Ep 99 Best bits series: Better decisions in an era of continuous pressure

What really gets in the way of good decision making?

In this final Best Bits episode, Angela Malik and Kristian Lees-Bell reflect on some of our most memorable conversations about decision making and human judgement.

Revisiting Dr Amanda Potter’s insights, alongside a conversation with Mark Herbert, the episode explores the psychology and neuroscience behind the choices we make, and what better decision making looks like for leaders and teams. 

Together they unpack why we procrastinate, how fear of failure and sunk cost can keep us stuck, and how brain chemistry, pressure and our emotional state influence the decisions we make.

In essence, this episode explores what better decision making means for leaders and teams. From choosing clarity over speed and understanding different decision styles, to knowing when to change course and how our choices affect those around us.

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Transcript

Welcome And Why Decisions Matter

Dr Amanda Potter 0:04

Hi everyone, welcome to the Chief Psychology Officer Podcast. I'm Dr. Amanda Potter. Over this summer, I took a bit of a break, as you may know from the previous Best Bits episodes, and this is the last of the series of the Best Bits episodes. It's on decision making. Now, this is one of the topics I started all of my research on over 20 years ago when we conducted research in American Express, and it's still a real key topic for us. And we believe it's going to be the topic of the future. I know we talk a lot about psychological safety, but we believe that human judgment is really going to be the future conversation with our clients. So this episode is all about bringing all of the insights, the tips, the ideas, the stories that really resonated and has stayed with us through those recordings and put them into one place so that's really helpful for you. We're also hoping that it will also ignite your thinking in the same way as it has done for us. Thanks to my colleagues, we have this brilliant episode with all of the insights in one place for you that you can take away and reflect on. And then I'm going to be back in the autumn with a whole array of guests that will challenge my thinking and will bring new perspectives. But until then, thank you so much for continuing to listen to us. And I really hope you enjoy this episode. Thanks, Amanda. Hi, Christian.

Kristian 1:25

Hi, Angela. Good to be on the podcast with you again. We did our uh resilience best bits and yeah, we're talking about decision making today. And as Amanda's just introduced the pod, some of the things that make it difficult for us to make decisions or make it feel difficult, whether that's procrastination, sunk cost, fear of failure, also how we go about what goes on in the brain, you know, when we're making decisions. So we'll be looking at some of the neurochemistry, some of the situation factors that play a role in decision making. So the neurochemistry of decisions, and then something about leadership. So diversity and decision making and some of the things that are key to organizational success. So let's get to it. We're going to start off our best bits episode with episode eight, where we talk about procrastination and whether that's something that we experience as being a state or whether it's a trait. It'll be really interesting to talk to you, Angela Robert, and ask you about whether maybe you might experience uh procrastination yourself. So before we do, let's get to the track.

Angela Malik 2:33

Absolutely. This is episode eight. Be decisive.

Procrastination And The Stories We Tell

Dr Amanda Potter 2:38

We procrastinate because we tell ourselves that if we were to wait, we might have more information, we might be less tired, we might be more mentally focused, we might be more ready, or might be a stronger version of ourselves and therefore in a better, fitter place to actually make the decision. And so we justify the delay and we postpone the decision even though we know that there will be a negative consequence of doing so. And very often it's unnecessary to delay the decision. Very often we have all the information that we need or that is available, and we should just commit to that decision.

Tim Hepworth 3:24

Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, I remember when I was at school, I was one of the people that used to receive your homework to be done over the school holidays, and I used to not do it, wait and wait until the last minute. And it hung over me for the entire two weeks of the whole day. But I still had to do it at the end. Whereas if I'd have actually done it at the beginning, I'd have still done exactly the same amount of work, but had two weeks of not having to worry about it. Now, procrastination for me has been pretty much a lifetime uh trait.

Angela Malik 3:57

What about you, Christian? Are you a procrastinator?

Kristian 4:00

Procrastination, uh absolutely never. No, on a serious no. Well, yeah, I knew you were gonna say never. Yeah, I can fall victim to procrastination. Yeah, absolutely. The same with it. Tim mentions just there on the clip that yeah, he left things to the last minute, knowing that it'd be a lot less stressful and more productive if he didn't. I know that a lot of the time it'll be good for me to start things earlier, tasks that I kind of feel like they're sort of hanging over me like a shadow. And I suppose for me it's about emotional regulation when I think about it. So when there's a task that I might put off, there's an anxiety, I think, about failing. Maybe I might not know how to start. It feels a bit um daunting. So I suppose my brain is in some ways taking the quickest available route to kind of giving me some relief. And for me, that can sometimes be avoidance. What about yourself?

Angela Malik 4:52

Um, I definitely procrastinate, but I don't, it's definitely not over sort of fear of failure. I'm not much of a perfectionist. I like to do things well, but I also am not a like naturally reflective person. I'm not a person who's gonna sit there and like revisit that over and over and over and over. I have to do like one good pass and some secondary refinement, but not like refining, refining, refining, usually. So if I think about why do I procrastinate, it's probably somewhere around the risk factor of it. I have quite a high risk tolerance according to my decision styles profile. I think I need a little bit of that positive pressure to force action. If I feel like I've got plenty of time, I will always find something else that needs doing now. And then yeah, for me, I think that's what it is.

Kristian 5:46

So, in some ways, the urgencies sort of create a bit of adrenaline, which then mobilizes you a bit and kind of gets you off your seat and into action.

Angela Malik 5:56

I think so, yeah. I mean, it feels good to get things done early and have it ready to go, right? Like Tim's example of the homework and having two weeks of not having to think about it. But that doesn't feel good enough to me, I guess, to prompt me to do it early on many occasions. And when I do get things done early like that, I honestly just forget that I've done them already. So then the whatever the deadline is will come up and I'll I'll actually have that last-minute sort of panic jump where it's like, oh, I need to get that done. And then, oh yeah, I did that two weeks ago, you know.

Kristian 6:32

Yeah, I know what you mean. And sometimes the avoiding, for me anyway, avoiding doing the thing and doing the task feels really comforting if I push it to the back of my mind in the short term. But yeah, I think over the years I've realized that I kind of can create in my mind a bit more urgency. And I think I kind of almost time travel to that situation how painful it might be if I've left it to the last minute. And that's kind of been quite effective in helping my brain create some more urgency so that I don't procrastinate. So I'm almost like I'm traveling into the future and visualizing how it's going to be uncomfortable for me if I leave it to the very, very last minute. Doesn't always work, but it's a strategy to help.

Angela Malik 7:14

I've definitely got to employ more strategies like that, especially around like household tasks and stuff. I always procrastinate on those, and then I find it piles up and I'm stressed about it when I really could have just been doing it, you know. So the next clip, it's actually part of that same episode, isn't it, Christian?

Kristian 7:31

It is, yeah.

Perfectionists Dreamers And Bottlenecks

Kristian 7:32

So it's still episode eight. And we talk a bit more about some of the potential traits linked to procrastination or our tendency to procrastinate. What are the drivers of procrastination?

Tim Hepworth 7:43

Okay, we've got these um slow decision makers, these bottleneck makers. Are there particular traits that we can identify in these people that can identify them as procrastinators? You know, can we spot them from afar?

Dr Amanda Potter 7:57

We can. So, in fact, we've started to describe the first one, which is perfectionists. So people who fear failure and they are perfectionists, they can find it difficult to start or commit to a decision until all of the circumstances are perfect. And so if you hear a client say, I can't let go of it until it's completely ready, or I cannot commit to a decision until I have all of the facts, they are probably a perfectionist.

Tim Hepworth 8:26

Have you got any examples of that? We do we always like a good example in these podcasts.

Dr Amanda Potter 8:30

I'm working with a client who is managing a significant sale of a business, and they've been going through the last stages of the data gathering phase since they've agreed to sell to their buyer. And at every day, every step, the buyer wants more information, and they're unable to say that's it, that's enough, that they have sufficient evidence. Now, my client is 90 to 95% certain that the sale will go through, but what he can see is a really good example of collaborative procrastination where the buyers are constantly asking for more and more information, even though a decision to buy the company has already been made. They want to minimize the risk and they're just not able to really make that final commitment and they're struggling to make the decisions.

Tim Hepworth 9:24

And that's down to perfectionism.

Dr Amanda Potter 9:26

Yes, that can be down to perfectionism, or it can be down to a fear of failure.

Tim Hepworth 9:30

Are we going to head for a nice list here? Have you got a list of things that we can talk about that uh why people procrastinate?

Dr Amanda Potter 9:36

Indeed. I like a list. So the second one is that people who procrastinate are often dreamers rather than doers. Because they want everything to work out beautifully and they would like the decision often to change their life or their team's life or their clients or customers, they don't start the activity or make the decision until they get everything aligned. And by stalling the decision, they can keep that ideal vision of the perfect outcome in their mind.

Tim Hepworth 10:06

So, I mean, both those initial two things that you've said, they both seem to come from a good place. They're the the people are perfectionists, which you know can be in certain circumstances a good thing. They're dreamers, they want the ideal thing to happen. That all sounds good, doesn't it? So it's not necessary to say that somebody who's a procrastinator is somebody who's a poor performer or not capable.

Dr Amanda Potter 10:29

No, completely.

Kristian 10:31

Yeah, the dreamer versus the doer, Angela. Had you heard those labels before in that distinction?

Angela Malik 10:36

Um, possibly somewhere, but it's a nice, succinct little way of framing it. What are you, Krishna? Are you a dreamer or a doer?

Kristian 10:44

You know, I mean, how many people are actually going to be happy to say that they're dreamers and not doers? You know, let's let's be honest, you know, especially if you're asking this in a corporate environment. But if I'm honest, I'm a dreamer quite a lot of the time. In certain situations, then I've got better at than just getting on and doing things because I know the default might be to not necessarily be a perfectionist and just try and find the ideal vision, but I know my bias can sometimes be keeping options open. You know, it feels comfortable to have the possibilities, right? We can be sometimes addicted to, or I can be in the past, addicted to the possibilities of doing things. You know, it feels good to know that you could do this and it could do that. Those doors are still open, but actually I've learned to be more comfortable with closing some options. We know there's a paradox of choice, right? So now I've become better at doing the doing, but um, yeah, I've still have my moments of dreaming. And I used to daydream a lot at school. So maybe it comes from that.

Angela Malik 11:46

It's interesting to me that you sort of connected being a dreamer to something maybe that you wouldn't want to admit at work, but I think a workplace needs both types of thinkers, right? So I'm definitely not a dreamer. I have never been much of a daydreamer kind of person. I'm 100% a doer, but that also means I don't really like to sit there and like think about it too hard. I just like to do it, make the decision and go. You do need to pause and think about things sometimes, or you know, take the time to bring people on the journey with you. So there is real value in being a dreamer sometimes.

Kristian 12:24

Well, it again it shifts by the context, doesn't it? So there might be many of our listeners who think, yeah, actually, in that context situation, maybe outside of work, I'm a dreamer. But actually, in this context, when I'm doing my job potentially, then I kind of activate the doer. But I think we have a preference or a default to an extent on one of these. The

Sunk Cost And Fear Of Failure

Kristian 12:45

next episode, we kind of jump forward in time a little bit to uh really interesting concept and actually something that when we notice in organizations, I certainly have, when decision making or the judgment process hasn't necessarily led to financial success, or when companies or teams have been maybe investing in certain decisions, making certain judgments because they've done it before in the past, and it can be sometimes difficult to change tech. So we talk about sunk cost fallacy and the fear of failure. This is episode 53. So, what is this thing called the sunk cost fallacy?

Dr Amanda Potter 13:23

So, sunk cost is a cognitive bias that occurs when people continue to invest in a decision or a project, even though the evidence suggests that the investments are no longer rational or beneficial and that we should actually stop.

Kristian 13:38

Yeah, I may have done that myself once or twice. Um, where does it come from?

Dr Amanda Potter 13:42

It's basically a bias. We're driven by the need to avoid loss, and we have a fear of failure that's incredibly powerful that drives us to continue with something that we should probably stop and admit isn't working. And that could be time, it could be money, it could be effort. Something that we invest in in some way.

Kristian 14:02

So, in other words, it's when we let our past investments influence our decisions about future actions, particularly if they are sinking.

Dr Amanda Potter 14:10

Yeah. And as I say, it's not just about money, it's relationships too, or it's anything that you invest time, money, effort into.

Kristian 14:19

So sunk cost, have you experienced it yourself? Have you seen it in action?

Angela Malik 14:25

Um, yes, I've experienced it myself. I kind of feel like it's one of those human condition type scenarios, isn't it? I think everyone has experienced it at some point where they just feel like I'm gambling is a great example. You've put so much down and you're kind of in it. And really, if you're looking at the data, just the cold hard facts, it might be the right time to step away. But you kind of still hang on to the idea that you know you've put this much down, you could just a little bit longer, it just might make the difference. I'm really guilty of that, I think, in relationships. So in a business context, I might see some potential in a business relationship. And I will like sort of chase that conversation much longer than maybe I should. And I actually am having to like sort of think about strategies to disengage from a potential relationship that actually isn't going anywhere because I will just keep kind of holding on to hope. And the longer I spend on it, the less willing I am to kind of drop it then because it feels like I've put so much into it now. So that would be my business scenario example for myself.

Kristian 15:36

That's a great example, especially with business development. I know when I was a consultant, I can totally see what you mean, which is why some of the best salespeople actively try and get a no, don't they? Obviously, sometimes so that there's that more certainty and they're not spending months or years trying to uh hold up hope for a lead or a prospect or an opportunity that is not really ready to say yes. Of course, then we also know the power of the follow-up as well. So yeah, things do come back.

Angela Malik 16:04

Yeah, definitely. And I can also see a scenario where, you know, a business has invested in building a new platform or something, and then for whatever reason, it the feedback is not what they would have hoped. And because so much was invested into this project being a success, that kind of just trying to tweak around the edges when maybe it's time to just call that and say total radical shift in direction. I think when the option is not tweaking, but actually saying, No, I have to stop, I think that's when sunk cost probably comes in more often, right? Because, like you said, closing doors on options and not leaving things open, there's a finality to that, isn't it? And then it really is like, was that all a waste?

Kristian 16:49

Yeah, absolutely. And it's about sometimes not wanting to admit the, I suppose the earlier decision was wrong. And I think sunk cost can feel more painful when your ego is attached, yeah, which it can often be to the original choice that you made. And it's not just the resources and the time and the energy, even though those are big things as well.

Angela Malik 17:08

I wonder though, in my first example around the relationship thing, for me, I don't feel like it's an ego thing, it's not an admitting failure thing. I wonder if it's just like being the ever optimist or something and not wanting to relinquish hope that a good outcome will come, but you know, interesting anyway.

Kristian 17:27

We'll do a coaching podcast and we can explore that.

Angela Malik 17:30

Exactly. Okay, so the next clip is actually from the same episode,

Saving Face And The Hard Stop

Angela Malik 17:35

isn't it? It's Amanda's take on sunk cost.

Kristian 17:39

Yeah, let's see whether Amanda agrees with some of our points and and feelings about sunk cost.

Dr Amanda Potter 17:45

It's really very much about not wanting to admit at that point that you've lost the previous time, the previous investment of money, energy, or emotion if it's a relationship as well. So it could be in relationships too. So people don't want to admit loss, they don't want to admit something has failed, but they don't want to be wasteful. So if we think about food, and they care about saving face. So that one was particularly relevant for me in saying a product, I'm going to take that product off the market. I worried about what other people would think about me or my capability. And we worry about other people's opinions too much, I think. So that saving face and ego piece that you just mentioned, Christian, is actually very important with some cost, worrying about what other people think. If I keep investing, they'll think it's all okay and they won't judge us for my actions.

Kristian 18:37

Yeah, that makes sense, particularly in a world where a lot of our businesses and marketing efforts are more noticeable, you know, through social media.

Dr Amanda Potter 18:44

Everyone can see what everyone does. Those of us who are on social media, of course.

Kristian 18:48

Absolutely.

Dr Amanda Potter 18:48

So what should they do? The sensible decision is to stop. Stop investing time, energy, money, emotions into relationships, whatever it is, and put your resources into something that is more promising. But the brain tells you that there is an emotional attachment to what you have been doing, and therefore it makes it really difficult to detach. But actually, that's the thing that we need to do.

Kristian 19:13

So difficult but possible by the sense of it.

Dr Amanda Potter 19:16

Absolutely. Recognizing, of course, is going to be absolutely key.

Kristian 19:20

Those lovely dulcet tones again. Oh yeah. But uh yeah, this made me think about our strategies to resolve this cognitive dissonance. So actually, going back to sunk costs, I suppose that's a way, isn't it? It's a strategy of resolving the discomfort. You know, if we think of cognitive dissonance is the discomfort of holding these two different beliefs, inconsistent beliefs that don't match. Sunk cost is you're reducing dissonance. So, you know, if I've put five years into something or a decision, so I'm going to carry on doing it, that resolves the discomfort of maybe that grim realization that it was the wrong path, for example. So we double down, don't we? Much easier than actually updating the belief or changing our beliefs, which is harder probably to do than some of these strategies of, yeah, let's keep on doing it.

Angela Malik 20:09

Yeah. And I like Amanda's advice. Just stop. Just stop.

Kristian 20:12

Easy as that.

Angela Malik 20:13

Absolutely.

Kristian 20:15

We've talked about some of the barriers, haven't we, to decision making. Sunk cost. I mentioned some of the things that make decision making potentially difficult or how we procrastinate, the concept of cognitive dissonance. But

Dopamine Epinephrine And Deadline Energy

Kristian 20:28

what's going on in the brain? You know, we had some really interesting podcasts where we talk about what's happening in the brain and the neurochemistry of decisions in terms of dopamine and epinephrine. So this episode is episode 50, and it talks about uh really key neurotransmitters in terms of reward and motivation and their part to play in decision making.

Angela Malik 20:51

Absolutely. This is episode 15, neurochemistry of decisions.

SPEAKER_00 20:56

I am now really interested actually to hear a little bit more around what is actually going on inside us, inside our brains, with our chemicals when it comes to decision making. So could you please talk us through the neuroscience?

Dr Amanda Potter 21:09

It's quite simple, actually. Most people want to be more decisive, and most of us want to avoid being a procrastinator. So we need to have more self-control and we need to be motivated and we need to make sure that there's a clear reward mechanism for decision making from a neuroscientific perspective. And how we do this is through our dopamine system because high levels of dopamine can increase our goal focus and can reduce our levels of procrastination. Dopamine is the reward chemical, and problems can arise when we do not have enough dopamine and therefore procrastination can actually happen. Because low dopamine can be a real issue. The research has shown that we release a little bit of dopamine before making a decision. And it's the signal that we are going to get some. Pleasure from completing a task and it impacts our ability to make that decision. So by increasing our dopamine levels, it can impact our decision making. But we don't want too much of it because otherwise it can reduce our levels of sensitivity. But we need enough that actually we're motivated and we're going to get that sense of reward. So people who are too low in terms of their dopamine and they don't necessarily write lists or think about the expected outcomes enough or think about the opportunity and what the reward might be, are not going to be signalling to the brain to be releasing that dopamine. So in other words, we need to get excited about the outcome in order to be motivated to make the decision. And if we do that, then we're going to release a bit of dopamine that really motivates us to do so. The other one, because there is another reason why people might hold back from making decisions, and that's something called epinephrine, which comes from the fight or flight response. And some people will procrastinate on purpose. They will hold back from making decisions so that they can perform better when they approach a deadline. And I worked with somebody back in my Towers Perrin days, the Towers Perrin is now Willis Towers Watson. And she and I could not have been more different because I'm risk averse and planned. I used to finish my work two weeks before the deadline. And then literally the day before, the night before, overnight, she would stay in the building rewriting everything that I would have done and completed and I was quite happy with two weeks before. And she used to really enjoy the pressure. She used to say it made it more focused, more creative. And that was because she was tapping into her epinephrine system, which sets her up for fight or flight. And this translates into a desire for action. And the effect for her was incredibly strong. And it did actually create incredible outcomes, but it created so much pain for everybody around her. And she would be stuck and would find it really difficult to get started until the epinephrine system kicked in. But for me, I was done and dusted two weeks before. The irritating thing is that she always improved everything that I built. Of course she did, otherwise it wouldn't have happened. And she was an incredible consultant, an incredible thinker. But it took the epinephrine system to kick in for it to really work for her.

Kristian 24:19

Really interesting one there. I know people experiencing a lot of stress for whatever reason, uh, when they've got lots of cortisol in the system. I know that there's a research, isn't there, to say that that can impair sort of your prefrontal function and so how you think. So when we really need to weigh up options to analyze biases and maybe to do forward thinking and planning and more critical judgment, then at least for me, I can certainly get things done and I'm really sort of mobilized when I've got that fight or flight thing going on for me. But I think if I'm under stress and that's sort of a chronic thing, then I know that's no good for the quality of my thinking and decision making. What about you, Angela?

Angela Malik 25:00

Um, I I tend to perform well under stress, but you make a good point about chronic stress and chronically high cortisol. So I would say when there's a balance and I've only got the cortisol hits like in one part of my life, that can be quite a good sort of you stress, right? Where I'm focused, I'm being productive, and I'm absolutely not procrastinating, right? But if I've got it coming from all sides, then yeah, potentially not very healthy for me or for anyone around me. I thought it was quite funny when Amanda said, you know, it created a lot of pain for everyone around this person when she procrastinated like that. And it's sort of like I can see that. And at the same time, it's hard to go against the grain if that's kind of your natural state, or if you, for whatever reason, are struggling to be outcome-focused and get the dopamine of the outcome. I wouldn't say that I'm a hundred percent one way or another if I think about it. I like to make a list. Making lists gives me dopamine, knocking them off the list. But I think if I don't do that initial, like just get started with it, it will end up sitting until the last minute, and then it will be that stress, the deadline pressure that pushes me into action.

Kristian 26:17

Yeah, totally.

Angela Malik 26:18

What about you, Christian? Are you a dopamine er or an epinephriner?

Kristian 26:24

You know what? I think I'm about 50% of both a lot of the time. I need the carrot and the stick. I think as I mentioned before, I've learned that instead of wasting time on sometimes spending too long on thinking about the options and being the dreamer, as Amanda says in that clip, getting excited about the outcome. So how good I'm gonna feel once I've achieved that piece of work or when people are happy with the outcome and the fact that I'm not gonna be stressing people out when they're waiting for me to complete it, making that really compelling in my mind actually helps a lot. So I suppose that's the carrot. Those are the things that can motivate me to do those things and start to create action. But then also as the same thing, you know, I could also visualize and get really clear on what the pain will be if I leave it to the very last minute, because I know that I can sometimes default to sort of deliberation. So yeah, a bit of both, I would say.

Angela Malik 27:20

Good.

Decision Styles Under Pressure

Angela Malik 27:21

Well, the next clip that we're focused on is around leadership and decision making. It's about diversity and decision-making styles and how that is really the key to organizational success. You certainly have a lot of experience talking with leadership teams about decision styles, don't you, Christian?

Kristian 27:40

Yeah, I I do. And particularly the conversations in the last few months I've noticed are increasingly about the importance of knowing what an individual's personal decision-making style is. So what they will default to, whether that's being instinctive or intuitive or being very deliberate. I think most people haven't already an idea of that anyway, without doing a test or an assessment. But actually, when you're coaching somebody or using an assessment, for example, really exploring their decision styles can make a massive impact because they get a greater awareness of under pressure or under stress, under the huge amount of pace and uncertainty that most people are going through in organizations at the moment, those decision styles or preferences or default behaviors, they're going to double down more than they would anyway, under stress or under pressure, because there are mental shortcuts. So actually, having conversations about how do you prefer to make decisions naturally, I think is really key here before we can even start to think about okay, how can I adapt or change the way I make decisions and be more adaptive and flexible. So the next clip that we'd like to play is from episode 91. So relatively recent episode where we talked about what decisive leadership actually means. Because there can be a misconception that being decisive means being quick, being fast. But actually, there's something more, and that's about clarity.

Angela Malik 29:04

Absolutely. This is episode 91 why decisive leadership demands clarity, not speed. And I believe it was featuring Mark Herbert in that episode.

Mark 29:13

Well, I think a lot of people confuse decisiveness with rushing. So people will, I think, rightly say a great skill of good leadership is being decisive in decisions. But I think a wrong assumption is to assume decisive means instinctive and quick. I think decisive means being really, really clear on what the core of the issue is and on what the criteria are that we're using to make the decision. And when we make it, we make it. And then we buy into it and we bring people on the journey. Indecision is the opposite of that. It's not having any clarity, it's flip-flopping around different ideas, it's being easily persuaded by false arguments or by power of personality. We need to be decisive because we have to operate a pace. And we all would say we probably have limited resource, time, money, bandwidth, headspace. We need to learn to be more decisive. And because things change so quickly, by the time we've discussed an issue, things have moved on. So I think that the skill is clarity, some of which comes quickly, and some of which is let's actually slow down our decision making to make it more rigorous, we'll probably then make a better decision.

Kristian 30:18

Yeah, I love that, Angelo. Don't know what you think about that point about decisive, not necessarily meaning quick, but I think a decisive person could take a long time gathering information and still be decisive. It's about not getting in that loop, isn't it, of indecision and reevaluating constantly.

Angela Malik 30:34

Yeah, and I was just thinking as I was listening to that, it was reminding me of the work I've been doing recently with one of our colleagues. And her approach to the creation of this document was really to, I am such a doer that I will just be like, let's dive in, let's make decisions as we go. And she was like, hold on, we need to like just reel it back in and make a clear structure on like what are we doing and why are we doing it and what's gonna go in here and what's not gonna go in here. And it was a much slower process than I would prefer usually to work at, but I actually really enjoyed the clarity. And that is what it was. It was clarity, and it was a kind of clarity I feel quite comfortable not having going into projects a lot of times, that actually having it, it's very, very nice. So um, yeah, that's what I was thinking about there, that clarity doesn't necessarily mean working slowly, but it definitely does mean that you do have to kind of stop and make sure that you're clear. So yeah, interesting.

Kristian 31:35

I totally agree. And I think speed for me is about how much time and process you put in before you get there. So someone can be fast, can't they? And indecisive as well. So they can snap to a choice pretty quickly, but then they can still keep reopening it or re-evaluating it or being in a kind of loop of indecision or asking for reassurance, you know, if there's a lack of self-belief there. So if a good decision maker means there's a shared belief that that team or that individual has to be quick, I think there can also be a danger that where people who take a little bit more time to process or are more deliberate at first or process a bit more slowly, their voices don't always get heard, or they don't feel as though they're taken along the journey of somebody who thinks they're decisive but really actually just doesn't like the discomfort of not making a very, very quick response. Sometimes it can just be the decisive person, maybe reducing the anxiety or the uncertainty of maybe not taking action right now.

Angela Malik 32:34

So,

Decide How To Decide

Angela Malik 32:35

from the same episode, we've actually got another clip here, and it's around understanding your decision styles and the process of deciding how to decide. So let's have a listen.

Mark 32:47

I think your experience working with teams very similar to ours. We see a lot of similar challenges, pressures, behaviors. I think, you know, a starting point is do I understand my own decision style and in different contexts how that style might change in one direction or another? Have I given the space and time to understand the different styles of the people I work with? And is there a style in the sort of wider ecosystem of my organization that we either are needing to lean more towards? For example, we're all very intuitive in this innovative startup. We need to dial into more objective data and slow down, or something like that. So some of it's just about understanding and appreciating style and then the connections. But honestly, I think the mistake a lot of people make is because we're time poor and we need to make decisions quickly and we've been told be decisive, we rush the all-important first step, which in our training we call decide how to decide. I think in some of the readings and technical stuff, the meta decision. Let's contract and get clarity on how we're even going to approach this decision. So some simple things like what sort of decision is this? Do we all see this as high consequence and irreversible? Or do some of us actually see this as very reversible? Because how we see a decision has a profound impact on how we approach it. A second example is okay, we're going to debate some different options here and come up with a decision, but are we clear on the criteria we're going to use at the point of decision? Or even as something as simple as who is actually going to make this decision? Is this vote? Is this consensus? Is it going to be derived authority? Is it going to be the person at the top with the D? And again, I think too often we have assumptions that we're clear on these things. And so you hear in rooms questions like, are we all clear? And we're all really nice and we go, yeah, I'm crystal clear. But you drill down. Often people think they're clear and they're absolutely not. And that's where a lot of decision making, I think, breaks down.

Angela Malik 34:32

Interesting. What do you think, Christian?

Kristian 34:35

It reminds me of a workshop that we delivered last year, actually, to a client of ours who were making some big decisions, an SLT who, for the first time, are actually meeting in person and really having to come together as one team, as one unit, and make really huge decisions for that organization that would impact obviously the whole organization. And we explored their different decision styles and preferences. And they found that incredibly useful because it kind of gave them an idea about how their decision-making styles complemented or clashed with one another. So they could start to think about maybe what are the barriers to making those decisions. But actually, I really like that clip because what had the biggest impact was literally deciding on what to decide. So questions like, you know, is this decision or decisions, are they reversible or not? Because the group actually realized that if you can and do some of those decisions, if they were reversible, then it was a case of like, let's just try it, let's just get the data and we can always walk it back. So sometimes it was that helped them to just then decide on the things that they could just decide fast. Another question that they started to discuss was, you know, is actually that more thinking and more analysis actually going to change the answer? Or are we just avoiding commitment here? So I think some of those questions, as well as sort of what state are we in right now? So they were actually kind of experiencing a lot of stress, they were quite tired, and they were emotionally kind of like drained. So they weren't trusting in the process at that moment. We talked about how actually the state you're in can then inform the quality of decisions that you'll make.

Angela Malik 36:17

Well, on that note of being aware of your own decision styles and how you're making decisions as a group, we do have another clip from the same episode actually with Mark Herbert.

Self-Engagement And Impact On Others

Mark 36:28

Another coach I know of, and I've had a conversation with and read some of their things, talks about the difference between self-awareness, which we hear and read lots about, and self-engagement, which goes deeper. So, for instance, you pick up a decision styles profile or something similar, and you become more self-aware of your predisposition in a general sense to how you make decisions, albeit the context might shape and change that. Okay, I have an awareness that I'm quite intuitive and I'm more intuitive than objective. But the self-engagement piece is am I aware in any given context or team how that preference and approach is impacting the people around me and how they then make decisions? Because it's not enough just to go, well, I know I'm intuitive and I know Susan is objective. Okay, we're different. Let's leverage that. When I say something from my gut, what impact does that have on Susan? Does that draw her into the conversation or does it push her away? Or take something like speed. If I'm intuitive and quite quick and I recognize that Susan's quite slow, it's not enough just to be self-aware of that. I need to engage with the reality that when I'm going quick, it doesn't feel quick to me, but to Susan it feels really, really rushed. So am I aware of that and engaging with it? And I think that self-engagement piece that Lawrence Barrett talks about is really, really powerful because it takes us a step deeper than just knowing ourselves. It's actually how are we then going to show up? And that's the emotional intelligence piece that I don't think we go deep enough on in high-performing teams.

Kristian 37:50

Yeah, what do you think about that, Angela? There's lots of tools and ways of, I suppose, increasing self-awareness of things like our strengths and decisions. But Mark alludes to actually the real value of understanding the impact of our preferences and styles on other people.

Angela Malik 38:07

I think actually his point is it's the whole ballgame, really, because like you said, being aware of things is nice, but the so what of that is so how does that play out when I'm interacting with people? What am I doing to recognize the impact of my actions and either mitigate or amplify that, depending on whether that impact is positive or maybe not so positive? So if you've got that down pat, you've probably solved a whole lot of world problems right there.

AI Human Judgement And Closing

Kristian 38:40

I think you're right. It's a good way to start tying up uh this podcast. I think we've started off, I suppose, more focusing on the individual, what happens in the brain, some of the psychological concepts and constructs that are quite unique to judgment and decision making. And then we've then started to move that towards what this means for teams, decision making in organizations. Really enjoyed listening to some of these snippets. And actually, in the future, I know we'll be talking more and more about AI and actually as organizations integrate AI into the ways of working. What does this mean for decision making?

Angela Malik 39:16

Yeah.

Kristian 39:17

How does it impact our human judgment?

Angela Malik 39:19

That is a hundred percent an entirely different episode on itself because I've already got just off the top of my head about three completely different points around AI and human judgment decision making. So I am looking forward to having that discussion on this podcast for sure.

Kristian 39:36

Me too.

Angela Malik 39:37

Well then, Christian, lovely to be with you today talking about decision styles, decision making.

Kristian 39:42

Always a pleasure.

Angela Malik 39:44

And as always, we didn't miss Amanda this time, but we're looking forward to having her back very soon. And for anyone else who was listening, if you enjoyed this episode, please do give it a like, give it a share, and we hope you have a wonderful and successful day.