So the other day I was watching bakeoff with my wife when I heard something that profoundly shocked me. One of the contestants (Michael) said that he’d practiced the dairy cake that he was baking that day, ten times the week previously and it’d only come out right once. Let’s think about this for a minute, so with this bake, there’s a one in ten chance that it’d come outright and he’s decided to come on national television to see if it does.
I’m sure that this is not a spoiler when I say that it didn’t work out well for Michael, the cake stuck and the end result was a very poor offering to the Judges, who did say to be fair to Michael, that it did taste great.
Now, this got me thinking about the decision-making process that Michael went through. If you’ve read my previous blogs on decision making you’ll know that I talk about a 7 step process that starts with framing the decision and ends with reviewing the outcome of the decision. (click here to read my blog which describes this process in detail).
What would persuade someone to take the decision and bake a cake with a one in ten chance of working out well?
In Michael’s case, we can assume that when framing his decision he’d have been thinking of how he could wow the Judges (it is a competition after all). What type of dairy cake would win them over onto his side, what have they not seen before and would demonstrate his technical prowess over the other contestants?
Confidence Bias
Of course, the fact that Michael was the star baker the previous week will have also influenced his decision. Michael would have suffered from what is termed ‘Confidence bias’ which is a well-established bias in which a person’s subjective confidence in his or her judgement / ability is reliably greater than, the objective accuracy of those judgements, especially when confidence is relatively high (i.e. being star baker).
Thus when researching what to bake (gathering information stage) confidence gained from the previous round would have had a higher impact than if Michael had struggled.
We can’t know what methodology Michael used in choosing amongst alternatives bakes, or even if there were alternatives Michael discounted. What we do know is that the choice appears to have been fixed early enough that Michael had enough time to try the bake ten times. So having failed a number of times with his chosen bake why did Michael stick with it..
The sunk cost fallacy.
There is a general misconception that you make rational decisions based on the future value of objects, investments and experiences. The truth is that your decisions are tainted by the emotional investments you accumulate and the more you invest in something the harder it becomes to abandon it.
Michael may have stuck with his original decision because of the investment he’d made in the cake. Having made the cake several times, he’s invested in his decision and therefore to change his mind would involve realising his losses and having to find another bake.
Failure to learn.
An often overlooked but a vital step in the decision-making process is evaluating your decision for effectiveness. Asking yourself what you did well and what can be improved next time. I’m concerned that Michael did not review what went wrong thoroughly enough, after all baking is a mixture of chemistry and physics, if you get the mixture right and bake at the right temperature for the right length of time it will come out right time after time. Don’t believe this then have a visit to your local large bakery, they do this day after day with consistent results.
I’m not actually having a go at Michael or the Great British Bake Off, I’m using Michael’s misfortunes to highlight an important point.
Decision-making matters.
Well we’re all products of our decision-making process, get a better decision-making process and you’ll make better decisions. Start by checking out my decision-making blog (Click Here) and have a go at establishing how good are you at decision making (Click Here) by taking my short decision-making quiz.
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