Author: Vikram Mansharamani

Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press

Comments: *Vikram Mansharamani treads a very delicate line in this book: he argues that we have perhaps come too far in relying on experts, protocols and computer-based systems, and that we have outsourced our own thinking. He advocates re-appropriating our autonomy by learning once again to think for ourselves. The problem, for him, is that our complex data-filled world has forced us to rely increasingly on those with certain skills in sometimes very narrow areas.

There is no doubt that this is a most topical theme. The recent covid-19 pandemic has generated a great deal of interpretation and advice by experts on the origins, spread and cures for the disease. These are often complex and difficult to understand by the layperson.

Which is partly why the pandemic has also generated in parallel an astonishing array of popular theories including 5G, and the wrath of God, to explain its origins, as well as self-injection with disinfectant, and untested drug cocktails to cure the condition.

The recent rise in populism across different nations was often based to a large extent on a rejection of expertise which, it was argued, had not come up with satisfactory solutions to very real problems. This argument has been made in relation to business, to economics, to politics and others.

The answer is of course an integration of human judgement and intelligence with the information sources we cannot all possibly hope to master, in such a way that we can harness the value they provide without undermining our ability to think for ourselves, and without therefore relinquishing our autonomy.

Atul Gawande in his “Checklist Manifesto” argued for simple tools (such as a checklist) to be used in certain situations to help pilots or surgeons improve their daily practice.

The “bounded rationality” of Nobel laureate Herbert Simon can be shifted from “good enough” to better if we learn how to integrate systems into our decisions. Similarly, Gerd Gigerenzer argues that decision making under conditions of uncertainty relies on “smart heuristics” or rules of thumb which is not arbitrary but rather a very human kind of expertise.

It is certainly the case that outsourcing our thinking is not only an abdication but also can be dangerous. Outsourcing expertise, on the other hand, reinforces the role of the intelligent generalist, which Mansharamani has argued elsewhere is the real skill for the future.*

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