Problem defining trap in decision making

 Problem defining trap in decision making 

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

As we have been discussing the thinking trap and how it affects our bias in decision-making, one more thinking the trap is "Problem defining trap."
 
What is meant by a problem-defining trap?
 
In a daily situation, defining the problem or narrating the situation determines our decision-making quality. When the same problem is defined in two different ways and informed to you, you will react in two different ways, leading to right or wrong decision making.
 
For example,

You are offered a coupon by online purchase, and it says that you can redeem anytime; you may not react to redeem immediately as you decided to redeem later. In contrast, the offer is said to be redeemed within three days; you decide to redeem it immediately as you inherently do not want to take the risk of losing something.

You are reacting or making decisions based on how the statement is defined.
 
Similarly, if your customer gives orders to your organization and says that you will get more orders in the future if you deliver on time. You may be doing your best to deliver on time but not too desperate to complete on time. Alternatively, if your customer says that you will be penalized in terms of LD charges if you are not delivering on time, your reaction and decisions would be too aggressive to finish the order on time as you do not want to go through pain.
 
We are reacting to how the statement or problems are defined and presented to us.
 
The key learning is how we are defining the statements or defining the problems that eventually determine our decision-making capabilities.

In one of my client organizations, management had poorly reacted to union representatives when they asked for wage revision in absolute terms and ended up with some in-house layoffs and work stoppages. When i reframed the wage increase in terms of proportional value to future sales potential, the management realized that the union's demand was nothing to worry about as the net increase was small compared to sales.

Most of us get into the trap of looking at the problem in fixed ways and get into the thinking trap.
 
How can we overcome this defining trap?

1. When you are confronting problems, try to practice not to accept as defined by you or others; try to reframe or redefine the situation and look at whether the decision approach is changed or not. That will give you a clue that you are working on a poorly defined problem.
2. When somebody makes a decision, always examine how they framed the problem and challenge their assumption or the definition of the problem. That way, you will learn to look at the problem differently.
 
Awareness is important as we stick to the problem statement narrated to us, which may lead to the wrong decision-making approach.
 
Let us discuss another trap next week.
 
Have a great week ahead!