"Did You Ever Have To Make Up Your Mind?"
Managers are only as good as the decisions they make
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«Sneak preview of a topic from my upcoming communication book.»
This Week’s Summary:
Thoughts from the 60s about a great rock group and hot Chicago summers
A look at different types of decisions
The dangers of leadership based on hunches instead of forethought
Why blended decision making is the best approach
Laying the groundwork for a structured decision making approach
One of my favorite 60’s groups was the Lovin’ Spoonful. They were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2000 with other greats such as James Taylor and Bonnie Raitt. Now that’s good company! The Lovin’ Spoonful’s music was usually a feel-good type that touched on some personal aspect of life and if you don’t know their music, I suggest you give them a try. “Do You Believe in Magic” is still a magical song!1
In my early days as a kid living on the north side of Chicago when the summer heat was real and air conditioning was scarce, one of their songs that hit home was “Summer in the City.” It viscerally described urban city life on a hot summer night when the heated asphalt and concrete continued to radiate the remnants of the earlier blazing sun. “Hot time, summer in the city, back of my neck feeling dirty and gritty.” Yep!2
The group had another popular song that talked about the troubles associated with deciding between multiple good options, although I never thought about it that way at the time. It was about a young man having to choose between multiple lovely girls and it was called “Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?” When I heard it on the radio the other day, the dilemma presented struck me as a great topic for this week’s newsletter. Decisions. Choices. How do we make them? If you think about it, managers and their teams are only as effective as the quality of the choices they make.3
How do you know when you made a good choice or decision? Is it that everyone agreed with you? Or that you obtained something before someone else did? Or that a nagging long-term problem was no longer annoying you?
I know I made a good choice when the results obtained from the choice are in the neighborhood of what I intended at the time when I made the choice.
This implies that I knew what I wanted from the decision at the time of choosing, which also implies some level of analysis must have been done prior to making the choice. There I go again emphasizing prior analysis before acting, but doesn’t it make sense? I get that it often feels like a lot. I am asking you to answer, in advance of acting, what is perhaps life’s most difficult question: What do you want?
In the context of this post, we are talking about business management decisions which usually involve various competing interests, that may have far reaching impact, and that may determine the direction of your team, organization, and your career. They can be very complex.
A few minutes thinking about what you want from a choice before you make it is time well spent. A bonus is that this process will help to keep you from from second guessing the decision after it has been made.
Choices come in all kinds of shapes and sizes, but they are not all equal, and they should not be treated as equals. Would you choose Wheaties or Cheerios? Chocolate or vanilla ice cream? Chinese or Italian food for dinner? These types of choices are pretty simple and don’t require a lot of forethought, unless, perhaps, you are on a diet. In that case, good luck with these choices. We will call these routine decisions in that there isn’t a lot of analysis needed to determine the right path.
What about choosing between buying a house/condominium or continuing to rent? Or going to a 4-year college or 18-month trade school? These are what we will call non-routine decisions in that they are more complicated than the prior food choices, but there is usually information available that will help you decide your best option.
For example, when making the buy vs rent decision, you would consider your income, lifestyle preferences, purchase price, homeowners’ association fees, property taxes, etc. to determine what you can reasonably afford. Quite often the lender will determine your options based on their lending criteria and your financial status. The earmark of a non-routine decision is that after all of the information is collected and critically analyzed, a “best” choice is clear. If you have collected as much information as possible, consulted with experts, and you are still struggling with a decision, you may have an ambiguous situation which is the next complexity category.
Consider the dilemma of having to choose between two excellent job candidates for an important open job position? (This one sounds a lot like the Lovin’ Spoonful song.) Or deciding whether you should build a new manufacturing facility in anticipation of a big order that isn’t yet signed or wait until the order is in hand before breaking ground which runs the risk of not being able to fulfill the order requirements due to being under capacity? (I recall having this very discussion with Tom Mitchell during my Seagate Technology days.)
Highly non-routine decisions such as these can be tough to make because there is often no additional information anywhere to help you make the choice. We will call these choices ambiguous because there is no clear best choice to make at the time of choosing, and the decision will be based on the experience and character of the person making the choice. This is why character matters so much when choosing a leader, as I discussed in my March 25, 2024 newsletter.4
To summarize that earlier post, executive leaders are often faced with ambiguous situations that can have far-reaching consequences on an organization’s future. You can “guesstimate’ what leaders will do in the future when faced with a future ambiguous situation based on the choices they made in the past. This is because character-based decisions are not driven from information or data. They are driven by personality traits that are less transient than decisions based on current objective information or circumstances.
This is why Mercurial leaders (those that consistently make choices based on their hunches instead of some form of critical thinking) create chaos around them that can seriously disrupt an organization’s effectiveness.
How can employees make choices that support a consistent operational flow when leadership’s guidance is inconsistent? They can’t.
Image created by Ed Paulson using Copilot in Windows 11.
A major issue with making choices without some level of critical thinking is that our emotions are heavily influenced by what is happening around us at the time of making the choice. These events may have nothing to do with the choices we are making but they can make us more prone to choose one path over another, not based on the facts of the decision, but based on how we feel at the time. They are called hidden biases and it is worth the time to learn how they influence you to make irrational decisions that you believe are rational. Scary stuff, actually.
To me, these hidden biases are a major problem that you can manage by taking a balanced approach to decision making that includes some level of objective analysis. A number of earlier newsletters looked deeply into the hidden biases that affect our perceptions and decisions.5
Next time we will begin an investigation into the relationship of decision making, assigned personnel, available information, and the communication requirements.
Have a great week and thanks for stopping by! ☮
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Here is John Mellencamp introducing the Lovin’s Spoonful induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. https://rockhall.com/inductees/lovin-spoonful/
Here is “Summer in the City” for you. https://www.songfacts.com/facts/the-lovin-spoonful/summer-in-the-city
Here is the true story behind the song. Good example of how our minds can think things are “real” when reality is something completely different. https://www.songfacts.com/facts/the-lovin-spoonful/did-you-ever-have-to-make-up-your-mind
Ambiguity so important to communication effectiveness that I devoted an entire section of my Getting Through book to it.
Take a look at the December 25, 2023 for the first of several articles that talk about the important work of Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman related to the way our brain makes decisions.
Solid column. Very alluring, the way you begin with personal experience from the 60s.
Making the right decision is not always pleasant and requires a high communication skill specially when working with a system of people with different personalities or styles.