This article on decision fatigue should be mandatory reading for every manager and worker looking to boost group performance or their own.
It provides scientific explanations why
interviews are more difficult if you struggled that morning with decisions about what to wear and the best route to the company;
the wrong candidate is hired and the real catch gets away;
getting married often lowers productivity (not the reasons you might expect);
skipping lunch is as bad as skipping breakfast (which is just plain stupid);
having snacks available and buying dinner when working late is required and
timing meetings and other critical tasks can make a significant difference.
Decision fatigue is the price every human pays for the multitude of choices we face daily; not just the obvious big ones, but every tiny fork in the road.
“No matter how rational and high-minded you try to be, you can’t make decision after decision without paying a biological price.”
Moreover, decision fatigue is a major contributor to ego depletion.
“…ego-depleted humans become more likely to get into needless fights over turf. In making decisions, they take illogical shortcuts and tend to favor short-term gains and delayed costs.”
Not exactly the actions you want in yourself or your people.
The focus on food is obvious once you think about it. Most people know you can’t exercise without providing fuel for their muscles, but seem to think their mind runs on air and desire.
“…psychologists neglected one mundane but essential part of the machine: the power supply. The brain, like the rest of the body, derived energy from glucose…”
Decision fatigue also impacts self-control, AKA willpower, and self-control has a large role in keeping us focused.
Read the article; it provides a scientific basis for creating a culture that helps people deal with decision fatigue and all its ramifications.
“When there were fewer decisions, there was less decision fatigue.”
The solutions lie in an open exploration of the subject with your people and a conscious effort to provide an environment that minimizes the effects of decision fatigue.
“The best decision makers are the ones who know when not to trust themselves.” – Lead researcher Roy F. Baumeister, social psychologist
Do you make assumptions? What sort of impact do they have on what you do?
This little exercise is well worth your time.
List the last 5 decisions you made;
list the criteria on which you based your decisions for each one;
think about each criteria and define what percentage of it was grounded in assumptions (you may need to analyze down several layers).
Typically, assumptions underlie most criteria if you drill down far enough.
Knowing that you would do well to remember that assumptions are insidious, sneaky and often masquerade as common sense, logical thinking or general wisdom.
After all, you don’t want your decisions attributed to the first three letters of their actual basis.
The first post comes from Miki Saxon. It’s a fun look at the way managers delegate tasks to others. Read the post and ask yourself Miki’s question: “Do You Pass the Nanny Test?”
This guest post on leaders and decision making at Dan McCarthy’sblog gets to the heart of why good leaders sometimes make bad decisions.
Sometimes a decision seems to be between a perfect and “good enough” solutions. Scott Eblin gives some questions to consider when making those decisions in his recent post “Perfect or Good Enough.”
Lisa Rosendahl says that knowing when NOT to make a decision may be a very important skill for leaders. Read her post for perspective about when to wait on a decision.
This last post is one I wrote last year about empowering leaders in organizations. “Empowering Leaders: Hand Over Your Keys” focuses on the importance of developing leaders by letting go of control in order to help people develop competence.
And please join me Monday for a look at the latest and greatest from the Leadership Development Carnival.
There are many wise words attributed to Chinese Proverbs and these certainly qualify, “A wise man makes his own decisions, an ignorant man follows public opinion.” These days, public opinion vies with “leaders” for the same followers—those who don’t want to bother thinking for themselves.
Bill Cosby has the right response to that, “A word to the wise ain’t necessary, it’s the stupid ones who need the advice.” Of course, they don’t listen, but that never stopped anyone from trying.
Following Gandhi’s teaching is a good way to move towards wisdom, “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” Now, that is really smart advice, ensures that you have a great past, a wonderful present, and is the closest you can come to guaranteeing the future.
Leo F. Buscaglia said, “We seem to gain wisdom more readily through our failures than through our successes. We always think of failure as the antithesis of success, but it isn’t. Success often lies just the other side of failure,” and I think he’s on to something. As dark as things seem now we’re all going to emerge from this stronger.
Abraham Lincoln really understood that; he said, “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” Too bad so many on and around Wall Street failed that test, but it does take us full circle to the proverb that started this week and a powerful motivation to make your own decisions.
“The past is the present, isn’t it? It’s the future, too.” Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Eugene O’Neill
I recently ran across this quote; it’s been years since I read the play, but that poignant line, with its message that what has been is and irrevocably will be has always left me feeling depressed and angry.
Depressed because it revokes hope.
Angry because it’s the antithesis of everything I believe.
It proclaims that we, whether individuals, organizations or countries, can’t change; that we are locked on our trajectory with no rudder and an endless supply of fuel.
That thought represents a type of MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) I’ve constantly rejected, while embracing the belief that anyone can change if they choose to make the effort.
Not that it’s simple or that it’s easy, but that it can be done.
I’ve done it and am in the process of doing it again.
You’ve done it and can choose to do it again.
Whether you choose an opportunity or pass it by, each one changes the present and alters the future, because your MAP changes with each decision.
Not necessarily large changes, but changes none the less and those changes will impact your next decision and so on throughout life.
But you can avoid changes by embracing a rigid ideology that eliminates decisions by turning a blind eye of all divergent opportunities or by allowing someone else to decide for you in the name of followership.
Are there any basic attitudes that you can build into your company’s culture that will encourage, let alone mandate, ethical/moral behavior in the decision making process when ‘moral’ equates to risk?
“…moral dilemmas, the decision to tell the truth or to bury it entails a huge amount of risk and soul-searching. Viewed in that way, what we call “ethics” is really a set of decisions about which risk is easier to sleep with at night: opening up about an uncertain situation or trying to hide the worst of it from yourself and everyone else.”
There are three traits that must be deeply embedded in your culture are
Consciousness. This is also known as ingrained awareness of the ramifications of collective action.
Discipline. Neuroscience research over the last decade has demonstrated that continual, intensive focus changes the pattern of neurons within the human brain.
Empathy. When a company is truly empathetic, the recognition of the value of employees is just a starting point.
The quote above is from an article based on the video below; the speech was given this past January at a Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs seminar entitled “Top Risks and Ethical Decisions.”
For full details read the entire transcript as well as the article, they’re well worth your time.
How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer is an exploration of “the neural machinery behind our decision-making processes: a network of dopamine-sensitive cells in the brain’s emotional and cognitive centers, which tie feelings and reason together so closely that the two operate almost as one. According to Lehrer, correct decisions require an awareness of both halves of the equation — and a perfect balance of visceral response and cognitive knowledge.”
I’m so far behind on my reading that I don’t know when I’ll get to it, but if one of you wants to do a guest review for Leadership Turn I’d be delighted.
The heavy reading comes from Max Bazerman, the Jesse Isidor Straus Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. A working paper“shows that seemingly innocuous aspects of the environment can promote the decision to act ethically or unethically. Key concepts include:
Once people behave dishonestly, they are able to morally disengage, setting off a downward spiral of future bad behavior and ever more lenient moral codes.
However, this slippery slope can be forestalled with simple measures, such as honor codes, that increase people’s awareness of ethical standards.
Moral disengagement is not always a necessary condition leading to dishonesty, but it may in fact result from unethical behavior.
The decision to behave dishonestly changes levels of moral disengagement, and the awareness of ethical standards affects the decision to engage in unethical behavior.”
The paper is downloadable and I think you’ll find it interesting.
As always, your thoughts on the subject are of great interest, so please share them.
Entrepreneurs face difficulties that are hard for most people to imagine, let alone understand. You can find anonymous help and connections that do understand at 7 cups of tea.
Crises never end.
$10 really does make a difference and you’ll never miss it,
Based on reader reactions, 
Not that it’s simple or that it’s easy, but that it can be done.
Are there any basic attitudes that you can build into your company’s culture that will encourage, let alone mandate, ethical/moral behavior in the decision making process when ‘moral’ equates to risk?
Usually I only offer up one link when the reading is heavy, but today I have two.
