The, Decision Maker's Playbook

Appendix

Confidence calibration

In Chapter one, we talked about the importance of qualifying (and calibrating) the confidence levels of our beliefs.

To begin with, our beliefs should be inherently uncertain. But this is not how we typically form opinions. Instead, when we are convinced of something, we instinctively attach a 100% confidence level to it. Expressing beliefs in probabilities needs to be practised. It is not what we do automatically.

Once it has become a habit to express your beliefs in probabilities, you should calibrate your belief system so that your probabilities are reliable and useful. But how do you go about calibrating your beliefs in a systematic fashion? Essentially, you will need to give answers to a number of questions ...