Radical Uncertainty: Decision-Making Beyond the Numbers

This book is the counterpoint to Thinking, Fast and Slow and Superforecasting. The authors, John Kay and Mervyn King, argue that, apart from bounded games like chess, we operate in a world of “radical uncertainty,” an uncertainty that cannot be resolved and that is difficult even to mitigate. In their view, deliberate reasoning based on data about past, similar situations can be useful but cannot be dispositive. For a strategist, world events involve contingency: we cannot know with any certainty what will happen next or what will follow from our decisions. The authors argue that we should not fight this reality but rather open ourselves to the fullest possible understanding of the context of events and decisions and be willing to use reasoning by narrative and intuition. A strategist must consider the perspectives of Thinking, Fast and Slow, Superforecasting, and Radical Uncertainty and adopt his or her own design for strategic analysis and decision making.