Story

The Bank teller

The Bank teller

Imagine yourself working as a bank teller.
A man walks into your bank and he approaches your desk. He has no visible weapon, but says he has a bomb in his backpack. He tells you to handover $5000.
He tells you if you don't oblige, he will blow up the bomb.
What will you do?
Share on

Your Comments

Similar Stories


The mistakes we make in our everyday life

• We are hardwired to make these mistakes • Few biases are simply evolutionary • These errors affect all of us including the bright ones • Experience is just not enough to overcome • but expertise is required to recognize and overcome

Few of biases as below · Anchoring - When an individual depends too heavily on an initial piece of information during decision making · Fixed pie - When we assume that our interests conflict with the other party's interests and we play adversarial · Framing - When we decide on our options differently when the options are presented with positive or negative connotations · Vividness – When we pay attention to strong features at the expense of less, that could be more impactful · Over confidence – When our subjective confidence is greater than the objective accuracy · Escalation – When initial decision is followed up with an irrational decision to justify the initial decision

Few ways to mitigate these biases are · Learn to recognize the bias · Use slow, effortful and logical thinking (System 2) · Avoid fast, automatic and effortless thinking (System 1) · Avoid negotiations which are thrust upon when not ready · Learn through use of stories, examples, exercises · Bring an outsider perspective