The Power of Noticing by Max Bazerman, Summary

Introduction: The Power of Noticing by Max Bazerman

The Power of Noticing: What the Best Leaders See by Max Bazerman is about the importance of observation and awareness in decision-making, particularly in leadership roles. The book argues that many leaders often overlook or ignore crucial information in their environments, leading to poor decisions.

Bazerman highlights the concept of ‘bounded awareness', explaining that individuals focus on a limited set of information when deciding, often ignoring potentially important data. He provides a variety of real-world examples and case studies to show this concept.

The book also offers practical strategies to improve your noticing skills. Bazerman suggests that by being more mindful of your surroundings, you can make better decisions, avoid pitfalls, and seize opportunities that others might miss. The book is intended to help leaders, managers, and anyone who wants to improve their decision-making skills.

Summary of The Power of Noticing by Max Bazerman

What advantage would you have in negotiations, decision-making, and leadership if you developed your ability to see what others miss? You’d be able to evaluate the quality of information. The Power of Noticing by Max Bazerman provides a roadmap for you to develop that ability.

“Leaders often fail to notice when they are obsessed by other issues, when they are motivated to not notice, and when there are other people in their environment working hard to keep them from noticing.”

The best decisions often require you to look beyond what’s available and reject the options presented to you. As a leader, it’s your responsibility to notice when things are going wrong in the organization. If you notice anomalies, investigate until you have an answer that makes sense and explains the anomaly. Identify what you need and how to get the information. Don’t simply accept the information inside the room. Dig deeper.

Why Is It Important to Notice?

Failing to notice what's going on can lead to poor personal decisions, crisis in organizations, and disasters. For instance, the Challenger disaster, Hurricane Katrina, and the British Petroleum oil spill could have been avoided, but people failed to notice important details.

Challenger Disaster

Key people didn’t notice the data that suggested it was too cold to launch the Challenger space shuttle. Before launching the space shuttle, some NASA engineers voiced concerns about how the temperature could play a role in its chances of success. They questioned the safety of launching at low temperatures.

Simulations found that seven out of 24 tests were unsuccessful. NASA focused on the 7:24 chance of failure. They failed to look at conditions of successful launches. Some engineers thought the risk of failure was too high, while others thought the risk was minimal.

Despite concerns, the launch went ahead. The Challenger exploded, and all seven crew members died. It was one of the biggest disasters in aerospace history.

“What’s in front of you is rarely all there is. Developing the tendency to ask questions like “What do I wish I knew?” and “What additional information would help inform my decision?” can make all the difference. It can make you a far better decision maker, and it can even save lives.”

Had they focused on the 17 simulations that were successful, they would have noticed that the temperature was above 65 degrees Fahrenheit. On the day of the Challenger launch, it was a mere 40 degrees Fahrenheit. With a focus on successful launches, predictions showed the Challenger had an over 99 percent chance of failure.

Because they paid attention to the wrong things, the Challenger disaster happened. They were blind.

Hurricane Katrina

This was a predictable surprise because it happened partly because key decision makers failed to notice important details that could have prevented the devastating impact of Hurricane Katrina. A skilled leader prevents predictable surprises.

“Federal, state, and local governments failed to notice and act on commonly available information, and many people lost their lives as a result.”

Four years before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, The Houston Chronicle reported the city was sinking. And that the main buffer was eroding, leaving the city vulnerable and close to a disaster.

In 2001, The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) ranked the potential damage to New Orleans as among the three likeliest, most catastrophic disasters facing this country. The other two were a massive earthquake in San Francisco and a terrorist attack in New York City.

New Orleans didn’t have a proper evacuation infrastructure in place. Other journalists predicted the disaster in New Orleans. A simulation showed that the Government wasn’t prepared to deal with such an event. On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. It was a surprise that was predictable.

Barriers to Noticing

Inattentional blindness: People miss obvious visual information because their attention is elsewhere. This happens because they’re too focused on one thing that they become blind to other things that are right in front of them.

As I was reading about inattentional blindness, I was reminded of the book Did You Spot the Gorilla by Richard Wiseman. Wiseman’s book discusses famous experiments, such as the Gorilla Experiment, where participants were instructed to count the number of basketball passes in a video.

Many viewers completely missed the gorilla walking across the screen, demonstrating the extent of inattentional blindness. I watched the video and noticed the gorilla. And this happened before I knew the results of the experiment.

“Inattentional blindness is intrinsically fascinating. It is also strongly suggestive of the root causes of the phenomenon that leads most decision makers to overlook a broad array of information that is readily available to them, what my colleague Dolly Chugh and I call “bounded awareness.””

Bounded awareness is a primary challenge to noticing. It is the predictable way you cannot see or seek critical information that’s available in your environment. You didn’t pay attention to the things that didn’t happen. When something doesn't happen, it gives you information that can help you decide. To overcome bounded awareness, do the following.

“Learn to think about what normally will occur and notice when that does not take place.”

Motivated blindness:

People are blind to things if it’s in their best interest to do so. An example is steroid use in Major League Baseball. Based on what players achieved, it was clear they were using performance-enhancing drugs. The officials – managers and coaches – turned a blind eye because they were so focused on winning. Their motivation was winning games.

Motivated blindness affects many people, even those who are highly successful and accomplished.

“The term motivated blindness describes the systematic failure to notice others’ unethical behavior when it is not in our best interest to do so. Simply put, if you have an incentive to view someone positively, it will be difficult for you to accurately assess the ethicality of that person’s behavior. In many cases, what you see isn’t all there is because you have reasons to decide it isn’t even there.”

You can overcome motivated blindness. Effective decision making, and consequently effective leadership, can hinge on overcoming motivational blindness. To overcome motivated blindness:

• Notice the facts.
• Decide to notice and act when appropriate.
• Create clear consequences for leaders when they don’t act on facts that indicate unethical behavior.
• Provide decision makers throughout the organization with incentives to speak up.

Never stop questioning. Look at the success record. Is it sustainable? Are there associated risks? To check motivated blindness, establish rules for yourself. This is something auditing firms do. The rules enable you to check yourself and ensure you’re noticing things you should be noticing. Effective leaders stay alert to avoid motivated blindness and the subsequent problems it can cause.

What Are the Traits of a First Class Noticer?

• Creative.
• Notices aspects of her environment.
• Goes beyond the data in the room.
• A thoughtful person.
• Sets high standards.
• Less prone to being blinded by what they want to see and more open to what the data suggests.
• Pay attention to information that’s missing and consider it when deciding.
• Avoid being misdirected.
• Prevent predictable surprises.
• Highly suspicious of things that sound too good to be true.
• Approach situations where they need to decide as an unbiased outsider.
• They don’t let their own interests impede making the right choice.

You’re a much stronger leader when you’re a first-class noticer. When first-class noticers fail, they learn‌ from their mistakes. They figure out what they didn’t notice and think about how not to make the same mistake again. First-class noticers work on improving themselves and keep learning from experiences.

Hone your capacity to notice so you become a more successful leader and a better noticing architect to design systems that encourage employees to notice the important things. Use your noticing skills to help others.

Conclusion: The Power of Noticing by Max Bazerman

The Power of Noticing by Max Bazerman offers an exploration of the critical role that noticing plays in decision-making, leadership, and problem-solving. The book underscores the significance of developing the ability to see what others often miss, emphasizing the importance of asking essential questions and being open to various perspectives. Through real-world examples, it illustrates the potentially devastating consequences of not noticing, as witnessed in tragic events like the Challenger disaster and Hurricane Katrina.

One of the book's central themes is the recognition of cognitive biases, such as motivated blindness and overconfidence, which can obstruct our capacity to notice. By shedding light on these biases and providing practical strategies to mitigate them, the book equips readers with tools to become more discerning decision-makers. Learning from mistakes and fostering a culture of noticing in organizations resonates as a valuable takeaway, stressing the importance of viewing oversights as opportunities for growth and improvement.

The Power of Noticing serves as a thought-provoking guide that encourages individuals to elevate their awareness and notice the critical details that could lead to better decisions, more effective leadership, and a heightened capacity to anticipate trends and emerging patterns. The book's insights and practical advice paves the way for readers to become first-class noticers, equipped to navigate a world where keen observation can make all the difference.

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