On a chilly Fall morning in Minnesota recently, I entered a coffee shop to consult with two wanna-be podcasters. They asked for coaching to improve their chances of success at their yet-to-be-created podcast adventure.
They exhibited an abundance of passion and subject-matter expertise and acknowledged that they lacked the knowledge to get their great ideas recorded, produced and distributed.
After 90 minutes, the three of us were on our way. Me with a sense of satisfaction that I’d helped these newbie podcasters. Them with the satisfaction of being better prepared for what they're about to do.
On the way back to my office, two things occurred to me. First, I realized that my podcast partner, Kurt Nelson, PhD, started on the same whim – an excellent idea for a podcast. Second, we only began to learn what we should do after we recorded our first episode.
And learn we did. We recently released the 100th episode of our Behavioral Grooves (www.behavioralgrooves.com) podcast and have adopted all the best practices that I shared with the newbies. It just happened over time, rather than before the first bell.
And that's okay.
Acting on Impulse: System 1
In Daniel Kahneman’s book about how we make decisions, he describes two ways our brains process choices: an impulsive, reactive System 1 and a thoughtful and deliberate System 2.
Many entrepreneurs benefit from having good System 1 ideas that are seemingly spontaneous, when in reality, they’re winging it just like the rest of us. Business creators can see themselves in the movie “Shanghai Noon” when the character Roy O’Bannon explains how to rob a train to his nitwitted compatriots. His elaborate System 2 plans are too complicated for them, and the gang leader admits they might as well wing it. At first, most business creators are just winging it.
Due in part to the cognitive load required for decision making, most of our waking hours ride on the automatic and reflexive thinking of System 1. We don’t question the context in which we’re making the decision, what the relevant base rates are, which potential futures might occur and the likelihood of each, or even consider how things might go wrong. Most of the time, we have a single, appealing idea and we act on it.
Kurt and I had an idea to record and release a podcast, and we just did it. That was System 1 in its glory. Then we figured out how to do it right, which is where System 2 came to the party.
Refining the Decision: System 2
We recorded the first interview with three men (Kurt, our guest and me) huddled around a small USB microphone connected to my laptop in a local pub. With a mono track of the interview saved in Garageband, we had to figure out how to whip it into a podcast that we could share with the world.
Those questions put our System 2 thinking on notice: our next decisions could be consequential. We needed to think through them appropriately, in the right contexts, and minimize the impact of biases that might lead us astray as much as possible.
At that point, we tackled decisions as they appeared. When we wondered, “What do we need to do to turn a recorded interview into a podcast?” we listened to podcasts that we liked and decided on a format that would work for us. When we wondered how to get our MP3 file uploaded to Apple Podcasts, we went to school on it. Those System 2 decisions emerged in a stream that flowed from our very first, impulsive System 1 decision to start the podcast. The growth of the business required both System 1 and System 2 thinking.
Even our name, Behavioral Grooves, was a mix of System 1 and System 2 thinking. At first, our System 1’s quickly agreed on the name. But we realized that each of us had different ideas about its meaning and that engaged the more deliberate System 2. Kurt thought “grooves” referred to the grooves in our lives that represent habits and I thought “grooves” referred to the grooves on a vinyl record, and hence, a reference to music.
As our expectations grew, we increased the quality of gear, production and promotion — all of it through the cognitive abilities of our System 2 thinking.
Leaving the Coffee Shop
Neuroscientists tell us that complex decisions burn a lot of calories – literally – which is why we tend to rely on System 1 and our rules of thumb to get started. To be successful, though, the whims generated by System 1 need to be analyzed by System 2.
Reflecting on my meeting with the two soon-to-be podcasters, I realized how much Kurt and I would have benefitted from such a meeting before we started. Tips from a more experienced podcaster could have yielded better up-front decisions.
Or, it could have frozen our efforts with much information in a world already full of commitments.
Humans are imperfect but have lots of great tools available to us. While it’s great to pick up the right tools once you realize they’re needed, it’s even better to create the context where the best tools are automatically engaged. Kurt and I meet regularly to discuss our process, our format, our audience, our desired outcomes, our gear, and other aspects of the podcast for the sake of improvement. We are getting there, eventually.
And that's maybe the more significant point: a good life (or a successful business) can evolve from combining the reactive lightning-speed decisions from System 1 as long as they’re followed up with effort from System 2.
Questions for You
What are the tools that could help you make better decisions? What are some of your best decisions? When have you used System 2 to make an important, first-step decision?
Notes
“How We Make Complex Decisions” May 2019 in Neuroscience News. https://neurosciencenews.com/complex-decision-making-14014/
About the Author
Tim Houlihan is the founder and chief behavioral strategist of BehaviorAlchemy, LLC, a consultancy using a behavioral lens for improving the actions of workers, customers and policymakers. He co-founded Behavioral Grooves, a meetup and podcast with listeners in more than 80 countries. Previously, Tim was Vice President of Reward Systems at BI WORLDWIDE, where he was responsible for a $300 million global portfolio of reward systems, acted as the firm's thought leader in behavioral sciences, and was the chief liaison to research partners around the world. Tim believes people underestimate the role of the unconscious in our behaviors. The application of good behavioral science can remedy that.