💡 The Big Idea
Wild Problems
The art and science of decision making is fascinating to me. From the every day decisions that drive habits, to the big decisions which act as mile markers on life’s journey.
A favorite recent book is Wild Problems by Russ Roberts. An economist and university president, Roberts is an extremely logical person. Just the kind of person who would make a pros and cons list for big decisions and weigh their utility for his life.
But he found his economic training and rationality fell short when making decisions about “wild” problems that were hard to measure. Especially when the decision was about something he had not yet experienced, e.g. getting married or having kids. Roberts notes:
- Wild problems are whole different beast compared to the tame problems where the standard techniques of rationality move us steadily forward.
- By focusing on what you know about and can imagine, you’re ignoring the full range of choices open to you.
- We are always searching for a formula, a calculation that will remove the uncertainty. Formulas are simple. Life is complicated.
This isn’t to say you or I ignore a list of costs and benefits of a decision. But it’s to emphasize such rationality is at least a starting point and at best only a part of the decision.
I think about this a lot as a father, too. Balancing the demands of parenting while also pursuing a fulfilling career can be daunting. Decisions about career changes, work-life balance, and how to raise children in a rapidly changing world are often complex and without an easy answer. Well, they're wild.
These decisions are not just about pros and cons; they require navigating uncharted territories and dealing with uncertainties that can't be fully understood until experienced. This is what makes the art and science of decision-making fascinating to me.
How to Solve Wild Problems
Roberts states we need to get more comfortable with not knowing and use our imagination to explore a variety of outcomes. He writes:
"Make the list in order to figure out what you’re ‘really after.’ And by that I mean where your heart lies”.
Wild Problems is a great book and easy to read. It’s 224 pages, but there are several sections that could be skipped over if they’re not applicable to you at the time of reading. Basically, if you read the beginning, a couple relevant sections in the middle, and the end — you’ve read the book.
Another great book on decision making is Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke. I talked about it on this episode of my old podcast, Connect the Dots.
Note: if you're a dad experiencing these things too — you should hang out with us in Father Fire. Reply for an invite or read more at the end.