Miguel Lobo had the floor today, with lectures and social experiments regarding anchoring and decision making. He talked about cognitive biases and intuition errors that can be easily avoided with regard to statistical analyses.
Through a social experiment assessing overconfidence, Professor Lobo concluded that the group is “spectacularly ignorant about how ignorant they are”. In the context of universal biases this is largely common; we expanded on how these natural biases that lead to errors can be limited, and how overconfidence can be reduced by acknowledging how little we know as individuals, as Socrates described: “all I know is that I know nothing”.
After a nice mindfulness session break, airline Captain Alex Kuhlman spoke about the pertinence of communication, decision making and leadership from the fascinating perspective of the cockpit of an airplane. Shocking videos and simulations of conversations between pilot and co-pilot during famous airplane crashes in history really showcased how easy it is to overlook the importance of communication and collaboration in extremely high-pressure circumstances. The lecture ended on the hopeful note that feedback is key in evolving the style and channels of communication, that in turn ensure effective management and leadership inside and outside of the cockpit.
