I’ve been observing several persons in the process of making decisions. Some of the decisions are personal in nature (quitting one job to take another, ending or starting a relationship, going back to school, moving). Others pertain to leaders making organizational or institutional decisions (dealing with employees, closing a program, dealing with a crisis). In only a few of those instances have I observed persons making quick and decisive choices from several options and then moving toward a new direction. Most people struggle through a long winding, angst-filled process of uncertainty and indecision before achieving resolution and finding direction. Most can’t identify their options, much less come up with new ones.
A major part of staying stuck has more to do with emotional process. People can’t get past the impasse of feelings that block their ability to make choices. But often people get stuck because they cannot think through an issue. We can identify three steps in the process of making a decision: the motivation step, the thinking step, and the decision step. Each of those steps in the process requires the ability to think through the issues at hand. But each step holds the hazard of “faulty thinking” that keeps people stuck.
Here are faulty thinking associated with each step:
The Motivation Step
- Trying to reduce the discomfort of dissonance
- Seeking the comfort of internal alignment between the old and the new
- Driven by feeling obliged to complete a public commitment rather than working out of values, vision and principles
- Being driven by a desire for certainty or security
- Distorting memories or past decisions to make the current decisions seem good
- Soliciting confirmation that we are about to make a good decision (especially from people who have no stake in the outcome)
- Being driven by the Scarcity Principle: the fear of regret at not attaining something that is scarce
- Being immobilized by the Sunk-Cost Effect: being reluctant to pull out of an investment of money, energy, or effort even if it has yielded poor results.
The Thinking Step
- Preferring a known probability to an unknown one
- Failing to compensate enough for our own bias
- Elaborating on likelihood: either thinking centrally or taking unthinking short-cut decisions
- Focusing on short-term benefits rather than long-term solutions
- Seeking more facts for making a decision, even when they are irrelevant
- Failing to critically assess source credibility: seeking input from people who we are likely to believe rather than those who have expertise.
The Deciding Step
- Being stuck in the Augmentation Principle: the belief that evidence for a decision is accumulative
- Using only limited logic in making a decision
- Accepting simple, explainable hypotheses for complex situations and issues
- Failure to use the right strategies for different types of choice
- Deciding by comparing things falsely (apples to oranges).
Making a good decision is about choosing wisely from among options and choices. And while decision-making is both and emotional and an intellectual act, it’s important to engage in “right thinking” in order to make right decisions.
