“The Leadership Perspective” is a series of articles designed to assist millennials and emerging leaders with navigating difficult situations. Each week, successful business leaders provide targeted, actionable advice to enhance your perspective and improve your leadership skills.
This week’s article features three exceptional business leaders:
- Hilary Gould, Partner at Ginsberg Jacobs LLC
- Matt Phillips, Global Head of Waze Local
- Peter Boumgarden, Professor of Practice in Strategy and Organizations at Olin Business School, Washington University in St. Louis
There exists a claim that a single human makes 35,000 decisions a day. This popular, eye-popping statistic is widely cited, discussed, and even advertised despite its ambiguous origin. Nonetheless, this “fact” enables us to imagine the sheer magnitude of the role decision-making plays in our lives. As a 2020 Harvard Business Review article so perfectly states, “thousands of choices are made at the exact same time across vast networks of departments and geographies.” They range from low-pressure choices to high-pressure experiences, each carrying its own unique set of risk factors and rewards.
This universal and daily experience can also be a broad source of struggle and frustration. For many business leaders, making a decision can mean entering a state of heightened uncertainty, pressure, and sometimes even fear. This can unnecessarily lead to bias- and emotion-based decisions instead of those grounded in logic and fact.
As with many other leadership qualities, decision making is a learned skill. In order to become better, a leader must recognize their own tendencies, experiment, and make adjustments. It is imperative for leaders transitioning into management positions to realize that such a role requires frequent decision making. In essence, managers are paid to make decisions. The process you follow not only will save both you and your company time and money, but it can also differentiate you from others in similar positions. Professor of Practice in Strategy and Organizations at Olin Business School Peter Boumgarden says, “by honestly assessing [your] actual process, embarrassing as it might be, [you] can generate a method to curtail bad habits.”
Three notable business leaders have shared with me critical elements of their decision-making processes, which together frame a fluid seven-step process to transition intuition into reason each time you make a decision. With intention and practice, this framework can serve as a guide to help you make thoughtful and informed decisions.
1. Check and Challenge Your Gut
Every time Matt Phillips, Global Head of Waze Local, is faced with a decision, he first evaluates his priorities. “I do a quick gut check and take a moment to recognize the direction I am leaning toward. Then, I try to compartmentalize this thought: it’s there if I need it for an immediate decision, but I [also] recognize there is usually some misinformation or bias that might lead me astray. I really do try and address the decision with a blank slate.”
A part of checking in with your gut is challenging it. To do so, you must frame the situation. Matt does this by asking himself a few basic questions: How much time do I have to decide? Who and what will be impacted by this decision? What is the risk(s) of making the right (or wrong) decision? What does a successful decision look like? Do I have enough information to achieve it? Who are the key people that can help inform my decision?
2. Gather Information
It’s important to remember that you do not need to know everything in order to make an informed decision. However, you do need to identify what information matters most. Begin by asking yourself what information you need to make the decision. Determine when the information makes a difference (and when it does not) and understand how you can most effectively use it once you have it.
Next, do your research. As Matt shares, “I typically do as much research as time allows and usually realize there is [always] some degree of uncertainty. Depending on how much time I have and the impact of the decision, I will build a model or just quickly think it through in my head.”
Professor Boumgarden points out that the decision-making process is both an intrapersonal and interpersonal experience. Having gathered the information you need, it is important to then turn to others for an outside perspective. He says, “too often, when I am ready to make a big decision with significant uncertainty, I cut myself off from those who might dissent from my gut feeling. Understandable as this ego-protection is, I think it is a wrong move. As an alternative, there is real value in engaging with thoughtful supporters and dissenters (emphasis on thoughtful), while doing so in a way that gives you a kind of critical distance from their critique or support”.
He suggests you begin by asking what you want from your engagement. “When you aren’t clear [about] what you want out of an engagement, you can end up [with] someone telling you what you should value (often without knowing you well enough to make that insightful) and how you should get there– something that is often of very little help for the person going for advice at the front end.”
3. Explore Every Angle
Having access to information and diverse perspectives is integral in making any decision as this allows you to best explore every angle. As Hilary Gould, Partner at Ginsberg Jacobs LLC, points out, “the best decision-makers will look at any issue from every available angle before making a decision because, typically, both sides have some validity to their position(s). Analyze the risks associated with each way you might resolve the issue(s) and determine whether you, or the person you are helping, can live with the consequences if the risk(s) becomes reality.” In other words, be comprehensive when confronted with a difficult situation. By testing your own thought processes and considering all of your options, you put yourself in a better position to succeed.
4. Take Your Time (If You Have It)
Two essential components of making a thoughtful and informed decision are exploration and debate. Although acting quickly to make a decision may dissolve unpleasant emotions in the short-term, doing so can ultimately create even more long-term problems. “Even though it may seem like you need to make a decision immediately, take time to analyze the issue thoroughly so you can make a reasoned decision,” says Hilary. In fact, she and many other seasoned leaders would agree this is a hallmark of a confident and sophisticated businessperson.
5. Re-Check Your Gut Approach
Once a decision has been made, the next step is figuring out how to proceed. When Matt reaches a conclusion, he spot-checks it against his intuition. As he says, “it’s important to be thoughtful and review the differences from the original instinct. It shows that you’ve been considerate with your approach.”
In fact, this is Professor Boumgarden’s top advice for those who wish to improve their decision-making skills. “Find a way to circle back up to that same situation later and see what happened and how accurate your intuitions were. By comparing decision and outlined expectation to downstream outcomes, you can start to get a little clearer on what can and cannot be known, and what kinds of blind spots you tend to have in your choices.”
6. Formalize your Reflection
To improve your process and abilities, it is important to recognize, analyze, and reflect on your personal experiences. Professor Boumgarden suggests, “when making big decisions, write down in a journal what you decided, why you chose it, and what you expect to occur… I have a tool called ‘DayOne’ that I use for this kind of journaling. [It] prompts me with these decision journals six months later (or whatever cadence I prefer), forcing me to do this kind of formal comparison.”
Formal reflection is essential in improving your decision-making skills as it provides a tangible space for learning from the past and planning for the future. When you take the time to carefully examine your choices and behavior, you reinforce a process that guides you toward making effective, valuable, and fact-based decisions.
7. Share Your Process
For better or worse, you must accept the reality that people will be affected by your decisions. Your ability to present the reasoning behind your decision to all those affected enables you to build a rapport and establish a respectful and meaningful relationship, regardless of the final outcome. By effectively communicating with everyone involved, you can cultivate an environment that instills an irreplaceable sense of value.
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