Making of an Empire

Episode 4 - Unlocking the Science of Decision-Making with Trygve Botn

• Aditi Jajal-Newey

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The Help Me Unlock Podcast has been rebranded to Making of an Empire. Same magic, same awesome guest line-up, just a bit of that empire energy! 

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Every day you are running a business, you are making decisions. Some are small. Some will quietly shape the next five years. And most of us are making them with far less structure than we think. In this episode, Aditi sits down with decision scientist Trygve Botn to unpack the hidden architecture behind every good decision, and why a good outcome does not always mean you made a good choice.


Let's Dive Into the Highlights

  • Decision vs Outcome: The distinction most of us collapse, and why separating the two is the first and most important step to becoming a better decision maker.
  • The Decision Quality Framework: Trygve walks through his six-element framework live, using Aditi's real-time office space decision as the working example. Frame, objectives, alternatives, information, reasoning, commitment. In that order.
  • More Information Does Not Mean Better Decisions: Why drowning in data before you have clarity on your objectives is one of the most common and costly decision-making mistakes entrepreneurs make.
  • System One vs System Two: The neuroscience of intuition and analytical thinking, and the simple test Trygve uses to know which system a decision actually requires.
  • The Pressure Sale Problem: Why those 24-hour countdown timers work, and the one question Trygve says you should ask yourself before any impulse purchase to immediately cut through the urgency.


Behind the Breakthrough

Trygve Botn is the founder and CEO of ThinQ Decisions, a consulting firm focused on transferring decision-making skills to organisations and individuals. With over 15 years of experience in the energy industry, including time as a decision science analyst at Chevron, he has been part of over 300 projects and investment decisions.

Trygve holds a Master of Science in International Business from the Norwegian Business School and is a fellow at the Society of Decision Professionals. His work sits at the intersection of behavioural science, values, and structured thinking, helping people and organisations stop leaving their best decisions to chance.


The Guest Said It Best

"A decision is something I choose as a conscious act of choices. And when I make a decision, I may end up with a good outcome or I may end up with a bad outcome."

"It's not meaning that more information equals better decision."

"You should always do this test: does this feel right with what I know? Regardless, at some point when things become too complex, there should at least be a strong signpost that you should probably turn into more of a structured approach."

"Today, information is not, there's no scarcity around access to information at all, right? You can find everything you need to find. And yet, are we making better quality decisions?"


Key Takeaways

  1. Separate the Decision from the Outcome: A good outcome does not mean you made a good decision. Judging your choices by how they turn out is how you stay stuck making the same kind of decisions. Judge the quality of the process instead.
  2. Frame the Problem Before You Choose: Most bad decisions happen because the frame was too narrow or too broad from the start. Clarity on what you are actually trying to solve is the work that makes everything else easier.
  3. Only Gather Information That Can Change Your Mind: If the information you are collecting would not shift which alternative you choose, it has no decision value. Stop gathering it and start deciding.
  4. Know When to Use Your Gut: Intuition is fast, efficient and often correct for low-stakes choices. But when complexity, ambiguity and consequences increase, slow down and get structured.
  5. Clear Objectives are Your Defence Against Pressure Tactics: Before any significant purchase or commitment, write down what you are trying to accomplish. If the thing in front of you does not serve those objectives, the urgency is not your problem to solve.


A Question for You

Trygve points out that we have more access to information today than at any point in history, and yet we are not necessarily making better decisions. So the next time you face a significant choice, before you gather more data, can you answer this first: what am I actually trying to accomplish here, and what does a good outcome really look like for me?


Take the Next Step

Want to go deeper on decision quality for your business or organisation? Trygve and the ThinQ Decisions team are the place to start.

Connect with Trygve:


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