Why do we make wrong decisions?

 Why do we make wrong decisions? 

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

We are discussing the thinking traps which affect our quality of decision making. Last week we discussed the thinking trap of "giving excess weightage to the first information." The second thinking trap is " Not to disturb the status quo."

 
The term "status quo" can be defined as preserving the existing practices or doing comfortable things.
 
We believe that we make decisions logically, but our mind prefers to preserve the existing practices or comfort when we make decisions.

For example,

we prefer to go to the office on a fixed route and timings;
being comfortable to deal with a few chosen vendors/customers/banks or people in the business;
having lunch or free time chatting with a few colleagues;
choosing a fixed seating location in a meeting or training session;
sticking with fixed agenda in regular meetings.

We hesitate to disturb what we feel more comfortable to us. That is the nature of our thinking process of not disturbing the status quo.
 
Why do we have the thinking of sticking on to comfort?

The source for sticking to the status quo or comfort is our internal ego or fear. When there is change, there will be some challenges; we need to take responsibility, there will be some actions that may be favorable or non-favorable, which may affect our status. That is why we prefer to stick to the existing situation as much as possible.

That is the reason when you drive some new initiatives in the organization,it would become a challenge as generally, people do not want to disturb the existing way of familiar working to new way of working.
 
 
How to overcome this thinking trap?

• As long as the status quo is not affecting our personal or our business objective, no need to change. Alternatively, if you realize the objective is not achieved due to sticking to the status quo, we need to change it. That awareness or clarity between current status vs. goal is required.
• We need not conclude that the existing status quo is the only option available. We need to be open to multiple options, which can be practiced by asking what else in every decision-making situation.
• Constantly evaluating the cost-benefit analysis in any options against the status quo will help change the perception of sticking to the status quo.

We need to be aware of thinking traps while making decisions.
  
Let us discuss some other thinking traps next week.
 
Have a great week ahead!

Why do we make wrong decisions?

 Why do we make wrong decisions? 

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

As we have been discussing "making effective decisions," research says that even though we are equipped with many decision-making processes, tools, and techniques, we are psychologically trapped in our thinking process, which affects the quality of decisions we make in our personal life and professional lives.

 
Let us discuss some of the psychological thinking traps in the coming weeks, as the awareness of the same will help us make better decisions.
 
One of the most common thinking traps is "Giving excessive weightage to first information" and taking decisions based on it.

For example,

when we meet a person for the first time, we form an internal perception based on the dressings, tone, ascend, or physique. We make decisions based on it. Later on, the reality may be pleasant or unpleasant. That is the thinking trap of giving excessive weightage to the first impression.

similarly,

When we intend to buy a product or property, we may not know its real value. When the seller initiates the price by stating X, we will decide to purchase or negotiate around the value of X only, and the probability of thinking Y is very low since we are anchored too much on the FIRST Information.

When we set the annual sales target in the organization, either the team will go by last year's performance or the past 3 / 5 years average as the mind is anchored to the first-hand information rather than looking beyond.

That is the thinking trap in decision-making.
 
How to overcome the thinking trap of giving excessive weightage to first information?
 

1. Being aware of our thinking trap when we make important decisions.
2. Doing some work beforehand and getting others' opinions so that we may not be confined with only one piece of information. ( some of us do!) for example, as in buying a product at a given X price, do research and get comprehensive data about the product to avoid the anchoring trap.
3. Going beyond the past or first information – for example, as in sales target example, rather than working from the past, set the target based on the business's market potential.

 
It is natural to get into the thinking trap, and being aware of it will help make the right decisions in personal and professional life!
 
Let us discuss some other thinking traps next week!

Have a great week ahead!

How to overcome decision dilemmas?

 In a professional environment, except for routine decisions, many of us get into the decision dilemma. The dilemma is whether we can decide in a given situation, despite sufficient data points and assumptions available. Internally fear of making wrong decisions puts us in a dilemma.

In this process, neither we make decisions nor be peaceful as non-decisiveness puts us in a disturbed state. How do we get the clarity or courage to overcome the dilemma?

For example, consider this situation.

You are head of manufacturing and received a message from your customer that they rejected the recent consignments and would impose the penalty if not replaced quickly. As this situation may typically happen, you can manage on your own. However, you have a dilemma whether you need to inform your boss or not.

Even though the problem is manageable, you have a typical decision dilemma. If you inform your boss, he may get angry with you. If you do not notify your boss, you can avoid the immediate pain of emotional drama. In case if your boss comes to know the issue at a  later stage, he would perceive it as an integrity issue, which may be much painful for you. That is a decision dilemma.

Similarly, as a manager or leader, you may have decision dilemmas in many instances like whether to recruit a person for a key role or not, whether to give feedback to a non-performer or not, whether to accept a new assignment or not. You might have come across many situations wherein you stuck to making decisions.
 
Here, we need to get clarity of our decision vs. consequence by weighing many outcomes.

The simple tool of decision vs. consequence will be helpful to overcome the dilemmas.

 

 As in the above example, if you decide to inform your boss about quality issues, you can list down all the positive and negative consequences. Also, when you decide not to inform your boss, you can list down all the positive and negative consequences. When you list down all the probable positive and negative consequences of "informing" and "not informing," you may get clarity on which path to take.

This simple tool will help to think clearly to overcome the decision dilemma.

We have a mix of emotions that puts us in a dilemma that we can overcome with rational evaluation by correlating decision vs. consequence.

You may try next time when you have a decision dilemma!
 
Have a great week ahead!

i am good at rational decision-making!

 i am good at rational decision-making!

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

As we have discussed some of the myths of decision-making, most of us have one more misconception: "believing that i am good at rational or logical decision-making." 

In a professional environment, as a manager or leader, we firmly believe that we make decisions based on the facts, logical conclusions upon data analysis, and structured evaluation of pros and cons. It is not true, and many psychology studies proved that finally, emotions overdrive logic.

Our decisions are driven mainly by emotions which sometimes lead to mistakes or substandard performance.

For example, you might have encountered an experience when you wanted to purchase any gadgets or home appliances. You might have set the budget, decided the mode of purchase, browsed, verified with many people, and decided to buy a particular brand or product. However, at the last moment, that decision might have been changed just by one adverse information or news about the brand /model or even a solid positive opinion about an alternative brand or model by someone close to you. All your logical thinking and  decisions were collapsed just by one emotional feeling of "not to be on the wrong side."

I have a personal experience that one of my books was selling reasonably well on Amazon with positive reviews till one anonymous buyer gave an adverse comment about me and the content. Post that review; there was a considerable reduction in the sales performance. The reason could be the reader's buying decision is biased towards "not to be on the wrong side." Logically readers should go by the count of positive vs. negative comments, but reality would be biased to the latest negative comments. That is the power of emotions over any rational or logical thinking.

So, since emotion is so powerful in our decision-making process, we need to be aware of our state of mind when making important decisions in a professional environment like taking calls on people, business expansion, investment, reacting to customer's complaints. Any impulsive decisions we take in an extreme emotional state will lead to a wrong or negative consequence.

The next option is to defer the decision when we are highly emotional.

Awareness is required on emotional state when we make a decision!

Have a great week ahead!

Book -The Almanack of Naval Ravikant

 Book -The Almanack of Naval Ravikant 

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

 

Recently i came across the book -The Almanack of Naval Ravikant -A guide to wealth and happiness as recommended by one of my wellwishers.

Naval Ravikant is an entrepreneur, philosopher, and investor who is famous for sharing his principles for building wealth and creating long-term happiness. This book is a collection of his wisdom and experience which were shared in twitter and podcast for last 10 years.

Unlike research-based books, this book is a compilation of many wisdom and principles related to creating wealth and pursuing happiness by leveraging more of today's advancement in technology and business environment.

Easy to read and relate to in today's context.Recommend this book if you would like to get more perspective on wealth creation and happiness in today's context and from living personality.

This book is available for free download in the following website
https://www.navalmanack.com

Have a great week ahead!

How does decision-making improve self-confidence?

 How does decision-making improve self-confidence? 

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

As we are discussing the myths about decision making, one of the myths is that self-confident people are capable of making decisions as they are sure in their thinking process to select the right choices. It may be partially true as naturally, the decision-making is obvious for them.

In reality, not all people are confident in all circumstances. One finding says that 85 % of people suffer from low self-esteem, affecting communication and decision-making capability in the professional environment. How to improve the confidence of those people to make better decisions?

In my personal experience, whenever i  struggle with low confidence in any aspect, i use to make decisions and then act on them in a small way; eventually, it improves my confidence. 

The process goes like this. When we decide to work on any issues, there is always a 50 % probability of success. That probability of success will give positive reinforcement to take slightly higher-level decisions and actions. Inturn that likelihood of success leads to making even more higher-level decisions and actions. In that way, an individual can increase confidence.

For example,

Most of us have fear in public speaking or stage fear to communicate the idea or present. When you decide to crack and plunge into action by addressing a few of your known colleagues or friends, you positively reinforce speaking in a small gathering.

Next time, when you decide to do it in a larger audience of known people, your subconscious mind pushes positively, as you already demonstrated in a small group. So, you can make it relatively easy.

Next time, when you decide to do it in a larger audience of unknown people, your previous decision and success positively push you to do it well.

 By doing so many times, your confidence in public speaking improves as you primarily decide to do it.


Hence, when you make a small series of decisions and actions in any professional challenges or workplace issues, the probability of success makes you a more confident person rather than being a confident person makes you a good decision-maker.
 
As a professional, the more you motivate yourself to take a series of minor decisions and actions, eventually, that will make you more confident in your professional life.
 
Have a great week ahead.

"i need to be efficient in decision making."

 "i need to be efficient in decision making."

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

Last week, we discussed a misconception and reasoning behind  " indecisiveness," there is one more misconception, which is quite opposite of indecision. That is urge on "i need to be more efficient on decision making."
 
According to this mindset, we measure our efficiency as the speed of making decisions and the quantum of decisions we take every day. Compared to inactiveness, efficiency is relatively better, however, what matters for managers and leaders is effectiveness—the impact of the decisions on others and the business.
 
For example, consider this situation.
 
In one of the organizations, the business head is engaged and busy in instructing the team on many trivial issues like approving the leave application, fixing the connectivity issues by calling the relevant agency, and so on. Despite having an excellent team to do all mundane decisions and actions, he seemed fulfilled when he engaged himself in many trivial decisions.

Eventually, he is getting decision fatigue. Most of the critical business decisions like streamlining delivery, productivity, and supply chain decisions are not being taken by him, which he only can take decisions in the organization. The urge and practice of involving and jumping into all decisions eventually affect the organization's prospects.
 
When you are growing, it is expected to make impactful decisions than the speed of the decisions, even in trivial issues.

I have witnessed one of my ex-colleague who was considered a bright candidate at a young age due to his speed in making decisions and making things happen. When he was promoted to senior management level, he eventually lost his creditability due to his impulsive decision-making style in many initiatives, which backfired against him and the organization.
 
Except in emergencies, quick  / speed decisions are not required to solve chronic issues or any strategic future-related challenges. 
 
Having the idea of being efficient by making fast, more decision-making is just a misconception. It just needs awareness!

As professionals, we need to be aware of our effectiveness by making impactful decisions that we can only take.

Have a great week ahead.
 

i need to make the right decision always !!!

  I need to make the right decision always !!!

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

One of the myths most of us have in the workplace on making decisions is "i need to make the right decision."
 

The mindset of always making the right decision leads to either perfectionism or looking for more data/ facts and too much analysis, eventually ending up with not making any decisions or delaying the decisions.

Obviously, we come to know whether the decision is right or wrong only when taken and not while finalizing the choice.

The effect of this mindset makes the people either too passive in not making decisions or being rude to prove to the world that their decision is right at any cost. Both behaviors are not good for the individual and the organization.

For example, as a manager, you need to decide to recruit a person after an interview. Instead of focusing too much on the right or wrong recruit, you have a choice to focus on the process of shortlisting, interview methodology, and make a deliberate choice. You will come to know whether the decision is right or wrong only after the person joins the organization and performs.

The capability is expected from the manager or leader is the ability to choose with the given facts than looking for too much perfectionism or worrying too much about the consequence.

Another example, as we are aware of the decision taken by the TATA group some years ago, to launch a low-cost, affordable car (NANO). During that time, it was applauded as bold, correct decisions. Today, they stopped manufacturing the model itself due to various reasons. Would we say it was the wrong decision? No…When they decided with the good intentions of providing affordable cars, the assumptions were different. Today they decided to stop manufacturing with the market reality as it was different from the earlier hypotheses. They demonstrated leadership by making decisions with the right motive and available data points.

In professional life, depending upon the role and the situations, we need to make decisions with good intentions and available information; time only will decide whether the decision is right or wrong. We need not worry too much about the consequence.

Also, we need to understand that decision-making is not an event; it is a process. That means it is continuous and ongoing.

Hence, as a manager/ leader, we need to decide with available facts and the right motive than worrying too much about the consequences of always being RIGHT.

It is better to be active by making decisions than to be passive by not making timely decisions.

We need to be aware of our mindsets towards labeling the decisions as right or wrong.

Let us discuss some more myths next week.

Developing Decision Making Skill @ workplace

 Developing Decision Making Skill @ workplace 

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

One of the competencies a professional should develop is making decisions in personal and professional life.

Generally, some of the decisions we take quickly without much thinking and effort like which dress to wear, what to eat, etc. Because those decisions are routine and no risk. Some decisions are difficult to make as it calls for more thought-process and effort. For example, should i switch careers from one industry to another?  should i diversify my business now or later? Should we buy petrol or an electric vehicle?

We are stuck in making decisions when there is ambiguity in the facts/assumptions and unsure about the future consequences. Most of the decisions in a professional environment are complex and uncertain; how to develop decision-making competency as a leader?

Why do we need to develop decision-making competency?

From a personal perspective, we are getting confidence only through our actions. When we decide and take actions, that will boost our confidence to take higher decisions and actions. we are growing only through our choices and actions

From a professional perspective, when we are growing up, we are being paid to make the right decisions based on the set of data or assumptions. Managers and Leaders are meant for making decisions, either right or wrong.

"decisions followed by action leads to results either good or bad."

Whatever we are today due to the combination of various decisions we took in life in many instances.

 
For example,

i decided to attend one training programme in 2008 despite time and high cost, which transformed my career.
i took an impulsive decision in one of the investments, which affected me heavily on the financial front
i took a decision to reject a career change opportunity from manufacturing to IT consulting, which helped me in the long term with high returns 

Whether the outcome is right or wrong, we make some decisions, which shape us into what we are today.
 
You may relate your life and the decisions you have taken in many instances that positively or negatively impact your quality of life.
 
 In a professional setup, given any circumstances, how we develop decision-making skills depends on how we process the information and counter the consequences. It needs some awareness of ourselves and the decision-making process.
 
 Let us discuss some of the insights in the following weeks to get more awareness of the decision-making process.
 

• Misconceptions on decision making
• Why do we have decision dilemmas or hesitate to take decisions in a professional environment?
• How to overcome the decision dilemma or hesitation?
• Skills to develop on solving problems
• Tools and Techniques that help you to make decisions easily
• How to inculcate the culture of decision-making in the organization?

Have a great week ahead!

Being aware of your time spending pattern

 Being aware of your time spending pattern 

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)
 

We discussed the first important step to effective time management is knowing our priorities with reference to our position. The second step is being aware of current priorities or time management.

How to find your current level of time management effectiveness?

Some people are gifted with an inherent, sharp awareness of self, and they manage their time well. For others, a conscious attempt is required to be aware of the self-time spending pattern.

For those, the following methodology will help. This simple methodology worked me very well when i did in my current role, and some insights enabled me to change some of my behaviors in spending time in some low-level activities, and i could find some alternatives for the activities which i cannot delegate.

Hope this  method may be helpful to you as well
 
1. For a week, track your activities for every 15 min ~30 min time slot and note down the activities. For example, Travelling to work from 8 am to 8.45 am; spending time in meeting from 2 pm to 3 pm; Preparing a presentation for customers from 10 am to 11.30 am and spending time in the mobile app from 6 pm to 7 pm and so on.
2. Once you consciously track the activities for a week, you can group the activities under major categories like meeting time, traveling time, complaint resolution, spending time with colleagues, etc.


3. when you analyze your time with reference to various activities, you will find a pattern of useful, relevant activities to your prime priorities. You will find some irrelevant, not much useful, or useless activities that you can avoid or delegate to someone. You will get insights into your spending pattern and some of your behaviors that lead to spending in activities.

Once you know your pattern and its relevance to your current role, you may change your habits and delegation style.
 
To summarise,

Time management is priority management. We need to be clear about what is required for our role, and we need to be aware of the gap in our time spending pattern with reference to our core priorities.

Awareness is the first step for subsequent actions like avoiding, delegating, combining with other activities.

Have a great week ahead!