The Naked Negotiator

Philip Tetlock, a psychologist at the University of California examined twenty-thousand forecasts made by three hundred experts, from sixty countries, delivered over fifteen years.

He found it was “impossible to find any domain in which humans clearly outperformed crude extrapolation algorithms, less still sophisticated, statistical ones”.

Tetlock’s research however shows there are a group of experts who are much better than their peers.

So, what distinguishes the best experts from the rest? What distinguishes an expert’s ability to forecast or predict well is how they think.

Tetlock split experts into two groups; hedgehogs and foxes. Hedgehogs know one big thing to try to explain everything through that lens. Foxes tend to know a little about a lot of things and are not married to a single explanation for complex problems.

Foxes are consistently better forecasters because they use “diverse sources of information”.

Popularity: 13% [?]

If you need advice on a specific deal, a large sale, or staff training please ring me on +64 4 499 6770 or email me, or you can use our contact form. And if you loved this article, don't forget to subscribe by Email or RSS feed