Tag Archives: decision making

September 6, 2016 · 11:32 am

What I Learned From My Week Away

I’m back! After a week away from the screed, I’ve returned to this space refreshed and ready. You might wonder how a week of not writing could be helpful to my writing. Ask anyone who writes regularly and they’ll tell you that writing’s like a muscle: if you don’t exercise it regularly it will atrophy. I have a bit of an issue with that and the reason why is something that might help any of us who are in business.

Sagittal human brain with cortical regions del...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Writing is a habit. We all know that there are good habits and bad ones, but all of us have them. We might think of them as our daily routine and many of them we do without really thinking. If you’ve ever been driving a route you travel on a daily basis and gotten to your destination without remembering much about the trip, you know what I mean. As an article about a wonderful book called “The Power Of Habit” I read a few years ago said:

Neuroscientists have traced our habit-making behaviors to a part of the brain called the basal ganglia, which also plays a key role in the development of emotions, memories, and pattern recognition. Decisions, meanwhile, are made in a different part of the brain called the prefrontal cortex. But as soon as a behavior becomes automatic, the decision-making part of your brain goes into a sleep mode of sorts.

I broke my writing habit for a week because I felt as if I had gone into that sleep mode. There have been a few times recently when I began a post only to realize that I’d written something similar a few years earlier. My brain was actually working less. I’m willing to bet that either you or people within your organization are behaving in exactly the same manner. They are following the same daily routine in how they perform their jobs. Maybe they’re doing the equivalent of what I found myself doing – rewriting the same things over and over without really thinking or maybe just doing their jobs they way they’d always done them.

So here is what I learned. I am going to post a bit less often with an eye toward not having the screed be a habit. Rather than getting up each day and spending time reading news feeds in order to do my habitual writing duty I’m going to focus on finding fewer topics that resonate more with me and, hopefully, with you. Maybe that’s something you can think about with respect to you or your business: do less and in so doing, do more. Make it less about quantity and more about quality. After all, those of you who read this are my customers (and hopefully on the road to being clients!). Fulfilling my habit might have just been cluttering up your inboxes or taking a couple of minutes of your time without offering real value. That was a bad habit. What are yours?

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August 14, 2015 · 9:34 am

Bad Choices

A little science for our Foodie Friday Fun this week, and a business point to boot.  I read about a study conducted by some Swedish scientists.  They were trying to understand why people make bad food choices.  You know what those are – the candy bar instead of the apple when we want a snack or the quart of soda when we’re thirsty.  Turns out that there is a scientific reason why we do so, and it’s not just the sugar high:

Scientists believe they have evidence that stressful situations really do affect the self-control mechanisms in our brain, making us more prone to unhealthy choices. In a small study, Swiss researchers at the University of Zurich found that people who were exposed to an unpleasant experience prior to making a food choice were more likely to go for the unhealthy, but tastier option. Scientists also analysed the brain patterns of people in the study and saw that exposure to stress altered connections between brain regions in a way that may have affected capacity for self-control.

That is from The Independent’s report on the study.  So stressful situations really do make us more likely to eat unhealthy food, but it appears that they cause bad decision-making overall as well.  That’s kind of scary when you think about it.  After all, how many of us lead completely stress-free lives when we’re at work?  There is always a deadline or a revenue goal looming on the horizon.  How does that affect our ability to make good choices?

There are some things we can try that might help.  First, stop beating yourself up.  No one dies when most of us fail.  I hate to get all Stuart Smalley on you, but we ARE good and smart enough.  Next, allow yourself more time – get to bed a little earlier, have more time in the morning to ease into the day, get to the office when it’s quiet and use the time to plan ahead.  Get up from your desk and stretch.  Walk around. Breathe, and remind yourself that this storm will pass.

You may think that maintaining a high level of stress keeps you energized, but you’re wrong.  It’s clouding your judgement and hurting your success.  Choosing the wrong snack is bad and it might hurt you in the long run.  Making bad business choices is worse and could hurt many more people than just you.

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June 19, 2014 · 10:30 am

Decision making

How do you make decisions?  We make many of them every day.  Some are as simple as what to wear or what to have for supper; others involve far more complex thinking and input from many sources.  The folks over at The Economist Intelligence Unit released a study on decision-making and I thought you might find some of what they discovered of interest.  You can read the entire thing here – it’s a 15 page document.

Let’s start with the conclusion:

Data are a highly prized commodity when it comes to making decisions. As The Economist Intelligence Unit’s survey shows, more senior managers consider themselves to be “data-driven” decision-makers than any other available option. And when asked what would improve decision-making, most choose “better ability to analyze data”…Intuition is also valued highly, even among decision-makers who consider themselves data-driven. Evidently both intuition and analysis contribute to effective decision-making, in business as in life. Rather than a weakness that must be avoided, intuition should instead be seen as a skill that is appropriate in the right circumstances.

I find that fascinating since many of the folks with whom I’ve worked over the years have gone out of their way to avoid “I think” in favor of “the data shows.”  There is a term in aviation – spatial disorientation – that refers to when a pilot’s perception of direction does not agree with reality.  They must use the aircraft’s instruments or risk flying themselves into trouble (as in “the ground”).  That’s an instance where intuition is a really bad idea – you must rely on the data.  The same is true as we fly our businesses.

There are business circumstances where data-driven decisions have to rule.  We as human business people don’t seem to like that:

“When making a decision, if the available data contradicted your gut feeling, what would you do?” By far the most popular response, with 57% of the sample, is “Re-analyze the data”. This is followed by “Collect more data”, chosen by 30%.

Who are you going to believe – me or your lying numbers, to paraphrase the old joke.  Maybe this is the art/science debate.  Parts of marketing should revolve around data (science) and some decisions must be based on your gut – art, in my mind.  While finance may be data-driven, designers need solid intuition.  Sometimes we don’t have the data we need or want.  Sometimes what we have overwhelms us or conflicts with itself.

I think the best outcomes are decisions made by people with vast experience who have seen reams of data over the years and understand when it’s relevant, even if it conflicts with their feelings.  I agree with the conclusion that intuition is a useful skill.  What do you think?

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