Alex Edmans on thinking for yourself when everyone is certain

What this conversation is about

Alex Edmans is a professor of finance at London Business School and a former investment banker. His book May Contain Lies: How Stories, Statistics, and Studies Exploit Our Biases is a practical guide to telling reliable evidence from misinformation. On this episode of Personalization Outbreak, he and Glenn Llopis explore why smart people fall for weak evidence, and what that has to do with standardized thinking at work.

Their conversation moves from how our brains react to news we like, to the myth of universal secrets to success, to the small things leaders can do to keep people from going quiet in meetings.

The edit

Edmans explains that we are wired to edit our own thinking. News that confirms our view feels good; news that challenges it can feel like an attack. So we retreat into echo chambers:

"We won't be challenged and therefore we actually don't learn from information. We only listen to information that we want to be true." — Alex Edmans · 00:02:00

Organizations make a similar edit when they reach for one-size-fits-all formulas. Edmans is skeptical of books that promise universal secrets to success and of the habit of copying what other companies do, because what worked in one business may not fit another's people, market or stage:

"And this is really damaging because business is a social science, but we think that it's a hard or physical science." — Alex Edmans · 00:11:13

A carbon atom behaves the same in Tokyo and New York, he points out. Businesses don't. Even within the same company, different bosses manage in different ways, so context always matters.

How people reclaim their own judgment

Glenn told Edmans why his work resonated:

"I'm not here to standardize you to think like me. I'm here to provide you a framework that you can make your own. And it's interesting when you give people ownership, they don't know what to do with it." — Glenn Llopis · 00:13:21

Edmans explained why ownership feels so uncomfortable:

"Because they then need to make decisions of their own and to exercise discretion and judgment, and that's risky." — Alex Edmans · 00:13:43

The good news, he says, is that questioning information doesn't take a statistics degree. It takes the common sense we already use when we read a murder mystery and suspect the obvious culprit isn't the one, or when a used-car seller makes big claims. The discipline is applying that same discernment to evidence we like. His Ladder of Misinference starts with two steps: a statement is not a fact, because it may not be accurate, and a fact is not data, because a single example may not be representative.

Glenn summed up what is at stake:

"The more you read it, the more you realize we forgot how to think. We actually forgot how to know our own truths." — Glenn Llopis · 00:22:10

What leaders and organizations can take from it

Edmans learned the value of speaking up early in his career. As a first-year analyst at Morgan Stanley, he assumed a good junior employee simply toed the line. His first review said something else:

"Notably, for a first year analyst, Alex has the courage to express his own views, which is to be rewarded." — Alex Edmans · 00:25:01

That review told him more about the organization than about himself. Leaders can build the same kind of room with small moves. He describes a meeting where one colleague raises a concern and the team decides to go ahead anyway. If no one acknowledges her, she draws a quiet conclusion:

"The next time I have concerns, I'm just going to self-censor because it's just not worth it." — Alex Edmans · 00:29:25

• Thank the person who disagreed. A two-minute private conversation after the meeting keeps that voice in the room next time.
• Look past simple labels. Edmans argues that diversity is more than gender and ethnicity, and that hiring a mix of people means little without the inclusion that lets them contribute.
• Don't treat failure as shameful. People who try and fail are learning, and leaders should reward those willing to make their own decisions.

How this conversation connects to Glenn's methodology

Glenn's body of work comes down to one idea: without agency and without knowing the rooms where you belong, you can't have the conviction to reinvent yourself on purpose, or the strong identity that guides how you live and lead. Edmans makes the case with evidence.

• Agency (the Individual). Using your own discernment, and having the courage to express your own views, even as the most junior person in the room.
• The rooms (the Environment). Teams where dissent is thanked rather than punished, so people don't self-censor.
• Conviction and reinvention on purpose. Owning a framework and adapting it to your context, instead of copying a universal formula.
• Identity that guides how they live and lead. Knowing your own truths again, rather than only listening to what you want to be true.

See the body of work behind the method →