When to take simple and hard decision-making approaches?
We all make decisions; however, we all have our very own individual process for decision-making. Our mind shapes our ability to decide, based on our experiences, context, outlook, and orientations. This decision-making ability is unique to us and changes with time.
Decision-making, at its simplest, is about making a rational choice when faced with more than one option.
Decision-making process is a reasoning process based on assumptions of the decision-maker’s values, preferences, and beliefs.
An individual decision-making process, which is a psychological process, varies heavily in its output — making us choose irrationally or incorrectly at times. Moreover, with time, most of us subconsciously acquire biases that further influence our ability to make better decisions.
Decision-making situations can be visualized on a spectrum with situations needing simple decisions on one end and hard choices on the other.
Simple decisions are intuitive. They don’t need any particular cognitive or collaborative endeavor to reach. Simple decisions are almost automatically thought about in our minds, like triggering a neural circuitry.
An example would be when you feel hungry. You know you need to eat once you eat, the problem (hunger) goes away. This approach of deciding sub-consciously or intuitively or with less cognitive heavy lifting works well for us where the stakes are low.
In fact, given that an average adult makes approximately 35k2decisions a day. This strategy of decision-making brings in the necessary speed and agility to make more low impact decisions.
On the other hand, a hard decision is needed to be taken deliberately, consciously, and after evaluating the pros and cons deeply. These are decisions that need to be taken where the decision will have a significant impact.
Generally, these decisions also have an additional dimension of irreversibility. That is, these decisions are either completely irreversible or partially reversible with high costs. And therefore, getting them right or instead not getting them wrong is critical.
There are few influencing factors for evaluating situations where hard decision-making is essential:
Hard Decision = f ( complexity, uncertainty, multiple objectives)
- Complexity: Here, the options to decide from are not evident. The possibilities are either not available or not well-formed or analyzed in sufficient detail to decide with confidence.
- Uncertainty: This factor influences the effectiveness of the decision. One is just not sure enough if, after making a decision, the desired outcome will be attained.
- Multiple-Objectives: There are scenarios where decision-making may become challenging when multiple objectives are pursued or oppose each other. This is common when many stakeholders are trying to follow specific outcomes that may further entangle the problem and make decision-making hard.
The higher the presence of the factors mentioned above in your context, the more thorough the decision-making process should be. Making it a situation where a more concerted, focused, and unbiased evaluation is completed before deciding. You want to avoid taking a simple decision approach towards a problem that needs hard decision making.
Decision making is a crucial leadership skill and is a tricky skill to perfect. Consciously evaluating and improving our decision-making process is a critical factor in becoming a good decision-maker.
Leaders have to make tough choices. Choices that are not evident and may not be intuitive. They need to step outside their thinking process and rationally evaluate the problem at hand before deciding. And this process begins by identifying the problem correctly that needs to be subjected to a more rigorous challenging decision-making process.
To conclude, simple decision-making situations are the ones where the decisions made are non-critical, reversible and the cost of making a wrong decision is not high. Situations for hard decisions are the opposite, where the choices are hazy, and outcome non confirmed.
When subjected to a hard decision-making process, a simple decision-making situation will lead to over-analysis and delay. However, when a hard decision-making situation is subjected to a soft decision-making process, the outcome can be severe.
Reference:
- Book: Making hard Decisions With Decision Tools — Robert T Clemen & Terence Reilly
- https://go.roberts.edu/leadingedge/the-great-choices-of-strategic-leaders
- Picture: Unsplash — Raquel Martínez & Felix Mittermeier
