This article is based on the speech of lawyer Wei Xin at the sixth session of the "Ning Reading" sharing meeting of the CppcC Changning District committee on September 24.
Whenever the university asked me to make a list of recommendations for new students, the book "Thinking, Fast and Slow" would always be written. The author of the book is Daniel Kahneman, whose series of research opened up new horizons in social psychology, cognitive science, and behavioral economics, and is the winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics.
Thinking, Fast and Slow is about two systems, two forms of human existence, and two selves. The commonly used, unconscious "System 1" relies on emotions, memories, and experiences to make quick judgments, System 1 is well-informed, but also easily deceived, it adheres to the principle of "seeing is fact", allowing illusions such as loss aversion and optimism bias to guide us to make wrong choices; conscious "System 2" analyzes and solves problems by mobilizing attention and making decisions, it is slow, not easy to make mistakes, but lazy, and often directly adopts the judgment results of System 1. The core of "Thinking, Fast and Slow" is to teach people how to make decisions and choices under uncertain conditions. Today, I will share my reading experience and feelings with you through a few real examples.
A story of making a choice among strangers
I ran in an election a few years ago, and I needed to elect a director of the study from among the two candidates. Candidate a, from a medium-sized business, while Candidate B is from a well-known large company. When I first saw the list of candidates, my instinctive reaction was to choose a, because a's name is the same as my daughter's name – this is my system 1 starting to work.
Subsequently, the two candidates delivered campaign speeches, which were scheduled to be 5 minutes, while A's was 15 minutes. Coupled with the problem of PPT during the playback process, which caused him to be nervous throughout the whole process and the expression was not smooth, at this time, my inner balance began to tilt toward b. In fact, b's sharing is relatively easy and fluent, free expression, and the content of ppt is concise and clear. However, a shared more detailed information, including his work schedule after election, but b did not do so, so b asked b questions about the work plan during the question-and-answer, and b replied that a detailed plan would be made after being elected.
That's all the campaign information. Based on my past experience, I know that in such a position that is not my own job, the excellence of the relevant work results is very closely related to the importance that the director attaches to the work, and the director must be willing to invest time and energy, and need selfless dedication and dedication, so although in the speech process, system 1 has always told me that b is more suitable and has better performance, but b's attitude towards the work plan makes me feel the busyness of b, and a appears to have greater enthusiasm and has made more investment. So, after mobilizing system 2 for rational thinking, I finally chose a.
In fact, system 1 and system 2 - fast thinking and slow thinking, has been carried out synchronously, but system 2 is lazy, it will take the "past experience" in system 1 to use directly when thinking, but it may be "past experience" is wrong, on the basis of error, no matter what kind of rational thinking is carried out, the conclusions obtained are always wrong, so we must pay attention to the cross-thinking of system 1 and system 2, and mobilize system 2.
The story of a client choosing a lawyer
In my own representative case, there is a very important shareholder dispute case, our client was falsely accused and imprisoned for a year, and after the court acquitted him, he found that the company he founded had been hollowed out, and he had to fight for the part he deserved without sufficient evidence. This case lasted for nearly seven years, and we finally helped the client win back four hundred million.
The video you just saw was a congratulatory video sent by a client on the tenth anniversary of the founding of Xinghan, who detailed how he chose a lawyer at that time. He said that he compared many well-known law firms in Shanghai with many well-known legal teams, but none of them had a litigation plan that met him to his heart, so he met me in the corridor when he continued to visit the law firm, and communicated with me about the case. Later, I came up with a plan to lose first and win later, and the client said that he saw the professional ability of the lawyer from this plan, who could use the law in a clear and orderly manner and predict the outcome of each round of "game"; he also saw the degree of commitment of the lawyer, and the client knew that such a complex case must require the lawyer to have enough enthusiasm and persistence. Of course, the client also mentioned that the factor of "corridor encounters" made him feel like "providence" to get acquainted with me, which is an expression of System 1, but it was System 2 that ultimately prompted him to make the right decisions.
Founding the story of Xinghan
The last story I'm going to share today is about one of my biggest choices and decisions in life — opening a law firm.
Xinghan was founded in 2010, many people have asked me how this decision was made, I told you when I shared it before in the Law Association, it is from the agreement with female netizens. When I was in college, I chatted with a netizen who read law, talked about the future ideals, and said that I wanted to open a law firm together, so when I met the conditions for starting a law firm, I hoped to realize this agreement of the year, which is a typical framework bias brought by system 1, but my system 2 still plays an important role, mainly considering two aspects:
First, I have participated in entrepreneurship. When I first graduated from college, I gave up my job at the Pudong New Area Court and went to a startup company that had only been established for three months when I went, and the company grew from seven people to hundreds of people, and I was one in seven in the beginning. I started out as a legal counsel, and later, in addition to the business department, I managed the entire back-office operations department, so I was familiar with the entrepreneurial process. This experience supported me to open a law firm, which is part of my rational thinking.
Second, I have experience building operations teams. After I walked out of the company and entered the legal profession, I found that the legal profession has two big pain points, one is that the professional division of labor is not clear, but it is not like this in the company, and the company will have a clear vertical division of labor and horizontal division of labor. Therefore, Xinghan put forward the law firm strategy of "productization and strong operation", productization is the division of labor in professional dimensions, and strong operation is the distinction between work functions, synergy and cooperation, and improvement of efficiency and quality. Another pain point is talent management, there's a lot of going it alone in the legal profession, but when I was in the company, the idea was that finding someone from among the young people could replace me and I was promoted. Therefore, we have always emphasized the talent strategy, we say "believe in young people, reuse young people".
Based on these parts, although the decision to start a law firm was based on a very emotional framing bias, under pressure to constantly start Thinking about System 2, I still think that this decision is correct.
How to launch and apply System Two
All of the stories told above tell us the importance of booting System 2. I think the three core messages of Think, Fast and Slow are: (i) how System 1 and System 2 work together, they work together; (ii) what biases occur when System 1 works and System 2 doesn't work; and (iii) tell us how to mobilize System 2.
Nowadays, the pace of our lives is very fast, slow thinking seems to become difficult, here, I also share some experiences with you:
First, physical health + moderate stress. I think system 2 needs to be focused to function, and when you are tired and distracted, there is no way to mobilize system 2. When I choose or employ people myself, I will also tend to people who are in better health, because this matter directly determines the quality of thinking. Moreover, it is very easy for people to directly mobilize the system in a relaxed environment1, so when making decisions, people should put themselves in a state of moderate tension and moderate pressure. It is recommended that if you know that this matter is very important, you should give yourself some pressure and tension when making decisions, and at the same time keep yourself in a healthy state.
Second, it is instrumentalized to system 2. For example, when employing people, I will directly connect with more than a dozen people on a daily basis, and my impression of a person may be that one time he performs very well, it is easy to be affected by this system1. So I have now objectified the relevant task evaluation and assessment method, and then when I conduct the personnel evaluation, I will look at the evaluation that has been recorded and force myself to think rationally.
Third, advance deduction + collective discussion. When you make a decision, you can first estimate, if the final decision is wrong, what will be the probability of being wrong? Perform a pre-rehearsal, which will also cause you to start thinking about System 2. Brainstorming is also a great way to start your own system2 in the middle of everyone's discussion.
Fourth, timely correction of errors, regular review. In fact, no matter how you prepare in advance, there will be mistakes, because the world is uncertain. But if you are wrong, you must change it. After making a decision, it is necessary to review it after a period of time, and the work of error correction and review can also make System 2 work continuously.
Fifth, the criteria for selecting people: the unity of knowledge and action. I'll often be talked to about how he might have to leave this place and change his lifestyle, but I'll find that he expresses the right things he knows, but the choices he ends up making are different, and the book tells us that's what System 1 is working on. Especially in the legal profession, we have to make a variety of choices every day, but also to help clients make a variety of decisions large and small, but also to choose those who have the same ideas and practices.
Having said so much, I still want to tell you that many times the choice is more important than the effort, the direction is wrong, and if you work harder, you will only go farther and farther. Finally, I would like a sentence from Mr. Yu Qiuyu, whom I like very much: "The road of life, step by step by yourself, what can really protect you is your own personality choice and cultural choice." Then, in turn, what can really hurt you is the same, your own choice. ”
Text: Wei Xin
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