Human Brain is not built to last in behavioral economics

I have started two classics at the same time by same authors. "Good To Great" and "Built To Last" and it just so happens that life and business cycles do happen and some companies go from good to great to dust just like us. That doesn't reduce the greatness of those books, not one bit. But it goes to show that like few good decisions on the tailwind of favorable economic and market conditions can propel company to great heights and keep it there for relatively long term if the good judgments continue, equally, few bad decisions combined with headwinds can wrap up a business and send its employees on permanent vacation. Lingering in my mind are the busy thoughts around them something fascinating, the human mind.

That is the human folly, the mind that makes us believe we made conscience decisions, in complete discernment. Amazing is that we are thrilled with psychological findings and their implications on our decision making, at the same time we know that biochemical reactions resulting from stimuli are causing those feelings, there are no feelings, but yet there they are tormenting us, exciting us, making us smile, frown, laugh cry. A training can generate certain emotions in one and none in another. So yes we are predictably irrational.  

The merriam webster dictionary defines heuristic as mechanism of learning and improving. The delicate part in the simple definition is the improvement. The mind does learn, but it learns pretty much as a computer. The stimuli to reaction is based on how the mental machine is programmed and programmable it is. Where the bits and bytes become the biases infused by circumstances and experiences and the verdict of words, actions, feelings, the output of those biases.

Few of the concepts that interest me:

1.    Association

2.    Anchoring

3     Priming

4.    Norms

5.    Halo effect

6.    Substitution

7.    Intuitive vs. Rigorous 

8.    Bias in Data

While the only thing I can gain from build to last and good to great is topics, reasons and actions to improve and acquire from research and conclusions that will be impossible for the normal of us to collect and evaluate on our own, there are times when larger than life seems an illusion presented as reality, a fantasy disguised as a fact and it is acceptable as long as it appears larger than life. In expanding universe, where million lights years long galaxies are formed, stars are born and stars die. I am looking at a dead star or a very bright star becomes irrelevant. The light from thousands of light years alludes to a shiny presence somewhere in time and space. Whether it is breathing fire at this very moment in time is too much decision making responsibility for my brain. Short of consulting Stephen Hawkins, I am good with believing that yes luck has a hold on everything in the great mirage, but the mirage is large enough for me to accept it as certainty. There are some universal truths that surround great companies and that companies are built to last, if they last longer than my life span.