The Secret To Making Difficult Decisions
You scan the room — eyes are on you and you alone. A sense of dread fills you. You have to inform the group that a decision you made on the way forward has failed. This failure has set the team back, resulting in delays and possibly a missed deadline. No one blames you outwardly, but you feel it. A brainstorming session ensues, alternative plans are made, and you quietly tell yourself it’s better if you keep your mouth shut this time around.
I found myself in this situation recently. We were having problems with a specific product we make. We couldn’t get it to pass the testing phase. We needed to ship them before the week’s end, and our deadline was fast approaching. Money and the customer’s opinion of us were on the line. With urgent pressure coming in from management, I came up with an alternate test plan, a sort of preliminary test we could do to isolate the failure source.
We trained our testers on the method and acquired all the tools we needed. We pulled the trigger and managed to isolate the source of the failure. But when inspecting the product after this test we realized we had caused internal damage and would have to rework this part and start over. My decision had failed.
In this article, I will share a method of assessing whether a decision you made was right or not. This method will allow you to make decisions about challenging situations with confidence.
Putting Yourself Out There
Look, I get it. It’s tough putting yourself out there both in work and in life. But if you don’t contribute or take risks, you will regress to the mean and ultimately never leave your mark in your organization, life, or the world.
I realized this in my career through one lateral move after the other. Managers loved my work, but I never got that promotion. After some self-reflection, I realized this was because I followed orders and executed extremely well. What I failed to do is put myself out there and take calculated risks for fear of failing and appearing…well, stupid.
And so, with that in mind, I began voicing my thoughts and opinions in areas I had knowledge and experience. I started making independent decisions on how to proceed in situations where the way forward wasn’t clear. Some of these decisions turned out great. I was the hero. Some of these turned out like the scenario I described at the beginning. I made things worse.
I Hate Losing More than I Like Winning
Did you know that researchers have determined the pain of losing is twice as intense compared to the pleasure of winning? We feel our losses much more than our wins. My friend neatly summed this up for me one day by saying:
“I’ll let you in on a secret — I hate losing more than I like winning”
And boy, do I hate losing. I didn’t know how to handle being wrong.
That was before I started thinking in bets.
Thinking in Bets to Make Better Decisions
Annie Duke’s book of the same name taught me there are 2 factors to each decision: the decision process and the decision outcome. The following is a simple model for the decision-making process we all engage in daily:
Input + Decision Process + Luck = Decision Outcome
- Input: The sources of data and information we collect
- Decision Process: The tools, techniques, and methods we use to make decisions
- Luck: Uncertainty. Randomness. The unknown factor that is impossible to quantify and predict
- Decision Outcome: The result of our overall decision
We can only control two of those items: input and the decision process.
Luck, and the resulting decision outcome, are out of our control.
Annie calls it “thinking in bets” because she challenges you to see it from the view of a poker player. A poker player knows what cards she has and what shared cards are on the table (the inputs). From this information, she uses her knowledge of the game and some statistical thinking to decide on whether to bet or fold (the decision process). What she does not know is what cards the opponents have been dealt (luck).
Our poker player may have a solid set of cards and makes the correct decision to bet. Her opponent may have a weaker set of cards, and now our poker player wins. However, her opponent may have better cards and now she loses. Regardless of that outcome, our poker player made the right decision betting with the information and decision processes she had and used.
Sticking With It
Now that we know this essential piece of information, the situation I found myself earlier becomes a lot easier to manage. You can now explain to your colleagues, to management, to customers (or whoever) that while the decision outcome was undesirable, the decision process itself was as good as it could have been under the circumstances.
The process of reaching this decision consisted of engaging with our engineering department on alternative tests to isolate the cause of the failure. It also consisted of reviewing the tooling and equipment needed to perform this test and reviewing the technical documents related to the product to ensure we didn’t exceed any maximum design values.
The test outcome was unfortunate because one of the tools we used in this test moved freely once certain conditions were met, which caused internal damage. At the time of the decision-making process, there was simply no way to know that it was a possibility although it is now evident in hindsight. This is the random element associated with any decision you make.
Knowing all the factors that go into a decision making process does not make you immune to the luck element and certainly will not change the outcomes of your decisions. But it does enable you to make decisions confidently knowing that you have sourced the best available inputs, and the best decision making processes available to you.
Key Takeaways for Making Better Decisions:
- Input + Decision Process + Luck = Decision Outcome
- Focus on the quality of the decision making process and not the decision outcome
- This will give you the confidence you need to make decisions in difficult situations where the path forward is not clear
Hey there, thanks for reading all the way to the end! I’m an engineer solving real problems with real people. I write articles on productivity, decision making, motivation, and more. Join my subscriber list and learn along with me.
