cognition is a very hot word.
For example, a very popular topic now is Cognitive upgrade . In the past, if we had problems with the methods or angles of the problem, then upgrade to look at the original problem from a new perspective.
A friend's words explain very well what cognitive upgrade means: " is wrong and think again. "
Another example, there is another popular saying that people cannot make money outside their cognition . It is said that this is what Robert Kiyosaki , the author of " Rich Dad Poor Dad ". There is another expansion after this sentence: even if you make money, it is luck, and the money you earn by luck will be lost by strength.
This time, we will also talk about a topic related to cognition, called Cognitive Flywheel .
1
What is a cognitive flywheel
Lego toys are spliced together by basic components, and human thinking is composed of " cognitive flywheel ".
Imagine you are an ancient hunter. On the way back to your residence at night, in the bushes in front, there were a rustling sound and the swaying of the branches of the bushes. Are you wondering if there is a wolf here or if there are other animals. You decided to run away quickly. If it was a wolf, you would definitely not be able to handle such an environment. Then, you run away, looking back while running, and then stop a few hundred meters later, panting and looking in the direction just now.
Image source: *Wenxinyijie AI generates
Let us disassemble this process.
First, you have an perception about the environment, and then you have an judgment (possibly there are wild beasts); then you have an processing opinion (Run quickly); finally you have an decision (Say a ya and run).
After that you went through another round of this process. Perception (nothing is chasing) produces a new judgment (safe), then deal with opinions (stop to see), and execute decisions (stop to take a breath).
This process is Cognitive flywheel . It consists of four stages to achieve a complete process. The four stages are:
. Perception;
. Cognition;
. Decision;
Image source: * "Life Algorithm: Make good decisions with probability thinking"
The first stage is perception. The so-called perception is the information exchange between the human receptors and the external environment . To put it bluntly, it is what you hear, what you see, what you smell, what you touch, etc. This is driven by curiosity.
The second stage is cognition. Cognition is a comprehensive application of perceived information. The key here is grayscale. When you analyze rationally, you need to consider more variables and don’t simply regard things as splitting into two.
The third stage is called decision-making. At this time, you need to make decisive choices . Yes, just do it, do it or not, swinging back and forth is harmful and useless.
The fourth stage is action. Action is to implement decision-making . Just bend in and do it right.
is very simple, right?
You know, there must be a but here.
The problem is that these four seemingly smooth stages are often not so smooth when actually running. This reflects the differences between people.
Cognitive flywheel is like a 4*100-meter relay race. The perception runs first and then handes the bat to the cognition, then the cognitive runs, and then hands it to the decision after running...
In the 100-meter relay, the most common problem is when hand over the bat .
Lao Yu, Yu Yingzheng, the author of the book "Life Algorithm: Make good decisions with probability thinking", called this process of handover Internal Control Point .
The key to using your cognitive flywheel is the internal control point. Whether a cognitive closed loop can be formed and whether the cognitive flywheel rotates smoothly is the core of whether the internal control points between stages are done well.
Image source: * "Life Algorithm: Make good decisions with probability thinking"
The four stages are obvious, and a lot of research has been studied, but these four internal control points are not so easy to perceive.
2
. Internal control point from perception to cognition: Translate the question into a question
Ask a question is an internal control point from perception to cognition. Perception is not cognition, and questions are not asking questions. Learning to ask questions is the internal control point from perception to cognition . The
problem is a vague perception. I feel something wrong, something wrong, and something unhappy. For example, if a product is not sold well, what exactly is there any problem? This is a problem, it is perception. Asking questions with
is a concrete process. After analyzing the above, I didn’t sell it well and felt unhappy, I asked a question that could be expressed clearly, which opened the cognitive flywheel.
From question to questioning, it is a process of explicitizing implicit knowledge . Ask a question with
and need to have a prompt on the question. For example, if the above products are not selling well, a possible question is "What are the elements of those good products?" or "What are the competitive products in the same field, how do they sell well, and what specific operating methods do they have?"
The process of explicitizing invisible problems requires the use of model thinking.
product is not selling well. If you use the classic marketing 4P model, what specific questions can it be converted into.
- From the product perspective, is the product unable to solve the problem of the target customer?
- From the perspective of channels, is it because the product sales channels are not smooth and cannot reach the target customers?
- From the perspective of price, is it too high or low? How are the pricing of similar products on the market? Is this type of product a specific price range that is recognized in the target customer group?
- From the perspective of promotion, are there any promotions? What is the customer’s pre-sales, use and after-sales experience?
model brings direction to thinking, and with direction, it will be inspiring.
. Internal control point from cognition to decision-making: figure out the basic ratio
Some people have a good understanding and can analyze it clearly when encountering other people's affairs. However, once you have something to do, you are easily influenced by special arguments. For example, 80% of people think they are better than 80%. This matter is difficult to deal with. It takes 5 days for others to deal with it, but who am I? I came here and got it done in 3 days.
The internal control point of cognition of decision-making is: Reference basic ratio . Before doing something, figure out the basic ratio of it.
For prediction of success rate in doing things, Daniel Kahneman proposed a very insightful concept called basic ratio. The basic ratio refers to how long it takes for others to do similar things in this field, how much does it cost, how much success rate it takes, and how much success rate it takes .
For example, predicting the success rate of a sales on a certain project, you can use the historical success rate of the sales as the basic ratio; you can also use all other sales in this company to refer to the basic ratio of this type of opportunity.
Before doing things, it is important to understand the basic ratio of this thing. Looking outward, finding the basic ratio, and being accustomed to speaking with data is a more scientific way of thinking. If you really can't find the data, the easiest way is to find someone who has done it and consult . This thinking pattern can help us break some inherent deviations in cognition, make us realize that we are not special, help us better predict the future and build an action plan.
basic ratio is a very valuable way of thinking. Before doing things, breaking the blindness of self-confidence and looking at the basic ratio of this thing is an excellent external perspective. Many people do not have the habit of thinking about basic ratios. The fundamental reason is that we all subconsciously think that we are special and better. In psychology, it is called "Dunning-Kruger effect ", referred to as Dak effect (D-K effect), which is a cognitive bias phenomenon used to explain people's illusion of overconfidence.
Dunning-Kruger effect (picture from the Internet)
Kaneman is very awesome, he can't escape the palm of his hand with the basic ratio. Once, Kahneman summoned a group of professors to edit a textbook. At the beginning of the launch, they wanted to predict how long it took for this textbook to be edited and completed. So, everyone started chatting with each other.
Some people say, who are we? Such a group of great people can be done in half a year. Some say, if it doesn’t work, it’s too heavy, and it will take two years. There is one in the team who has done the work of writing textbooks before. He said that generally speaking, 40% of the work of writing textbooks may not be able to continue and become poor; most of the remaining 60% took 7 to 10 years. Everyone didn't say anything, but they didn't believe it either.
Guess how long did this team last? 8 years.
If you don’t believe it, there will be someone who believes it.
A few years ago, there was a news online, which was very popular. Hollywood famous female movie star Angelina Jolie decided to remove her breast . Why? In 2013, a mutation in Julie was found in . The gene name is brca2. This mutation will make her risk of breast cancer as high as 80%, and the rate of ovarian cancer is greater than 50%. So in 2013, Julie removed her bilateral breasts. Moreover, in 2015, my ovaries were also removed.
If you are not very different from others, please refer to the basic ratio before doing things.
The concept of this is an average level that people in the past can do when they do the same thing. For example, in the insurance industry, the success rate is about 3%. In other words, one person may be willing to meet after making 10 calls, and one person may be dealt with by 3 people.
First understand the basic ratio, and then understand how the basic ratio is calculated. Then, check whether there is any difference between your situation and calculating the specific factors of these basic ratios, or whether you can create the difference. Then judge whether there is a possibility that your own doing is higher than the basic ratio.
Scientific decision-making method: respect the basic ratio, pay attention to objective reality, and treat specific issues in detail. Find the reasons, ask more why, and make decisions.
So, as ordinary as us, before doing things and making decisions, we should study the basic ratio of this matter, and then think about what to do.
For example, make investments.
In the professional investment fund in the United States, 65% of companies had return on investment that year, had lower return on investment than S&P 500 index ; 79% had lower 5 years' return on investment 5 years'; 81% had lower 10 years' return on investment 5 years'. What is the average return rate of
and what is the S&P 500 index ? No more than 10%! If we want to get a return on investment of more than 10%, first of all, think about it. I have any advantages to compare with those top students at Harvard University, , Wall Street, , ?
For example, do sales. Find out what the success rate of projects in this industry is, and then honestly go to more customers. For example, if the industry's success rate is 20%, your indicator is 1 million, then you will find at least 5 million potential sales opportunities.
When we make predictions and decisions, we must first think about whether we are better than others in this matter. If not, let’s take a look at the basic ratio first.
. Internal control point from decision-making to action: completion is more important than perfect
Closed loop There are many other expressions, such as delivery, arrival, shooting. Many times, raises his foot and shoots more important than how to shoot . Is
closed loop to give others an explanation? Everything has its own conclusions and every matter has feedback. Such people are praised as reliable. This is a great praise for a professional. However, if you implement a closed loop to get the praise of reliability, be careful, this desire may lead you to a pleasing personality. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that “everything has a solution” is not good, but that if you just take this as the starting point, it’s easy to bring yourself into the ditch.
, closed loop, is it to give yourself an explanation? You hear a lot of people say: either do the best or don’t. As a result, nothing was done. The misunderstanding of giving yourself an explanation is that you always want to prove that you are right, but you don’t set out because you are afraid of failure. Perfectionists always want to find the optimal solution, but are often unwilling to start taking action before they find the optimal solution. It seems that they are pursuing perfection, but in fact they are inaction.
What is the closed loop?
Closed loop, essentially to give an explanation for success.
The first thing to do is to overcome perfectionism. removes perfection from your dictionary, and instead completes . When Zuckerberg started his business, he posted a sentence on the wall: What is more important than perfection is completion.
The so-called perfection refers to finding the optimal solution. However, sometimes, the optimal solution of is not found, but the that emerges when it is done. Maybe it's not done once, but it's done several times.
blindly pursues the optimal solution will miss the opportunity. If we want to get 80 points, listen to the class and go home to complete the homework. However, if you want to get 99 or 100, then we need to pay far more than that. You may need to learn until 12 pm, attend extracurricular classes, and take up the entire weekend.
It’s okay for us to do this during school because this is the most important thing at this time. But at work, this kind of thinking may make us unable to produce results. For a change and the continuous correction, the new upgraded product has been delayed. The result may be that competitors will launch something similar first. Although the function is not as good as the effect you want to achieve, it has taken the lead after all. By the time you launch it again, competitors' products have occupied the minds of consumers, and they have completed the first polishing in practice and started the second round of iterations. You lost your chance.
And sometimes, you think it's only 85 points now, how can this be done? We want to give customers a perfect experience. As a result, the customer may not care about the 15 points that the additional 15 points, or only a few customers care about it, and the input-output ratio is extremely poor.
Silicon Valley Investor, computer scientist Wu Jun , almost every book is a bestseller, and is a frequent visitor to the Wenjin Award in the China Book Award. He said that when he was writing a book, his goal was to avoid flaws or errors that affect the expression of meaning. As for typos and individual typesetting errors, he would not care too much.
When printing for the first time, print less points and readers will help to correct them; when the third printing is done, there will be no more errors. If you have always wanted to pursue perfection and publish it, then this book may never be published.
Don’t be afraid of slowness, just stopping. Releasing first and then modifying it seems to be slower, but it is actually a faster approach.
Look at it this way, the so-called secret to success is:
"Complete + Feedback"
Good decisions and actions may not necessarily bring good results.
When summarizing, don’t simply replace the decision result with the result of action.
The world's top professional poker player and bestselling author Anne Duke often asks a question when teaching many CEOs of large companies, "What do you think are good decisions and what are bad decisions?" The answers they get are all, the final result is good, the original decision is good decision; the final result is bad, the original decision is bad decision. This is the reflection of confusing decision-making level and decision-making results.
As an example. Now for the two teams, the probability of team A winning is 80%, and the probability of team B winning is 20%. Now let you choose which team will win. People with high decision-making skills will choose A. When the results were announced, Team B won. So, is it said that I chose A wrong? No. Team B won, but it was just a 20% chance of happening. This is the result of a decision, not the level of the decision.
Decision quality and result quality are two things, which are the reasons why most people have misunderstandings about decisions. Ordinary people think that their best decision is the one that brings the best results, and the worst decision is the one that brings the bad results. This is typical mistakes in evaluating one's own behavior based on the quality of the results rather than the quality of the decision-making process.
In the actual application process, I need to remind myself that when a bad result occurs, is it because a 20% chance of happening happened, or because I mistakenly judged 80% of what may happen as a 20% probability during the process of choice.
The latter is the real bad decision, and it is where we need to review it to improve the quality of our scientific decisions.
OK, let's summarize it.
- The key to improving cognition is to polish your own cognitive flywheel. The cognitive flywheel consists of four parts: perception, cognition, decision-making and action.
- Make the cognitive flywheel rotate smoothly, and you need to pay attention to the internal control points.
- The internal control point from perception to cognition is: translate the question into asking questions.
- The internal control point from cognition to decision-making is: figure out the basic ratio.
- The internal control point from decision-making to action is: completion is more important than perfection.
- The internal control point from action to perception is: distinguishing between decision quality and result quality.
Don’t drop the stick than running faster.
