, I thinktechnolon would be very
appreciative of what you'vesaid, noting that we are not
(56:10):
individuals that we areradically interconnected, and
really bringing, you know, onthe one hand is it's this
message of radical inclusion atmultiple layers that doesn't
seek to simplify the world as itis, but instead embraces it. But
also in a really practical way.
The nerd in me reallyappreciates the way that you're
(56:33):
able to reference all of yourcheat sheets and and these books
that revolve around a similarthing, but express themselves in
different ways. If people wantto learn more about what you're
doing, and get a hold of some ofthese resources, which is a good
way for them to investigate andlearn more about your work.
Cheryl Strauss Einhorn (56:56):
Well, thank you so much. This has just
been a wonderful, interestingconversation. I so appreciate
it. To learn more about me,please visit area method.com.
It's a r e a method.com. And onmy website, you can learn about
my books and about decisive andthe way that we work with
(57:19):
companies and organizations andindividuals to really do four
things, to create curriculum,and teach courses to offer
professional and leadershipdevelopment to companies and
organizations to providecoaching to individuals for
specific decisions that theyhave, or general executive
(57:40):
coaching, and also to read aboutour articles and books and our
podcast, problem solved, whichis about the decisions that
other people are making and howthey make their big decisions
better. Thank you so much.
Bill Duane (57:56):
Wonderful. You're very welcome. Thank you for
coming on and teaching us how toget off autopilot and into the
complexity of our lives. Thankyou
Hi, welcome to the heart of innovation Podcast. I'm
Bill Duane former civilengineering executive and
Superintendent of wellbeing andcourage consultant and speaker
on innovation strategy. We'regoing to be diving deep into the
internal innovation thatunlocked external innovation and
the surprisingly practical wayswe can become better innovators.
We'll be in conversation withinnovators from many different
(00:22):
backgrounds and contextsincluding business, science,
social change and technology andnot only benefit from their
expertise, but also theirpersonal stories of their
innovation journey. Today, we'llbe talking about Cheryl Strauss
Einhorn, an award winninginvestigative reporter at The
New York Times Foreign Policymagazine in Barron's wanted to
make sure she could navigatecomplexity and ambiguity in the
(00:44):
high stakes world of finance,with both confidence and good
conscience. To solve for this,she innovated an evidence based
decision making system thatuniquely controls for encounters
cognitive bias, to expandknowledge while improving
judgment called the area method.
In today's chat, we're gonna betalking about specific tools we
can use to better trust ourintuition, and address our
biases, all of which iscontained in her new book
(01:07):
problem solvers. So Cheryl,thank you so much for being
here. I'm really excited to talkabout this method of decision
making. And happy to have you,Bill, I'm so glad to be here.
Thank you. So we'll start offwith the usual conversation
starter.
(01:27):
What does the word innovationmean to you? And how has it been
showing up in your liferecently.
Cheryl Strauss Einhorn (01:33):
So to me, innovation is an update, or
something that is new or novel.
Traditionally, when we think ofinnovation, we tend to think of
it as something like the ladder,an iPad, or a Tesla, or some
kind of product, but ideas andthinking systems. They can be
innovations, too. So if you takesomething like my area method,
(01:56):
decision making system, it's anexample of an update for how we
collect how we engage and how weanalyze information, to check
and challenge our cognitivebiases.
Bill Duane (02:13):
Yeah, that's amazing. And I think that's so
important to bring out becausewhen we think about innovation,
it seems like a lot of times,and this is something you
mentioned in your book, also,that we are archaeologists
looking for the truth with acapital T. And if we're clever
about where we dig, we will findour way towards where the
treasure is hidden. Butsomething you talk about is that
(02:37):
it's much more of a process ofexploration. And it's not, it's
not sort of goal oriented inthat way. But the way that you
do the exploring is actually youknow, where the innovation comes
from, rather than this image oflike being in the dark with
your, with your hands out sortof searching for the searching
(02:58):
for the treasure. And, you know,the one thing that really jumped
out at me, is when you say, wedon't see the world as it is, we
see it as we are. And to me,that's a really profound way of
articulating that it's not, it'snot the thing that's out there
that we're looking for, butrather, it's our it's our
(03:20):
process of of looking for it.
And that idea of knowing yourown frame, your own lens with
which you look at the world. Andone of the things I really and
so if you if you say that thatsounds like a pretty nebulous
thing about to become aware ofyour own lens, but your your
work is quite specific that witha little bit of effort and
(03:43):
framework that you can actuallybegin to understand your own
lens and God help us the lensesof the people around you who
have shockingly different,seemingly crazy as lenses. So
Cheryl Strauss Einhorn (03:59):
what got you started on this on this
journey of it? Because it's soimportant, and I think it's so
overlooked. What made you go,Hey, this is so this is really
important. Well, first, I lovethat phrase that we don't see
the world as it is. But as weare and I have to give credit
where credit is due that is fromthe Talmud.
(04:20):
And what got me started onthinking about decision making
is that my background is ininvestigative journalism. And
for over a decade, I wrote forthe business magazine as an
editor and columnist inBarron's, and Barron's is a
publication that takes aviewpoint on something related
(04:41):
to the markets. And so I wouldwrite stories about companies
and about management teams thatwere often considered bearish
companies stories, stories thattake a skeptical look at what a
company was doing. And whenthese stories were published,
that often be a Very large shareprice reaction. Sometimes the
(05:04):
stock exchange would hold theshares, sometimes regulators
would get involved. For onecompany in a series of expos A's
that I wrote, the CEO actuallyended up being sentenced to 10
years in jail, and companieswent out of business. And what I
realized is that these storiesdon't just have an impact on
(05:26):
somebody's investment portfolio,these stories also had an impact
on somebody's ability tosafeguard their retirement
money. Or if they weren't thesecompanies, their ability to show
up for their job, or if youhappen to buy a product or
service that one of thesecompanies made your ability to
(05:46):
feel like you could trust theproduct. And for one of the
companies that were the largestmaker of diabetic test kits in
the United States, that's aproduct that people use multiple
times a day that help them tobetter define their health. And
so I just started to think aboutwho am I as a decision maker?
How do I know that when I'mwriting these stories that are
(06:08):
causing these outsized outcomes,then I'm actually telling
stories that should be told thatI am listening to information
with an open mind. And then I amable to think about the
incentives and motives of thepeople who share their thoughts
and their experiences aboutthese companies, with me. And so
(06:32):
that was really how I started tothink about what kind of mental
mistakes and flaws could I bebringing to the table? And could
I set up a way with mybackground and research to
better check and challenge theway that I collect, engage and
analyze information?
Bill Duane (06:50):
Yeah, yeah. So underneath that, it sounds like
and let me know if I have this,right, is that the the key
values are? Accuracy, and I'mnot sure if accuracy is the
right word, given that it's ait's a subjective world. But as
I want to use words likeaccuracy, truth, fairness,
(07:13):
they're sort of one grouping ofwords. And then the other is to
see that which is not obvious,or in the cases of this, which
is actively obfuscated, so So itseems like there's these values
of truth and accuracy and alsodigging to find out what's there
(07:33):
that may be hidden, or that one,is that correct, and two, are
there any other values thatunderlie this, this drive, and
maybe the third one is to makesure that you're not doing harm.
At the end, you mentioned tomake sure that your own biases
are not are not or are accounted
Cheryl Strauss Einhorn (07:49):
for, here's how I would define the
goals. One is to have anopportunity to hear the
different stakeholders involvedin the decision to get up close
on their perspectives tounderstand how they see and
(08:10):
understand the issue that we'retalking about. And then to have
an opportunity to check andchallenge my own cognitive
biases, so that I have a betteropportunity for a fulsome
understanding of the problem.
I'm not sure at all that I wouldsay that there is an objective
(08:31):
truth. I'm saying that whatwe're trying to do is to have an
inclusive opportunity tounderstand the situation before
us. And that way we can evaluatethe facts and the diagnostic
capacity of those facts, toarrive at a decision that we
(08:54):
have confidence in.
Bill Duane (08:59):
Hmm, and I love that word in confidence. So it's,
it's it's a way of creatingconfidence, confidence in a
field of ambiguity andcomplexity, right. One of the
things I love about your modelis, from first principles, it
assumes complexity andambiguity, and how can we then
(09:19):
trust our intuition, as well asour fact based finding abilities
knowing that there is no, youknow, maybe truth with a capital
T, but how can we narrow down asmuch such that we have
confidence about describingsomething that is complex? And
maybe
Cheryl Strauss Einhorn (09:38):
actually what my area method decision
making system does is itdifferentiates between what is
uncertain and what is ambiguous.
Those things that are ambiguous,are inherently subjective and
they're a matter of your values.
Those things that are uncertainyou're never going In a truly
(10:00):
software, you can triangulate tomitigate uncertainty, but you
can actually solve forambiguity. Hmm.
Bill Duane (10:10):
So for those that haven't had the good fortune to
read your books yet, can youtalk a little bit about the area
method?
Cheryl Strauss Einh (10:18):
Absolutely.
So area is an acronym for thesteps of my decision making
process that really works tohelp you expand your knowledge
while improving your judgment.
So the first day is absoluteinformation from up close on the
target of your decision. Thenext concentric circle is
(10:39):
relative information. That's theare those are sources related to
the target of your decision.
From there, you move into areaII, which are exploration and
exploitation, the twin enginesof creativity, exploitation is
expanding your research breadthbeyond documents, to identify
good sources, and ask them greatquestions. So it's interviewing,
(11:00):
then exploitation asks you toconfront your own cognitive
biases through a series ofcreative exercises that I've
learned from experts in otherfields, such as the intelligence
gathering community, ormedicine. And then the final a
of area is analysis, where youthink about failure and how the
(11:20):
decision could go awry. So youcan strength test your decision.
And it helps you put all of yourinformation together so that you
can come to conviction aboutyour decision.
Bill Duane (11:37):
I, I love and I see the way the reason why you use
the word inclusive decisionmaking, because each one of
those, not each one of them. Butsome of those categories are
very unpleasant to think about.
And as a result, it's normal andnatural to not do that. Oh, so
when you say inclusive decisionmaking, like when I'm listening
to you, I'm like, that's all. Imean, not only is it allowed,
(11:59):
but it's welcome and soughtafter me put it
Cheryl Strauss Einhorn (12:03):
for a minute in a way that I think you
and your listeners mightappreciate, given your
background, think of the areamethod as the opposite of
Google. Normally, when we have adecision to make, we type an
answer into Google, we type ourquestion rather into Google. And
immediately, we come up with allthese answers instantaneously,
(12:24):
with no idea about the validity,or the value of the various
stakeholders who are providinginformation. And therefore no
idea if they're solving theproblem for the same reason that
we are. So we're in allperspectives at once, without
any idea of the quality. Whatarea basically says is that we
(12:47):
want to think about carefullythe information that we're
gathering, and we want toseparate out the sources of our
information. So that we can getup close to each one to
understand their incentives andmotives, and have a way to think
about whether or not that alignswith why we're solving the
(13:09):
decision, and be able to piecethe information together in a
way that helps us to hear thesedifferent voices, and to also
hear our own voice.
Bill Duane (13:24):
And then, one of the things that jumped out at me in
your in your new book that justcame out this week called
problem solvers is this idea ofthe cheetah pause. So when you
when you describe this, a lot oftimes when we take shortcuts, we
do so either because it's like Imentioned, it's unpleasant, or
it takes more time. And one ofthe things that I think that's
(13:46):
really interesting about yourbackground is that the stakes
were so high when you werereading these articles that you
had to but if it's importantthen that it's important and you
mentioned again in the book islike our whole day to day life
is made of these smallerdecisions. But time a lot of
times one of the key factorswhere we make shortcuts is this
(14:07):
idea of of time and you havethis idea of a cheetah pause
that will let you unpack and youknow your your hypothesis is
that this method, the area typemethod is actually more
efficient in the medium and longterm.
Cheryl Strauss Einhorn (14:26):
Right, the idea of the area method is
to make your work work for you.
And so the cheetah paws isintegral and I coined this term
because the cheetah while it'sthe fastest land animal
accelerating up to 60 miles anhour in a single stride. That's
not where the hunting prowesscomes from. It comes from the
fact that in a single stride,the cheetah can decelerate up to
(14:51):
nine miles an hour. And nowyou're talking about agility,
flexibility, maneuverability.
That's what We need inequalitydecision making system. And
what's really been missing oneof the many things that's been
missing in our thought processabout decision making is this
issue of timing and strategicstops. So everywhere along the
(15:15):
area method where I think youwant to chunk your learning, I
insert a cheetah paws. Andeverywhere that I have a cheetah
pause, I have a cheetah sheet.
And these sheets are meant to bethe graphic organizers of the
area method. So that when youtake these pauses, I'm giving
you guidance on what to do onproviding you with a set of
(15:36):
questions for reflection, orsuggestions about quality type
of places to look forinformation. And so these citta
pauses become an easyterminology and way to remind
ourselves of the true importanceof strategic stops, and what to
do when we're in those moments.
(16:01):
Huh,
Bill Duane (16:02):
yeah, that idea of the of the pause so hard again,
one of the things well, one ofthe things when I first met you,
that really drew me to you ishow good you are at articulating
things that can be prettynebulous. So one of the things
I'm excited about, and is, youknow, your work really gives
people very practical ways toactually action this because it
(16:27):
is, you know, I think, you know,to deal with complexity and
ambiguity with overly simplisticmethods. Well, we see the
downsides of that all around us.
So one is I'm really in awe ofyour ability to articulate these
things quite clearly. And thenthe idea that there's these
actual, you know, there, haveyou ever read The Checklist
(16:48):
Manifesto?
Cheryl Strauss Einho (16:50):
Wonderful.
I love all of his books.
Bill Duane (16:53):
Yeah. And so the checklist for anyone that hasn't
read it, it's the idea that evensuper bright, super smart
people, like surgeons, and anairline pilots need to have
these reminders of the rightsteps to go through. And the one
hand, you think about using achecklist is slow. But on the
(17:15):
other hand, the cost of missinga step is really high. So, you
know, we talked, we talked thatthis method was really born of
this very high stakes invest infinancial investigative
journalism, you know, arena, butyou and I met actually, at a
meditation retreat, we bothshare a deep interest in being
(17:38):
good at becoming a human andkind and all of that. How can
these methods be brought intoour not just our professional
lives when we're sort of doingwhere we have like a grownup
outfit on? And we're, we'redoing things on a project plan,
but how, how does this methodshape to making decisions in
your personal life where theymight be a different kind of
(18:01):
high stakes, and with the timeand maybe with less of a less
formal context?
Cheryl Strauss Einhorn (18:08):
So first, I Atul Gawande is I
think, a wonderful example ofsomebody who takes very complex
ideas and is able to write soclearly. And I also want to say
he, he wrote me an endorsementfor my first book for problem
solved. Which just meant so somuch to me, I think your point
(18:35):
about often making decisionsdifferently between personal
life and professional life issomething that I find all the
time when I work withindividuals and companies and
nonprofits, that people seethemselves and give different
quality to decisions indifferent spheres of their life.
(19:01):
And I find that the investmentthat they put in themselves
professionally, is often notgiven in their personal life.
And I think it would benefitpeople to realize that they
deserve they deserve that sametime personally, that they spend
(19:21):
in their life, professionally ontheir decisions, because it's
the only thing we ever havecontrol over in our entire life
is how we decide whether we'regoing to decide when we decide
for the most point, most part.
So for me, I think it's beenreally important to recognize
that I can use area as anoperating system for every
(19:46):
decision all the time. When youread problem solved my first
book, I show you all of thesteps and it can look like there
are a lot of things that we cando to improve prove our decision
making. But the truth is, isthat since time is always a
factor, once you know area andyou know why all the steps exist
(20:08):
and how they actually work, youcan pick and choose which ones
you use, so that you can alwayshave it running in the
background. And what I loveabout the idea of it as an
operating system is that it isconstantly reminding me to come
with inquiry, which is exactlywhat you and I were doing at
(20:32):
that meditation retreat, we werecoming to really have the
benefit of communal inquirytogether, while we were also
being in our own heads, andhaving that experience that
everybody is always constantlystruggling with the decisions
that they face. Right?
Bill Duane (20:57):
There's two, two directions, we'll have to choose
which one to go to go first. Socan you think of an example
where you've applied area toyourself in your personal life,
and it's been a real benefitinto a decision that you made?
Cheryl Strauss Einhorn (21:14):
Oh, yeah, I think it's a benefit all
the time. And I kick myself whenI don't use it, because when I
don't use it, I'm just reacting.
And you know, I think ofmeditation as the universal
cheat applause. When you thinkabout it, right? It's the space.
And it's the time to be herenow, to notice what we're
thinking. And to literallychoose how to respond to our
(21:38):
thoughts and feelings, right?
It's that investment in our wellbeing, to know that we're giving
our minds time and attention,just like we do for our bodies
with our food or our exercise.
So, you know, I used area tofigure out if I was going to go
on this huge two month trip, todo work stuff at the same time
(22:00):
that my new book Problem Solverwas launching, I used it, in
order to decide with my youngestchild, whether or not we were
going to hold him back a yearand have him repeat a grade. And
whether we were going to havehim switch schools to do this,
if we were going to do it. Andwhat I find every time that I
(22:23):
use it, and I'll speak to theexample with my son and holding
him back, was that I sat himdown. And I said this is going
to be a huge decision. This ishow we're going to go through
it. And I walked him through howwe were going to move through it
using the area method. And so wehad this process that was
(22:45):
objective that he understood howand where he could engage with
it, how we were going to collectand analyze information. And so
at the end of the process, afterwe'd evaluated these schools,
and we talked to schoolpsychologists and on and on, and
people who have held their kidsback and people who didn't hold
(23:06):
their kids back, he was able tosay I feel really comfortable
with how we went about this, Isee the benefits of it. And I'd
like you too, to say which waywe should go. And I'm going to
be happy with that outcomebecause I really had a chance
to, to see and experience whatit's like to make a huge
(23:29):
decision that's going to changemy life like this.
Bill Duane (23:36):
And so the decision was to hold back for one year,
Cheryl Strauss Einhorn (23:39):
we not only held him back, we also
switched his school, and he isone of these kids who makes
friends really easily and keepsthem. And so this was just
enormous on every level, withthe amount of trust that I built
with him at a critical stagewhen he's forming his own
(24:02):
identity. And this could makehim very angry. And to seem like
this is a conflict. We justreally built an unbelievable
platform of a collaborativedecision. Where where I think it
has just set us up for for theunbelievable relationship that I
(24:26):
get to experience with him nowand now he's 21
Bill Duane (24:31):
Excellent. The reason why I ask is I actually
took an extra year of highschool as I was the youngest kid
in my class, you know, when Istarted school, it wasn't a
thing to know that being theyoungest person in your class
was a distinct disadvantage interms of developmental stuff.
(24:53):
And so one is thank you forbeing the kind of parent that
would even entertain thatbecause you are inviting so much
complexity and potentialdifficulty. Knew I feel like I
did okay by resetting the clockessentially the end of the high
school period. But certainly, Ihad way more seasoned DS, I
(25:17):
mean, my, my mom tells me thatthe guidance counselor told her
that I wasn't college material.
So this this can, these sorts ofsystems can really create harm.
And you know, when we look backto this idea of innovation, to
even realize it's on the table,to have this degree of agency,
but in order to access thatagency, it means inviting a lot
(25:40):
of complexity and difficulty.
But the thing I've really wentout with is that when we go to
the extra trouble of thisinvestigation, and as you point
out with the story about yourson is very heartfelt, invested,
(26:00):
I mean, it's clearly driven bythe values of wanting what's
what's best for him. Andespecially in eighth grade, as
we step into this idea of, ofhaving a voice in our own lives,
that's part of the output isrelational. And I mean, to me,
that's what jumps out about thethe newest book problem solver.
Sorry, go ahead, I
Cheryl Strauss Einhorn (26:20):
was gonna say is that area because
of the perspective taking isuniquely built on a
collaborative backbone. And sothe idea is that you're
strengthening your relationshipsas you make decisions, because
relationships withoutrelationships without people
getting along. Together, wecan't ever really make a
(26:40):
decision that holisticallysolves a problem. But I want to
just mention one other thing,you keep talking about
complexity, big decisions aremessy. They are messy. And the
idea is what do you do with allof the possibilities and the
emotions and the differentinformation that you gather and
(27:04):
need to analyze? An areauniquely shows you what is a
system for complex problemsolving step by step, following
a logical progression, that is afeedback loop. Because it's not
linear problem solving, we'dlove it to be linear, but it's
not, it's circular. At times,you need to go back to gather
(27:28):
more information, or to gain newinsight. So it gives you the
guardrails of how to enter intothe chaos, to grant you, the
agency that is uniquely yours ina way that can build your
confidence. Because we need andcan feel so much more
(27:50):
comfortable engaging with thesebig decisions, when we know what
it looks like to go through aprocess in a way that is going
to show us the steps.
Bill Duane (28:04):
Hmm, amazing. In the same way, I honor you for you
know, being a great mom from myperspective, and and going
through this process. And it's,you know, my my own operating
definition of integrity is youractions match your intentions
that you walk the talk and youjust give us a great example of
(28:26):
how when the stakes are mostemotional and dear, that that
this method really works. And Iwould be remiss if I didn't
mention my own mom, who stood upfor me in the same way that you
stood up for your son in thismoment to make sure that the the
right thing happened. So yeah,thanks, mom. And then, so that
(28:48):
brings us into then, in my mind,what's what's most notable about
the the newest book is that, youknow, when we think about
decision making, a lot of timesthere's this idea, there's a
unitary agent, a lot of my workin artificial intelligence, and
ethics assumes that there's anindividual piloting their way
through the world and makingdecisions and then other agents
(29:10):
are then reacting to those. Thereality is quite Messier, that
the world is full of otherpeople. And in your new book,
you talk about these problemssolver profiles, where we have
our own set of preferences anddefault. So I was wondering, and
which I think is amazing,because then all of a sudden,
(29:33):
we're sort of taking all thecomplexity of what's going on
between our own ears, which isand then on top of that, there's
a bunch of other people who haveall their craziness going on
between their own ears. And sotell me about the problem solver
profiles and how that
Cheryl Strauss Einhorn (29:48):
maps.
Absolutely. So the new book iscalled problem solver, and it's
on the psychology of personaldecision making and what I call
Problem Solver profiles. What Ilearned after putting my first
two books out into the worldproblem solved on personal and
professional decision making.
(30:09):
And then my second book iscalled Investing in financial
research. And it's applying thearea method to financial and
investment decisions, is itanybody can use area doesn't
matter if you're a high schoolstudent deciding about where to
go to college, somebody midcareer, designing a better
career decision, or somebodylater in life choosing the right
(30:32):
aging home facility, everybodycan use it. But people use it as
they are not as it is, whichmeant when I was working with
the State Department and counterterrorism professionals, they're
comfortable with exploration,and interviewing people, but
they don't really think thatthey need absolute and to gather
(30:54):
the data. When I'm working withstudents, they're very
comfortable with area, ourrelative, which looks at
literature reviews, andcomparing pieces of information
against each other. But theymight not be comfortable with
doing some of the workcombatting their cognitive
(31:14):
biases in the exploitationphase, and so on. And so what I
realized was the missing pieceis if we don't use knowledge
systems as they are, but as weare, who are we as decision
makers. And so what I'veidentified is that there are
(31:34):
five different ways that peopletend to approach their
decisions. And I call themProblem Solver profiles. And the
five are the adventurer, thedetective, the listener, the
thinker, and the visionary. Andeach of these profiles are not
prescriptive, they're not goingto tell you what you're going to
(31:54):
do in the future. So they'reunlike Myers Briggs and these
other tests. Simply, this is whoyou are, and now fit yourself
into the world. Think of problemsolver profiles like handedness,
you have generally a dominanthand, and you can learn to be
ambidextrous, but it's a littleuncomfortable, and it takes
(32:16):
work. And you can become a moredynamic and different decision
maker than you are. But youfirst need to know which one of
these five reo. So theadventurer is somebody who's a
decisive decision maker who isoptimizing for forward momentum.
The detective is the decisionmaker that sometimes puts data
(32:39):
above all else, even beforepeople. And they're optimizing
for facts and evidence. Thelistener is somebody who is
optimizing for being able to beinclusive, and hear the opinions
and facts of other people. TheThinker is somebody who values
(33:00):
understanding the why they arepeople who are interested in the
problem solving even more attimes, then the decision making.
And so they're optimizing totruly understand their options.
And then the visionary. Last butnot least, they're the ones that
see the rainbows that we justhaven't even identified yet.
(33:21):
They are the big idea creativepeople who are generally
optimizing for something that isnew or novel. Each of these
problem solver profiles havebeautiful strengths. And each of
them come with some corecognitive biases that tend to
impede clear thinking. Foranybody who is interested in
(33:43):
reading, problem solved. I'vebuilt a quiz that you can take
that will help you self identifyinto which of these five Problem
Solver profiles you are. Andthen the book obviously takes
you through how to understandhow to use this information in a
very practical and actionableway for you to make better
(34:05):
decisions alone and with others.
Bill Duane (34:09):
So the obvious question is which one is the
right one? Which one is the bestone?
Cheryl Strauss Einhorn (34:14):
I always love this question because it
misses. It misses. The point ofthe matter is, is that they're
all good. Donald Rumsfeldfamously said, you go to war
with the army that you have, notthe army that you wish you had.
Right. So we all have thesedifferent stakeholders in our
lives, and understanding howthey make decisions can help us
(34:37):
come to them with theinformation that they need. We
each need different kinds ofinformation, which means we're
each good at something, but weeach need all of the other
profiles. And so by learningabout all of them, we can bring
in the types of questions andthe perspectives that these
(34:58):
other problem solver profilewould ask us so that we can have
a more fulsome understanding ofthe decision before us to make
better decisions.
Bill Duane (35:11):
And so for example, a failure mode I can see is, you
know, at Google, we weredefinitely the detectives. I
will admit that at one point, Ihad a sticker on my laptop that
said, Fuck you, I have chartsand graphs to back me up. And
the whole place was full ofthose titles, I
Cheryl Strauss Einhorn (35:31):
fall into that too. And I want to say
a word about intellectualdiversity, because that's really
what the problem solver profilesshow the value of oftentimes,
I'll go into companies ororganizations, and on first
blush, Wow, great diversity,diversity that we can see
sometimes with languages andaccents, diversity that we can
(35:54):
hear. But the truth of thematter is, is we don't see
intellectual diversity we'venever thought about until now,
in problem solver, how is itthat we make decisions
differently, so even with whatlooks like diversity, once I use
(36:14):
the problem solver profile withteams, you'll all of a sudden
see that almost everybody tendsto be one particular problem
solver profile, and that we arenot really getting the benefit
of intellectual diversity in ourplaces of work the way we assume
(36:34):
we are by having diversity thatwe can see or hear.
Bill Duane (36:40):
Right. And, you know, we started off our
conversation talking aboutvalues, I think, particularly
within disciplines, there tendto be clumping of certain kinds
of problem solver profiles,where other ones are, are less
valued. So for example, again, astory. At at Google, somebody
(37:03):
was saying, well, so So someonewas, was arguing to someone
else. And she said, Well, you'retechnically correct. And this
person who is an engineer said,that's the best kind of correct,
and everyone fell out of theirchair laughing. But at the same
time, it strikes me that it's anexample of that we can have
these cultures that hold up somekinds of problem solver
(37:25):
profiles, you know, while whilevaluing other ones less and then
that sets us up. And then theother thing is that you know,
and you bring this up in a fewof your books is the danger of
groupthink is that groups, Idon't think this gets enough
attention. Groupthink feelsamazing. When you're in it.
(37:45):
You're it's like being in love.
You're like we finish each othersentences. It's amazing. But as
you point out with that theabsence of this sort of
intellectual diversity leads toa paucity of different kinds of
data. You know, it's and youknow, going back to the very
beginning of our conversation,is valuing different sorts of
intellectual frameworks meansthat we don't see the world as
(38:13):
it is, we see it as we are, butwe're blind. Like, we had no
idea that we were alldetectives. And that having, you
know, with maybe the oddvisionary thrown in for good
measure, have you found teams?
Yeah, go ahead, I
Cheryl Strauss Einhorn (38:28):
was gonna say is that there are
three things that I think are soimportant about the problem
solver profiles, and those threethings are lexicon, community
and situation ality. So thefirst thing is until now, and
until this book, we haven't hadthe language to be able to
(38:51):
actually talk about differentapproaches to decision making.
And so first, to be able toreally think things through we
need the language, we need thewords because we think in words.
So that is one way that theproblem solver profiles are so
(39:12):
powerful. It gives us theability to actually wrestle with
these ideas, that there aredifferent approaches to decision
making. The second is because wecan gain an awareness of our own
problem solver profiles and theothers. We don't have to
denigrate the other ways ofthinking it's not that he's
(39:34):
hasty, or that she is always offon a tangent that we weren't
actually discussing. It's thatthey're optimizing and valuing
different things in in theirdecisions. They're not better or
worse than one another. I thinkthat leveling of the playing
field is very important from thelexicon. The second idea, the
(39:58):
situation out It is theenvironment that we find
ourselves in, and how that canimpact our problem solver
profiles. This idea that youasked earlier that we could make
decisions one way at work. Andone way at home, I know for
instance, this one doctor whomakes decisions all day at work,
(40:21):
when he comes home, it kind ofinfuriates his wife, he refuses
to make a decision, because heneeds so much willpower at work
that he wants to be. Hespecifically tries to be a
different decision maker athome. And you can learn about
how you can be a decision makerand a problem solver profile in
(40:44):
one way, in one and you and adifferent way in another and I
have cheat sheets for this, anda whole chapter that goes
through this, even though ofcourse, you can have a whole
book on it. And then the thirdpiece, is this idea of community
who we make decisions with, whatis that intellectual diversity?
What do we do about the factthat we may be missing certain
(41:07):
problem solver profiles? And howis it that we can work better
together by understanding howour group of problem solver
profiles fits together so thatwe can give each other the kind
of information that we need tomake decisions in a way that
(41:28):
continually helps us moveforward and solve problems?
Well,
Bill Duane (41:34):
right. So you know, we're talking about this
inclusivity of our own directself experience, and then
inclusivity at the groupdecision making level, right, so
it sounds like we have bothlayers going on at once and
again, is I think it's reallyeasy to be overwhelmed by that.
(41:54):
But one of the things I reallylike about the work that you do
is the ability to deconstruct itin a way that's not reductionist
and, and make it actionable.
Something you mentioned was thisidea of, of lexicon, and
applying, you know, analyticaltools to this very human part.
(42:19):
I'm curious, so something that'sbeen really important for me in
my own life, and also in in myprofessional life is the role of
emotion and nonverbal data. Soessentially, just to provide a
quick recap as the entericnervous system of of where
emotions are felt evolved priorto our species ability to use
(42:41):
language, and as a result, thedata that it sends is nonverbal.
And people like me, like in my20s, I went through this spell
of like, emotions are bullshit,like the world would be better
without emotion. And as we say,in engineering, that's the naive
approach, because it's sononverbal, non declarative
memory, non narrative. Cognitionis such a core part of human
(43:07):
cognition, you just can't wishit away. And I think people that
do, like I did run the risk ofcutting themselves off from a
very valuable rich source ofdata. So we're rounding the bend
on an actual question. So a lotof times our creativity comes in
this nonverbal, less analytical,more somatic, more embodied,
(43:30):
mentioned, sources of data whereit comes across as a as a
feeling. So how do thesenonverbal how does this
nonverbal data fit intoeverything you've talked about,
because of course, it happenswithin us as our own individual
selves, but also it becomesmassive at the at the
(43:50):
interpersonal level. So I
Cheryl Strauss Einhorn (43:54):
want to address that. But I also want to
go back to something else thatyou said about solo decisions. I
think that's a huge disserviceto think of our decisions as
solo. And I think that'ssomething that area and my books
really addresses, there's almostno decision that you're going to
(44:17):
make that at some level doesn'timpact somebody else. And that
is why this idea of having acollaborative backbone in your
decision making process witharea is is so powerful, because
we can't solve any of theproblems in the world if we
(44:38):
can't have an opportunity tobuild relationships. So we're
never truly so low when we makea decision. As for the role of
emotion, I have an article thatyou can look up in Harvard
Business Review that I wrote alittle while back called
emotions are not the enemy ofdecision. Making, because the
(45:03):
idea is that our emotions areimportant information. We don't
necessarily want to react tothat information, but we may,
it's telling us something. So ifwe can use a system like area,
and use the problem solverprofiles, we can have an
(45:24):
opportunity to have the cheetahpause to strategically stop and
label the emotion. What am Ifeeling? Am I feeling something
that is related to thisdecision? Or am I feeling
something that's related to mypast that may not be
appropriate? What do I think inthe exploration phase of area,
(45:45):
for example, that I'm seeing orexperiencing with somebody else?
When you are conducting aconversation, or an interview,
you're exactly right, thatyou're receiving multi sensory
information, right? You'rehearing something, you're seeing
something and you're you'refeeling something, and the way
that the person's body languageis talking? is information that
(46:11):
you want to respond to? Do theyseem comfortable in the
conversation? Why are why not?
And what can you do to help beable to strengthen that
relationship while you'regathering information and
engaging together? So I thinklabeling the emotion becomes
very important. And I have thisidea I call emotional
(46:33):
bookending. When you're making abig decision with a team, for
example, if you can askeverybody, how are you feeling
about going into this project orthis decision making, you have
an opportunity to betterunderstand who are the problem
solver profiles, right in frontof you, sometimes you can ask
(46:54):
somebody to take the problemsolver profile quiz. And I also
have cheat sheets that can helpyou to diagnose when you have an
opportunity to sit down withwith the cheat sheet to figure
out somebody else's problemsolver profile if they don't
take the test, but sometimesasking these questions and using
(47:14):
the emotional bookending byhearing what concerns they have
what the emotion is at theoutset of problem solving, you
have a window into what's theproblem solver profiles in front
of me, therefore, what are theyoptimizing for? What are they
going to need? And then you cansay them? Well, how do we want
to feel when we finished this.
(47:35):
And that also gives a tremendousamount of information. Some
people want to feel comfortablethat they're going to meet the
deadline. Some people want tofeel comfortable that they've
made the best possible decision.
Some people are going to want tofeel like they've made the best
decision possible. These areeach different, different
things. And so understanding theemotional journey that somebody
(47:56):
needs to take and problemsolving can help give a place
for those emotions and give youinformation about the problem
solving approach.
Bill Duane (48:08):
I love that. And it makes me think of my mentor
Phillip Moffitt encourages tothink about feeling goals versus
doing goals. A lot of times wewe give ourselves doing goals or
outcome or metrics goals,because there's an implicit
assumption about how they'llmake us feel. But a lot of times
(48:31):
when we hit our doing goals,we're like, oh, actually, the
Vice President title didn't fillthe hole that additional
resources or assets didn't fillthe hole. But it's really
important to say how we want tofeel. And I think in particular,
you know, one thing thatresounds through the work is
(48:52):
like how do I feel safe? In acomplicated world, like safe as
I define it not and with thecars safe might feel like, oh, I
took the right amount of risk.
Cheryl Strauss Einhorn (49:04):
You're speaking as a detective. Now I'm
a detective too. And detectivesdo like to feel safe. And we
feel safe with the data. But theadventurer, and the visionary in
particular, are not looking forsafety. I am so blessed to work
with my colleague, Emma atdecisive and she is an
(49:25):
adventurer. And it constantlyreminds me that the world is
even bigger than I think it is.
And so if I don't know that whatwe're just because detectives
might be optimizing for safety.
That's not That's not theviewpoint of all the different
problem solver profiles. And weeach can be optimizing for
(49:49):
something different and stilluse area and the idea that the
system can help anybody get toan outcome in their own way
recognize I think that we do itdifferently. But following the
steps can help all the differentproblem solver profiles to help
mitigate some of our ownlimitations, so that we have an
(50:15):
opportunity to get somethingthat is more fulsome than maybe
we initially imagined. Becausethere's oftentimes some
serendipity that just changesthe picture for us.
Bill Duane (50:29):
I think so and then, you know, as I mentioned, we we
met in a context of people thatwere under, you know, a group of
people getting together. And oneof the things I love is the
ability is we don't have to stayin our lane. So for instance, as
someone with with with mybackground, who was very, very
curious, loves learning, and hadsome challenges growing up,
(50:52):
safety is a very reasonablething. But I don't know about
you. But I don't want to live onuneven trajectory, I don't want
to live an extrapolation of whatwas in the past. So I think one
of the things that models likeyours really show us is that we
can be detectives who put ontheir visionary hat, or their
(51:17):
adventure hat, or really see thevalue of people who take us out
of our comfort level, right withthose with those kinds of
things. And so I think part ofany any sort of categorization
method like this allows us tohonor I mean, again, is I think
one of the key words in yourwork is it is radically
(51:37):
inclusive. Right, it's not, whatI want
Cheryl Strauss Einhorn (51:41):
to say about the problem solver
profiles is that I said earlierthat they're not prescriptive.
And once you have an awarenessof them, I invite you to try on
some of these other problemsolver profiles that are a
little bit uncomfortable for yougo on a vacation as an
(52:02):
adventurer, buy insurance, likea detective, plan to dinner
party, like a visionary. Youjust take one example. For
instance, say you're having adinner party, right, the
adventurer might go to thesupermarket, and see the
beautiful tomatoes, and justdecide that the meal is going to
(52:23):
be around the tomatoes, right? Adetective might go with her
list. And she might have thoughtabout what it is that she wants
to make. And she has herrecipes. Right, the listener
might have talked to everybodyfirst figured out all the food
allergies, and makes the menubefore going to the supermarket
(52:46):
that is going to make sure thateverybody is safe for their
eating requirements, the thinkeris going to wonder how everybody
is going to have the best timeand is going to compare
different options, one againstthe other. And think about which
one of the meals is going to bemore successful, the visionary
(53:08):
might come up with a theme forthe dinner party and go to the
supermarket, and might evenprepare an entire meal of things
that she's never cooked before.
So you can see how you couldtake this idea of the problem
solver profiles. And in justsmall ways, you could try
engaging with your decisionsfrom a totally different lens.
(53:30):
And what I like about this isthat discomfort is not a bad
thing. That's where the learningis, that's where the growth is.
And we can grow and change andappreciate the different
decision making approaches bynoticing that they're available
for us to try on in differentways so that we can have an
(53:51):
opportunity to continue toexperience ourselves in new ways
and be better.
Bill Duane (54:02):
Hmm, amazing. So having heard all that, I have an
idea for your next book. I knowI know you're you're you're
you're doing book is just comingout but for the next book. I am
someone who has fairly recentlya detective who has fallen head
(54:23):
over heels in love with anadventurer visionary. So maybe
maybe sort of problem solverprofile dating service because
if you really if you really wantto go on the adventure, if you
really try falling in love withsomebody who has a different way
of seeing the world andcognizing it and I gotta say it
(54:46):
is as you mentioned, it is notcomfortable. It is not easy, but
it is amazingly fun.
Cheryl Strauss Einhorn (54:53):
Well that is wonderful. I do think
that events are amazingly funand having a dish tactic, when
an adventure visionary is awonderful combination, because
adventures keep you moving, andthey want to help you try new
things. And the visionary isdreaming up all sorts of
(55:14):
wonderful possibilities. And thedetective can help ground both
of those. And also help anadventurer and a visionary. To
complete things adventurous,don't really have trouble
completing things, butvisionaries love beginnings.
They love, love starting. Andthe detective doesn't have to be
(55:38):
the stick in the mud. Theadventurer, the detective, can
instead help the visionary torealize her vision by helping,
Bill Duane (55:48):
amazing. So I want to thank you so much, you know,
we covered so much ground fromhow do we as professionals, to
humans, and, you know, I thinktechnolon would be very
appreciative of what you'vesaid, noting that we are not
(56:10):
individuals that we areradically interconnected, and
really bringing, you know, onthe one hand is it's this
message of radical inclusion atmultiple layers that doesn't
seek to simplify the world as itis, but instead embraces it. But
also in a really practical way.
The nerd in me reallyappreciates the way that you're
(56:33):
able to reference all of yourcheat sheets and and these books
that revolve around a similarthing, but express themselves in
different ways. If people wantto learn more about what you're
doing, and get a hold of some ofthese resources, which is a good
way for them to investigate andlearn more about your work.
Cheryl Strauss Einhorn (56:56):
Well, thank you so much. This has just
been a wonderful, interestingconversation. I so appreciate
it. To learn more about me,please visit area method.com.
It's a r e a method.com. And onmy website, you can learn about
my books and about decisive andthe way that we work with
(57:19):
companies and organizations andindividuals to really do four
things, to create curriculum,and teach courses to offer
professional and leadershipdevelopment to companies and
organizations to providecoaching to individuals for
specific decisions that theyhave, or general executive
(57:40):
coaching, and also to read aboutour articles and books and our
podcast, problem solved, whichis about the decisions that
other people are making and howthey make their big decisions
better. Thank you so much.
Bill Duane (57:56):
Wonderful. You're very welcome. Thank you for
coming on and teaching us how toget off autopilot and into the
complexity of our lives. Thankyou
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