A Counter-Intuitive Approach to Making Complex Decisions
Social psychologists studying human behavior and decision making found that “sleeping” on a decision is the best approach to making complex decisions. However, the authors acknowledged that literally going to sleep may not always be an option, but suggested that doing something that distracts the mind will have the same effect. Maarten Bos and the co-authors of the post led an experiment in which they found that during periods when the mind is distracted or not consciously focused on an issue, the subconscious mind will weigh the pros and cons of relevant decision attributes. Thus by “sleeping” on a decision, people are able to make higher quality decisions.
There’s More to Life Than Being Happy
While most people aim to be happy, the article, “There’s More to Life Than Being Happy,” attempts to persuade readers to try to live a meaningful life. Happiness is about feeling good and lacking stress or worry. However, happiness is fleeting. It is an emotion that you can feel in the present but will eventually fade. Contrarily, having meaning in life is lasting. Research has shown that having purpose and meaning in life increases overall well-being and life satisfaction, improves mental and physical health, enhances resiliency, enhances self-esteem, and decreases the chances of depression. According to psychologists, living a happy life is connected with being a “taker,” while living a meaningful life is connected with being a “giver.” The pursuit of happiness is selfish as you become happy by receiving benefits from others. People who live meaningful lives, on the other hand, derive meaning from sacrificing a part of themselves for the greater good. The author uses the work of Viktor Frankl, a prominent Jewish psychiatrist and neurologist in the mid 1900s, as an example. Frankl worked as a therapist in concentration camps during World War II. In his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, Frankl tells the story of how by finding a reason to live for, two hopeless suicidal men found the strength to keep living. “He knows the ‘why’ for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any ‘how.'”
Want to Run a Better Agency? Kill More Good Ideas
The post “Want to Run a Better Agency? Kill More Good Ideas” is based on Robert Sutton’s blog post “12 Things that Good Bosses Believe.” It is founded on the principle that as important as creativity and new ideas and concepts are, the ability to kill off ideas is just as critical. However, leaders have to kill off good ideas as well as bad ones. For a good idea to be implemented it needs a lot of time, attention, and resources devoted to it. It is up to the boss to decide not only what is a good idea, but whether that idea is feasible or not.
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Counterintuitive Fall 2022 
Can I have feedback please? I edited each summary multiple times and I am not quite sure whether I got it quite right.
Feedback provided. —DSH
Complex Decisions
This is extremely good, Simone. The only thing it doesn’t obviously do is identify your own point of view, unless it’s contained in the final sentence. Clearly we’re creating an artificial situation with this exercise in which you pretend to be using the source material to support an argument of your own (the purpose of purposeful summary). I’ll take it on faith that you were summarizing the article in order to draw your conclusion in the last sentence.
Being Happy
You said in your Feedback request that you had revised these summaries repeatedly before posting them, Simone. I might have been able to help you during that process, but you are really nailing these now. I could quibble to make myself feel helpful. Instead of the choppy:
You might want to consider the denser:
Hunt down and kill other examples of “about” language too, Simone, and its cousin “connected to,” if you want your writing to keep its edge.
Kill Good Ideas
This is the lame triplet. Two sentences begin with “it”; one ends with “it,” and a fourth “it,” with no clear antecedent, pokes out our eyes in the middle of an aimless sentence. When you revise this one, if you choose to, start with a clear statement of your own position (real or invented). For example: Good Ideas are a dime a dozen; recognizing the one in twelve that can be pursued profitably distinguishes the good boss. Then take it from there. The rest should flow nicely.
Very nice work overall, Simone.
—Watch
Oh no! I forgot to revise these after our meeting. I tried to summarize the sources from an unbiased point of view. Were the summaries supposed to lean towards the position we were taking?
There’s no reason to include an “unbiased” summary in an essay, Simone. The purpose of a purposeful summary is to prove your point. So, in this exercise, indicate that you have a position to support, and summarize the reading (or any small part of it) to support your argument.
Fine work. Grade recorded.