The Act of Leadership

Chapter 3ASSUME NOTHING The biases that stop you from seeing what's really there

This chapter in a nutshell

• you'll be introduced to some of the most common cognitive biases that affect leadership
• you'll be asked to reflect on the biases that regularly show up for you
• you'll explore strategies to mitigate these biases

Okay, time for a little maths quiz.

What's 18 per cent of 50? And as they say at school, be sure to show your working out, and if you have more than one method be sure to show that too — and no, you can't use a calculator.

 

 

 

 

My preferred way of working out this, or any other percentage question, is to first of all flip it to see if it instantly becomes easier to my mind.

What I mean is: 18 per cent of 50 is the same as 50 per cent of 18, which to my mind at least is an easier calculation, especially without a calculator.

Now I only learned this in 2019, when freelance copywriter Ben Stephens tweeted this from his @stephens_ben account:

Fascinating little life hack, for doing percentages: x% of y = y% of x. So, for example, if you needed to work out 4% of 75 in your head, just flip it and do 75% of 4, which is easier.

Stephens' tweet got retweeted more than 10 000 times, liked more than 20 000 times and was even reported on in the mainstream media by Sky News in the UK and News Corp in Australia.

However, it was interesting — as it always is — to scroll through the 600+ comments and replies to Stephens' tweet. It's not often you can put ...