Eyes Wide Open: How to Make Smart Decisions in a Confusing World

by Noreena Hertz

Overview

Eyes Wide Open: How to Make Smart Decisions in a Confusing World is Noreena Hertz’s practical, cutting-edge guide to help you cut through the data deluge and make smarter and better choices, based on her highly popular TED talk.

In this eye-opening handbook, the internationally noted speaker, economics expert, and bestselling author of IOU: The Debt Threat and Silent Takeover reveals the extent to which the biggest decisions in our lives are often made on the basis of flawed information, weak assumptions, corrupted data, insufficient scrutiny of others, and a lack of self-knowledge.

To avert such disasters, Hertz persuasively argues, we need to become empowered decision-makers, capable of making high-stakes choices and holding accountable those who advise us.

In Eyes Wide Open, she weaves together scientific research with real-world examples from Hollywood to Harry Potter, NASA to World War Two spies, to construct a path to more astute and empowered decision-making in ten clear steps. With a razor-sharp intellect and an instinct for popular storytelling, she offers counter-intuitive, actionable guidance for making better choices—whether you are a business-person, a professional, a patient, or a parent.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062268631
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	09/24/2013
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	352
File size:	618 KB

About the Author

Noreena Hertz is a bestselling author, academic, and thinker. She has provided keynote addresses at TED and the World Economic Forum, sits on the board of Warner Music Group, and advises a range of major corporations. She is an honorary professor at the Centre for the Study of Decision-Making Uncertainty at University College London.

Table of Contents

This Decision Will Change Your Life

Step 1 Get to Grips with a World in Hyper-Drive 3

Keep Your Eyes Wide Open

Step 2 See the Tiger and the Snake 21

Step 3 Don't Be Scared of the Nacirema 53

Become Your Own Custodian of Truth

Step 4 Ditch Deference and Challenge Experts 79

Step 5 Learn from Shepherds and Shop Assistants 105

Go Digital…with Caution

Step 6 Co-Create and Listen In 129

Step 7 Scrutinise Sock Puppets and Screen Your Sources 155

Develop Your Survival Skills

Step 8 Overcome Your Math Anxiety 181

Step 9 Monitor Your Emotional Thermostat 221

Shake Things Up

Step 10 Embrace Dissent and Encourage Difference 249

Epilogue 279

Acknowledgements 287

Notes 290

Index 339

Editorial Reviews

08/26/2013
Economist Hertz (The Silent Takeover) provides a detailed guide to the vulnerabilities of human cognition, ranging from selection biases to sleep deprivation, from statistical misapprehensions to simple peer pressure and unconscious environmental cues. She also explains how the straightforward presentation of information can sometimes mislead us, and the means by which profit- and power-seeking entities attempt to exploit our human foibles. Each of the book’s 10 sections includes advice on how to address these pitfalls and methods by which distracting influences and misleading data can filtered by the self-aware to arrive at reasonable decisions. Written in an informal style, the book might seem like light entertainment, but many of Hertz’s observations are impressively incisive. Readers interested in more information are well advised to peruse the author’s detailed end notes. Properly applied, her straightforward suggestions will alert readers to logical and perceptive blinders, allowing them to make better decisions. Agent: Ed Victor, Ed Victor Literary Agency. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

With 10 sensible steps to take, Noreena Hertz charts a sound decision-making route for us through a world in hyper-drive. I’d recommend a prudent first step-get this book.” — Robert B. Cialdini, author of Influence

“[I]mpressively incisive....Readers interested in more information are well advised to peruse the author’s detailed end notes. Properly applied, her straightforward suggestions will alert readers to logical and perceptive blinders, allowing them to make better decisions.” — Publishers Weekly

“Witty, well-researched and practical, Hertz’s EYES WIDE OPEN is an invaluable guide for anyone facing tough decisions in today’s complex world.” — Dominic Barton, Global Managing Director, McKinsey & Company

“The hieroglyphics that are our modern world just got a great translator, for in her fascinating new book, Noreena Hertz has given us a kind of Rosetta stone that permits us all a new perspective on the chaos we call life.” — Ken Burns, award-winning filmmaker

“Noreena Hertz brilliantly combines academic research with a pragmatic approach. At the movie studio, we often have to make very expensive decisions based on imperfect information. Eyes Wide Open will be of great help as we continue to rewire the process by which we make decisions.” — Michael Lynton , CEO, Sony Corporation of America

“Hertz’s Eyes Wide Open is the go-to handbook for thinking intelligently and keeping your wits about you in an increasingly complicated and digital world.” — Don Tapscott , bestselling author of Wikinomics

From the Publisher

With 10 sensible steps to take, Noreena Hertz charts a sound decision-making route for us through a world in hyper-drive. I’d recommend a prudent first step-get this book.

Robert B. Cialdini

Witty, well-researched and practical, Hertz’s EYES WIDE OPEN is an invaluable guide for anyone facing tough decisions in today’s complex world.

Dominic Barton

Hertz’s Eyes Wide Open is the go-to handbook for thinking intelligently and keeping your wits about you in an increasingly complicated and digital world.

Don Tapscott

Noreena Hertz brilliantly combines academic research with a pragmatic approach. At the movie studio, we often have to make very expensive decisions based on imperfect information. Eyes Wide Open will be of great help as we continue to rewire the process by which we make decisions.

Michael Lynton

The hieroglyphics that are our modern world just got a great translator, for in her fascinating new book, Noreena Hertz has given us a kind of Rosetta stone that permits us all a new perspective on the chaos we call life.

Ken Burns

With 10 sensible steps to take, Noreena Hertz charts a sound decision-making route for us through a world in hyper-drive. I’d recommend a prudent first step-get this book.

Bob Cialdini

This is an example of a culturally savvy, intelligently organized book that needs a professional narrator to succeed as an audio. The author, a compassionate-sounding academic, speaks clearly enough and sounds authentic, sincere, and relaxed. But the energy level in her otherwise lovely voice falls short of the level her ideas need to hold attention. Listeners who make the effort to hear the whole book are treated to a thorough review of factors in ourselves and our surroundings that can disturb information sorting and decision making. She teaches tactics for spotting data that is flawed, corrupted, or based on weak assumptions, and offers astute insights about how internal biases and lack of self-awareness push us into faulty perceptions and shortsighted choices. T.W. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine

JULY 2014 - AudioFile

This is an example of a culturally savvy, intelligently organized book that needs a professional narrator to succeed as an audio. The author, a compassionate-sounding academic, speaks clearly enough and sounds authentic, sincere, and relaxed. But the energy level in her otherwise lovely voice falls short of the level her ideas need to hold attention. Listeners who make the effort to hear the whole book are treated to a thorough review of factors in ourselves and our surroundings that can disturb information sorting and decision making. She teaches tactics for spotting data that is flawed, corrupted, or based on weak assumptions, and offers astute insights about how internal biases and lack of self-awareness push us into faulty perceptions and shortsighted choices. T.W. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine

JULY 2014 - AudioFile