Episode 48: Designing Better Decisions Under Uncertainty - with Matt Mulford from TRIUM Global Executive MBA

Why do smart, experienced leaders still make predictable mistakes - and why does knowing about cognitive bias rarely prevent them? In this episode, Matt Mulford, Capstone Project Director at TRIUM Global Executive MBA, explores how leaders can make better decisions under uncertainty by designing stronger decision processes.

Matt explains why our minds turn observations into simple causal stories and then search for evidence supporting the first explanation. Under pressure - or when credibility is tied to a particular view - this can quickly become confirmation bias.

In this episode, Matt discusses:

Why awareness of cognitive biases rarely prevents them

How decision hygiene reduces predictable errors

Why leaders should delay sharing their preferred interpretation

How to match the rigour of a decision process to the stakes

Why decision quality and outcome quality are not the same

How organisations can distinguish repeatable skill from luck

What AI could mean for expertise and workplace learning

The conversation also examines how leaders can make better use of the intelligence distributed across their organisations, evaluate performance more fairly and avoid blindly copying the practices of successful companies.

If you want to improve the quality of important decisions without pretending uncertainty can be eliminated, you will enjoy this thoughtful and practical conversation. Listen in to learn how to test the first compelling narrative, involve the people closest to the relevant information and assess the decision process separately from the eventual outcome.