This book is a resounding slap. Whether it’s a slap to make you pay attention or a slap as punishment because you made a mistake doesn’t really matter. The result is a metaphorical shock. What happens after you read James Montier’s work is that you will see white as black, and black as white. If Montier doesn’t manage to turn your world upside down, no one else will. Whether you believe him or not is up to you, but keep in mind that behind everything he claims in this so-called “small” book, there are solid scientific experiments, works, and tests conducted by armies of psychologists.
- You’re confident – bad, you’ll mess up.
- You’re overly optimistic – bad, you’ll be deceived.
- You believe that to make a good decision, it’s better to have more information rather than less – you’re wrong, your brain will get confused.
- You think that in a given experiment, professional financial analysts forecast better than a group of inexperienced students about which of two stocks will perform better in the next year – you’re wrong, the students do better just by guessing.
- You think that for a soccer goalkeeper to have a higher chance of catching a penalty, he should dive towards one of the corners – again you’re wrong. The best chance he has is if he doesn’t move an inch and stays in the middle of the goal (as funny as it may look doing that).
As strange as it sounds, there were times in this book when I laughed. The author doesn’t shy away from outright ridiculing some of our human traits, which at certain moments make us look silly, like puffed-up roosters strutting around a farmyard. Such a moment is when Montier talks about yet another psychological experiment, this time carried out in front of a Xerox machine. It turns out that to get in front of the line, all you need to do is say the word “because,” and people are immediately more inclined to let you go ahead. No matter what reason follows that “because“. Even if you say, “Hey, I need to go in front of you because I have to make copies.” In the same way, we often nod our heads trustingly and agree when we hear “analysts” authoritatively explaining …”the market is down today, because…“
“Other parts of the book, however, are by no means humorous. Rather, they make you ponder how vulnerable you are to countless behavioral biases, such as the “confirmation bias,” which I had also written about in one of my articles, or “conformity.” It’s not at all easy to avoid these traps that seemingly lurk around every corner, leading you into poor choices. Yet, this very evasion is the primary goal of the author in writing this book. He aims to expose them, bringing them to the forefront, thereby enhancing our chances to counteract them.
There’s so much in the text that, as Montier himself says, too much information leads to a brain block. Initially, you might find it hard to grasp what exactly you’ve read and how to apply it practically, but the book possesses the ability, like a fine wine, to leave an aftertaste that continues to occupy the consciousness for many days. The result will invariably be that you will change your understandings and subsequently your investment strategy. Because it’s impossible for so many shocking truths to be told and proven to you, and then you turn away and remain indifferent. Happy reading.