Decision Nerds

Send us Fan Mail 𝐍𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐈 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫… ...heard a client say, “I’m disappointed, you made that point too easy for everyone to understand”. Unsurprisingly, anyone who works in the field of investment or consulting will have heard many complaints the other way around. You may have been the culprit, or maybe had to present with THAT colleague who is incredibly smart, but who struggles to get their point across to less sophisticated audiences. In this episode of Decision Nerds, Joe Wiggins and I u...

Send us Fan Mail The Disruptor in Chief’s blizzard of executive orders, tariffs and foreign policy positions and his propensity to change them is making life difficult for investors and clients. Things look and feel uncertain, perhaps more so than in living memory. In this bite size episode, we discuss the science and practicalities of dealing with uncertainty. The Electric shock study refernced in the discussion.

Send us Fan Mail Joe doesn’t like performance fees - but why? Are they innately problematic or just badly and perhaps cynically implemented in the mutual fund industry? In this bitesize episode, we get into alignment of interests, bad design and investor behaviour. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝘁? Performance fees are most often discussed in the context of alignment and risk sharing. Joe raises an interesting question - can they also be used to nudge investors away from unhelpful behavi...

Send us Fan Mail If you’ve been around the block, you will likely have seen some eye-rolling use of evidence during meetings. Evidence can be used badly for many reasons; a misunderstanding of what conclusions can be drawn from it, or perhaps it has been cherry-picked to support a particular position. In this episode, we unpick these issues with Professor Alex Edmans of London Business School. Alex recently published a book, ‘May Contain Lies’, which discusses the methodological, psycho...

Send us Fan Mail 𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗺𝘂𝗰𝗵 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝗱𝗼 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗴𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗮𝗻 𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗿? 1. Hire a manager after a period of strong performance. 2. Watch in horror as you don’t experience that outcome, maybe the opposite. 3. Spend a huge amount of time and emotional labour deciding on whether your initial thesis was wrong, something has changed at the manager, or with market dynamics. 4. After sucking up a huge amount of governance time, decide to sack the manager. 5. Rinse and repeat with pot...

Send us Fan Mail We downed some eggnog and decided to record an impromptu Christmas special. We have a chat about how insights from behavioural science might help the festive holidays proceed more smoothly: 😂 Why Joe's team might think (in his own words) that he’s an ‘egotistical a*&hole’. 😧 A simple way to feel better about Christmas (but you might not like it). 😠 The nudges that retailers use to get us to buy. 💵 Gift cards or cash as a present – to co...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode we discuss how we can make better forecasts with Professor Paul Goodwin. We tackle everything from the techniques available, to human problems around understanding, bias and incentives. See the chapter headings for full details. Notes Philip Tetlock's book is Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction A paper that describes the key concepts can be found here.

Send us Fan Mail A bitesize episode with some thoughts from this year's Glastonbury festival. We tackle: Lana Del Rey - the need to understand who's got the power (literally in this case) Van Halen reconsidered - from divas to behavioural gurus via brown M&Ms Elton John - the peak-end rule and what set lists can teach us about being remembered.

Send us Fan Mail Our guest today, Tom Gosling, is a committed and thoughtful supporter of D&I. He's a practitioner turned academic who helps build bridges between researchers, policymakers and those at the coal face. He has an interesting take on some important strategic and practical D&I issues that often get no, or very little, air time. If you have any interest in D&I and how it impacts decisions, there’s something here for you. In this episode, we discuss:...

Send us Fan Mail All investment decision-makers need feedback to improve. The key question is how can we give feedback in a way that allows people to meaningfully engage with it and ultimately change unproductive behaviour. In this episode, we chat with Clare Flynn Levy, CEO of Essentia Analytics. The core of Essentia's business is using tech to help investors understand their behaviour. A key element of their work is getting investors to engage in a process that, by design...