Critical Thinking Cafe

The Decision of Indecision

There are thousands of people sitting in offices and cubicles today ready to act on corporate strategic plans, willing to invest time and energy in challenging new initiatives, wanting to "go for it" in an effort achieve aggressive goals but they're engaged instead in far less productive pursuits because they're waiting for someone in their organizations to make a decision.

In many organizations the process required to get a decision from a manager or executive is long, daunting, discouraging, often frustrating, and consequently--extremely expensive in lost time and underutilized resources. High stakes decisions should be approached with facts about the situation, clearly defined criteria, well-researched alternatives, and a process that balances risk and uncertainty, emotion and reason, deliberation and action.

But in many companies, even after the research is complete and the options have been carefully weighed fear, uncertainty, a need to control, and an overwhelming desire to protect oneself from the consequences of a decision stall and derail many well-intentioned plans and desperately needed changes. Unfortunately, many leaders fail to realize what psychologist William James noted over fifty years ago--"When you have to make a choice and don't make it, that in itself is a decision." James also believed that, "There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision."

Leading others through complex and frequently changing situations requires deliberation and diligence in choosing a course. Wise leaders understand that delaying a decision is a decision. They recognize that protracted indecision is a choice--it's choosing to do nothing.

What in your life, your company, your world could improve--today, if someone would just make a decision? If that decision is in your realm of responsibility, when will be the right time to decide?

Theodore Roosevelt offered this counsel to leaders: "In a moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing to do. The worst thing you can do is nothing."

How Risk and Uncertainty Influence Decisions

While you may not know his name, whenever you make a major decision you encounter the tension (and emotional struggle) he recognized and defined. For twenty years, Frank Knight and his colleague Jacob Viner directed the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago. Knight's dissertation titled Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit (1921) drew a distinction between risk (when the probability of an outcome is possible to calculate and insure against) and uncertainty (when the probability of something cannot be determined).

The underlying problem with any major decision is you cannot know the outcome or be certain, after the decision is made, whether or not another choice would have been a better option. The use of a criteria-driven decision making process helps you ensure against the risks in a decision by making the process as quantified as possible. Tension builds when you expect even the best decision process to eliminate all of the uncertainty that is inherent in a decision.

When a child starts driving, the family's auto insurance carrier protects itself and the family against the known and calculated risks of a teenage driver by raising the insurance premium by one hundred percent or more. The insurer has enough documented experience to accurately calculate the risk probabilities and protect everyone against them. But there are no premiums high enough to eliminate the uncertainty a parent feels when that new driver pulls out of the garage and on to the street.

I've met several people with the title Risk Manager. I've never met anyone that told me they were hired to be the Uncertainty Manager. (A few years ago, Fast Company provided some valuable insight into this tension in an article titled No Risk, No Reward.)

It is difficult to protect against every risk and impossible to eliminate all uncertainty in a major decision. When the criteria in a decision are clearly identified and accurately quantified they can be compared against the alternatives, making any decision a logical process that balances emotion with reason.

Attempting to eliminate all uncertainty in a decision often results in no decision at all (which is the decision). You can't eliminate decision uncertainty so balance it by accurately and effectively managing a decision's risks.

Nick Nelson's Lesson in Decision Making

"Sometimes you just have to make hard choices in your life."

We expect to hear a statement like that from a CEO or COO facing the decision to reduce headcount in a company. We understand someone saying that when they decide to turn down a promotion in order to care for a family member. We don't expect a comment like that from a baseball-loving nine-year-old as he makes a life-altering decision that few adults would want to face.

Gordon Graham says that, "Decision is a sharp knife that cuts clean and straight. . ." Nick Nelson's tough decision gives literal meaning to that statement. While other kids were busy deciding how to beat the next level on Legend of Zelda or Halo, Nick faced the decision to have his right leg amputated in order to be free from a physical defect that would forever inhibit his ability to walk, play, and engage with life like his peers.

All decisions involve some level of uncertainty and risk. A good decision-making process tries to minimize risk by selecting criteria, weighing the importance of the criteria, and then using that criteria to evaluate the options available. Young Nick Nelson looked at what was important to him in life and decided that the possibility of running with a prosthetic leg was a better option than his current reality of struggling to walk with a leg that would never fully straighten or support his weight. On October 10 his right leg was removed.

If you missed the segment about this inspiring young man on this morning's Today Show take a moment to watch it. Matt Lauer's conversation with the Nelson family will give you new courage for the next touch choice you face and Nick's story will give you at least one more reason to be grateful during this Thanksgiving holiday.

Decisions "At Face Value"

Last week, Princeton University released the findings of a very interesting research project. The study involved showing participants a pair of faces for a very brief period of time – as short as a tenth of a second. After viewing the faces, the participants were asked to reveal their “gut reaction” as to which face appeared more competent.

The faces shown were actually the images of individuals running against each other in political races. If a study participant recognized any of the faces, their input was thrown out of the study. In the data that remained, researchers made a startling discovery. Roughly 70% of the time, the face selected as “more competent” was the face of the winning candidate in recent senate and gubernatorial elections. While the study only proves that facial recognition is a decent way to beat the odds in predicting election winners, it begs two questions. First… “How in the world could I have lost that 7^th grade Student Council election to Billy ‘Crazy Eyes’ Cunningham?” Second… “How do we truly make decisions that affect our lives?”

From a political standpoint, Peverill Squire, a political science professor at the University of Iowa, says that we really only make these snap judgements if we don’t have a lot of information to go on. Apparently, if I don’t know a candidate’s position on the issues most important to me, I suppose his haircut and eye color will suffice. Scary thought. These unnamed gut reactions could drive a decision that affects futures.

Don’t get me wrong. Not all “gut reactions” are bad. Still, they can be problematic – especially in today’s organizations. Take the following dialogue, for example.

Joe: “Why did you decide to hire Susan?”

Kelly: “She seemed like the best fit for the team.”

Joe: “What do you mean by that?”

Kelly: “I don’t know. Just something in my gut that tells me she’s perfect.”

If Susan ends up being a star employee, then this rationale may be adequate for Joe and Kelly. However, if Susan turns out to be a terrible employee, then poor Kelly is left holding the bag. She must account for this decision. She has to explain to everyone impacted by her decision that the ¨something in my gut¨ was valid reasoning and measurable criteria instead of just some bad shrimp scampi. 

Many of us have been in this position where we arrived at a decision, sometimes a group decision, and later on, the choice doesn’t pan out. We must answer to someone. Unfortunately, this is very difficult when “gut feel” is involved.

Though some may be able to recall bits and pieces of why we chose this marketing strategy or that location for a new call center, if we failed to expressly identify the criteria involved in our decision, then others are more apt to second guess us. In many cases, this can seem quite unfair if our “gut reactions” were based on years of experience. For instance, Kelly might say, “When we have hired employees like Susan in the past, they turned out to be star employees!” When pushed, we can often dip into this well of experience provide rationale behind our gut feelings. However, when we do this in response to someone questioning why a decision was a poor one, such descriptions seem more like excuses than criteria.

The key to an effective decision making process is describing your decision criteria in detail before you enter into the decision itself. Assure that everyone understands not only what will be the factors in the decision, but which will be most important. Is cost more important than quality? Is speed to market more important than impact to our existing customers? If a decision making team can reach consensus on these issues, then the decision itself becomes much easier when you can see how each alternative measures up against the criteria you have established. What’s more, after the decision is made, others can clearly see the rationale behind the decision, and are less likely to challenge the initial choice.

So… back to casting your vote.

In the end, you may find data that support the fact that more “competent-looking” people are truly more effective in political office. Maybe they get more done? I doubt it. But, if it’s true, then at least people can see there was some merit behind your gut reaction. This will lead to more effective decisions, and greater buy-in from those affected by the decision.

Just don’t assume people will take your decisions at “face” value!

Success Comes From Decisions--Not Strategies

The conversation took place several years ago, but I'll never forget it. I was trying to sell a brilliant solution to a purchasing manager in a large, global company. This manager was the epitome of someone in a large organization who didn't quit and leave the company--he quit and stayed. . .

As I presented the concept, this guy leaned back in his chair and kind of growled, "You know what I do when the guys upstairs tell me to do something? I don't do anything."

My face and those of my colleagues must have appeared a bit incredulous so he continued. "I don't do anything until they push me because as soon as I start doing what they said, they'll read another book and then they'll tell me to do something else. So I just don't do anything until they force me."

Somewhere in that company, senior leaders carefully craft strategies and tactical plans that they are convinced will propel their organization to success. And deep in the bowels of that company are guys like the one I met, whose daily decisions make or break management's sincere efforts.

Companies across the globe spend countless hours engaged in well-intentioned strategic planning sessions often forgetting that success is not defined by strategy as much as it is determined by the decisions managers make each day about how they will allocate an organization's resources toward resolving problems and capturing opportunities.

Effective strategic planning can be a vital component to corporate growth. But after the Power Point presentations are done and the spreadsheets are filed away, what people do--or don't do-- ultimately determines an organization's future.