Cognitive biases affect everyone, from early-career professionals to senior leaders. Left unexamined, they distort judgement, reinforce blind spots, and gradually undermine performance, culture, and results.
This piece explores five common biases that repeatedly show up in professional environments, alongside practical questions you can ask yourself, or others, to challenge assumptions, surface better thinking, and improve decision-making over time.
Overwhelm isn’t a single experience. It shows up at different depths, driven by different mechanisms, depending on your situation and the demands you’re under. In this piece, I explore three cognitive layers of overwhelm, from surface-level attentional overload to deeper, more persistent forms rooted in avoidance and uncertainty.
Understanding these layers matters. Not to label yourself, but to recognise what’s actually happening beneath the noise, and where meaningful chang