Daniel Kahneman, author, economist, and psychologist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Science in 2002 for his seminal work on human judgment and decision making, passed away on March 27 at the age of 90. In his best-selling 2011 book, Thinking, Fast and Slow (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), Kahneman explored how our brain processes information and makes decisions using two systems: fast, intuitive thinking and slow, deliberate thinking.
Kahneman, who was emeritus professor of psychology and public affairs at Princeton University, contributed to a number of McKinsey Global Publishing insights over the years. In a 2021 McKinsey Quarterly interview with partner Julia Sperling-Magro, Kahneman explained how noise—or unwanted variability—clouds organizations’ judgments, and what to do about it. Check out that discussion and other insights inspired by Kahneman’s groundbreaking research.
Sounding the alarm on system noise
Daniel Kahneman: Beware the ‘inside view’
Strategic decisions: When can you trust your gut?
Staying ahead: How the best CEOs continually improve performance
Author Talks: Got friction? Stanford’s Robert I. Sutton shares what you can do about it
The strategy-analytics revolution
How to beat your biases and make better investment decisions
Putting behavioral psychology to work to improve the customer experience
How to take the ‘outside view’
Debiasing investment and strategy decisions