Sales managers who are promoted into management because they were good salespeople tend to assume they know how to sell. There are all kinds of repercussions of this.

It is efficient and may be correct most of the time, except when the patient actually has allergies. The analogy would be that a doctor who sees sneezing patients with colds all day long tends to assume that the next sneezing patient probably has a cold. The idea is that sellers who constantly run into customers with similar problems tend to then look for those same problems. This concept has shaped much of my approach to discovery that we teach to salespeople. When we have seen information repeatedly, we tend to assume that observations are caused by that fact. One example of this is called the “availability” heuristic. Understanding these pitfalls can be a useful reminder that things are not always as they appear. We-academics included-are often overconfident and take mental shortcuts, overlooking facts in favor of opinion. Human beings are terrible judges of attribution, or causality. We do not always make decisions rationally-not managers, not salespeople, not customers. What this means for food and agribusiness From their work in understanding why the Israeli military would repeatedly promote the wrong soldiers to the many examples of how humans often draw the wrong conclusions, the book is a fascinating look into how we make decisions and the biases or tricks that lead us there. While we learn about these two men and their impacts, we also learn about behaviorism (my field) and how it relates to economics. Both go on to receive Nobel-level accolades. While Tversky was receiving attention, Kahneman was challenged to find his own voice. Tversky was optimistic and confident and Kahneman self-doubting and pessimistic. Lewis presents these two great minds in contrast. It is an easy read but provides a substantive context for the foundations of behavioral economics. Michael Lewis (who wrote “Moneyball” and “The Big Short”) presents this terrific story of the friendship and academic rivalry between Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. Scott Downey, Associate Director and Professor Summary

“The Undoing Project: A Friendship that Changed our Minds.” (2016).

Review of the undoing project