The 4 biases comms leaders must overcome

Each quarter, Dean of Ragan Training Brian Pittman hosts a virtual roundtable for Ragan Training members. While “Vegas rules” apply to this Zoom meeting, which includes brainstorming and idea-sharing that’s privileged to attendees, each roundtable also includes a timely, topical presentation from a communications luminary.

This past June, Pittman invited David Siegel, former CEO of Meetup, a popular online events and community connection platform, who offered his perspective on the traits that communications leaders can refine to navigate a politically, socially and economically turbulent rest of the year.

Siegel began by unpacking the most common biases plaguing leaders, as outlined in his book, “Decide & Conquer: 44 Decisions That Will Make or Break All Leaders”.

“Recency bias is the inclination to over-index on the thing that just happened over looking at a whole lot of data prior to making a decision,” Siegel explained.

This can manifest when you’re working with a CEO and they tell you that you should have informed stakeholders about a development earlier. You’re more likely to skew your decision-making toward that bad experience.