Scenario working paper

Further feedback on the issue of taking choice.

I have read the paper on decision taking. It was not what I had expected, which had thought was going to be a rehash of issues about risk and evidence based decision taking. In fact, I thought it very original and helpful. However, I would like to add some thoughts, which you can publish if you want. I have not got permission from my masters to put my name to this, so please do so as an unattributed article. My apologies for this, but it would take weeks to get a release.

I want to talk about the cost of choice, and why too much choice can sometimes be a bad thing. (Interested readers are referred to B Schwartz Why More Is Less, Harper Collins 2005.) People who have run the gauntlet of ordering Starbucks coffee will know what both he and I mean by this.

Two situations where over-much choice presents itself are:

When the choice is important but the amount we have to learn in order to make a good one is very high. (This is where we have to get what you call our 'model' right.) It might be that I haven't got time to learn all about pensions, because the choice has to be made right now. Or it might be because I haven't got the mental acuity, training or background to learn about pensions. Nevertheless, I have to make a choice, and I want to make a good one. So I have to delegate it to someone else, who is an expert. That means that I have to trust them to act fairly, and to be a genuine expert when they say that they are. This brings up all the sensible things which you said about trust. But it applies to all walks of life, whenever I can't find the time or ability to master something.

Poorly educated people have to trust more than well educated, insightful or intelligent ones. So that group in society are the least trusting, and get cheated the most. (For other reasons as well.) As things get more complicated and expert, they are going to be in an increasingly bad position. Also so will the poor countries, which can't afford the best advice, or have no useful internal forces to harness.

The other area is where choice is less important to me but matters a lot to others. I really don't care what kind of computer I use so long as it works. Others worry about the last tweak and widget in it. If the level of choice is huge - like Starbucks coffee - this keeps the nerds happy but it puts me off. If I have to order in front of the connoisseur crowd - "I just want a black coffee, dammit" - then I feel stupid and the experience is a bad one for me. I don't go to Starbucks because of this. We all have our blank spots, and so we all have areas where we avoid what we see as silly, embarrassing choices which others worry about and sweat blood about. If there are a lot of people like, me then the market will find a solution. The trouble is, we all want common sense coffee, but we all have different preferences. That's a lot of different coffee shops, or a less embarrassing Starbucks.

Now, these two situations can develop 'sick' situations, what you called pathologies. I like the word. There are three pathologies in the big, grand area where important things need delegation if we are to get to good solutions.

First of all, we need to delegate to the right people - or whatever - and finding them can be problematic. You talk about 'knowing what we don't know', and a lot of people don't know that they need a particular solution. So they delegate it to folk wisdom, which is no better informed than the lowest tier of society a generation ago. The Internet is dangerous and full of porn. Medicines are most likely to be bad for you. Natural foods are safe. You can trust young politicians more than old ones. When these rules of thumb don't work, then the people who trust them lose trust in folk wisdom - in their own society, in a sense, and that can't be good for us. If there is a solution, it is to provide accessible education on common issues, and to work to keep folk wisdom up to date, through mass media and schools, for example.
Second, We are rotten at risk assessment. There is a mass of evidence to prove this: both on what we are prepared to spend in order to avoid risks, and how we assess the likelihood of rare and common problems. We drive without seatbelts, too fast and after drinking, but we worry ourselves silly about tiny risks from contaminated food. We cannot even believe our eyes. (You will recall the experiment when observers were asked to look for fraud in a foot ball match, and missed an actor in a gorilla suit walking slowly across the field of view. We tune what we see to what we expect.) If we are to avoid these problems, we should help people face the facts. However, evidence suggests that they don't take readily to this, and so we accept a degree of coercion on issues such as safety at work, in the home and whilst driving. I suspect that we could improve this by assessing what a given level of 'advertising' spend would produce in terms of risk reduction. Real social insurance.
Third, marketing needs make us try to differentiate our product. If we can create a bunch of soi dissant connoisseurs who think our product is the pig's bladder for some reason we have invented, then we have created a market for both the product and our service offer. The wide range of products makes price comparison difficult, so we can charge a higher margin. But the consumer thinks that he or she is showing their sophistication, so they are happy to buy status with their jeans or customised kitchen or bathroom: turquoise is so you, Melanie. However, the customers who don't buy the service model get pissed off - as with Starbucks. But they still want their choice of bathroom. So what they need is a layered structure, with a much better interface between the layers.A road map to the layers. That is, nerds can dig as deep as they like, and choose the thread on the screws that hold the thing together. Others can drift about at whatever level suits them.

The key is that (1) the interface has to be intuitive and easy to use, and not embarrassing - so not a service outlet where connoisseurs might be listening, with curled lips. And (2) the interface has to make learning about deeper levels easy too - a person can choose basic black, gray or red, and then dive down into twenty kinds of red, ten kinds of finish if that is what they want. If not, the result will be perfectly satisfactory. If so, it will be unique to them. Well, fine: but this is a new approach to self service that could be applicable right across the board. More self-education than following a decision tree to the twig that best suits you.

I am not sure how this contributes to the 'scenario' debate, but it certainly reinforces my view that decision-taking is very complicated. If we are going to do it well, we need to know which 'space' we are in, because one kind of approach that works in one area won't work in another. Stress conselling and facilitation may help in a peace negotiation, but does not help when you are trading securities. I don't think we have the tool kit that works identified, and I don't think we know when to use a plumber's tools and when to use a bicycle repair kit.

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