In fact, when we respond emotionally, we often don’t even realize that we’re in a position that calls for thinking at all. When you are possessed by the moment, all the reasoning tools in the world won’t help you.

When our unthinking reactions make situations worse, that little voice in our head starts to beat us up: “What were you thinking, you idiot?” The truth of the matter is, you weren’t thinking. You were reacting, exactly like the animal you are. Your mind wasn’t in charge. Your biology was.

Roger Martin put it this way: “Thinkers who exploit opposing ideas to construct a new solution enjoy a built-in advantage over thinkers who can consider only one model at a time.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.

As Frederic Maitland purportedly once wrote, “Simplicity is the end result of long, hard work, not the starting point.”

The philosopher Søren Kierkegaard once said, “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.”

Give yourself time to get clear on what the problem is before you jump into solving it.

There are two ways to safeguard this stage of the decision process against our defaults: create a firewall and use time to your advantage. safeguard: Build a problem-solution firewall. Separate the problem-defining phase of the decision-making process from the problem-solving phase.

These two principles follow the example of the best decision-makers: the definition principle: Take responsibility for defining the problem. Don’t let someone define it for you. Do the work to understand it. Don’t use jargon to describe or explain it. the root cause principle: Identify the root cause of the problem. Don’t be content with simply