Think about your most important decisions till date.
Now rewind how you went about making those decisions. You would have used some mental frameworks, knowingly or unknowingly.
Have you ever thought about your frequently used frameworks?
The Heath brothers wrote a book called “Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard” that explains two common ways of making decisions — consequences and identity.
Let’s dive into these models and how they can impact the choices we make.
Consequences Model of Decision-Making
First, there is the consequences model. This model is all about being rational and analytical.
Imagine you’re trying to decide between two vendors for a project. They’ve given you quotes with different prices, supply timelines, and guarantees.
To make this decision, you might break down each vendor’s pros and cons, assigning scores to different factors. Then, you’d choose the vendor with the highest score.
This approach is logical and based on weighing the costs and benefits of each option.
Identity Model of Decision-Making
What if you have to choose between working late on a Saturday and keeping your family dinner plans?
Even if you have time to think it over, you might not create a pros and cons list. Instead, you’ll likely consider what matters most to you at that moment.
Your gut knows a lot more about this choice.
You might prioritize being a loving family member and decide to tell your manager about your plans.
Or perhaps you want to be seen as a dependable employee. Since it’s for an important project, you choose to reschedule your family dinner.
This way of thinking is called the identity-based decision-making model.
In one of my previous jobs, I politely refused to attend an after-work party with colleagues by saying no to my manager, even after his repeated insistence.
I honestly told him that I had to publish my song on my Youtube channel in the next 2 days, hence I could not join. I was creating an identity of an ‘accountable creator’. That decision helped me publish my first Youtube song on my channel timely.
In the identity model, we ask ourselves three important questions:
Who am I?
What kind of situation is this?
What would someone like me do in this situation?
It’s less about calculating scores and more about aligning our decisions with our sense of self.
Think about it this way. Before trying to change someone’s behavior, think if they want to be that kind of person. If yes, it’s more likely they’ll agree with your idea.
Otherwise, you’ll need to work harder to convince them that this change is in line with their identity or the person they want to become.
Why is Identity model Important?
Consider again the important decisions you’ve made in your life. Could you have approached them differently?
In complex and ambiguous decisions, the rational mind goes into paralysis analysis. It often goes into the depth of all that’s wrong and misses out the point in the process.
Too many variables and unknowns confuse the rational brain. What we call gut decisions are actually our body’s internal mechanism that takes in all the variables and throws at us signals as feelings.
While we like to believe that we decide using Think-Analyze-Act, many decisions in life are taken as See-Feel-Act.
In most practical cases, it’s a mix of both the approaches, but the relative share of each model varies. You need to ensure you are giving the right weights to each.
Conclusion
Being conscious of our decision-making process can lead to improved decisions and self-awareness. The brain and the gut can work as friends to make things easier for us.
So, next time you face a tough choice, ask yourself: Who am I, what’s the situation, and what would the person I want to become do in this situation?
It might just lead you to the right decision.
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