11 Myths About Decision-Making

Can you imagine life without your smartphone?

So many of us can’t. We depend upon them for everything from directions to telling us the temperature outside to tracking our daily steps and heart rate. Our “Hey, Siri” culture has conditioned us to equate speed with efficiency and efficacy — and it’s changing how we process information. Our brains have become conditioned to respond with pleasure to the bings, pings, and dings our phones and computers provide.

While Siri and Alexa and Google are great when we’re jonesing for Italian food and want help finding a restaurant, they’re not great, or even desirable, when it comes to complex decision-making. In fact, they help enable a series of counterproductive ideas and reactive behaviors that actually impair your ability to make informed decisions.

For example, let’s say you want to buy a car. Maybe you’re weighing a Prius versus a Crosstrek. Siri and Google can give you all sorts of information, such as fuel efficiency or the current interest rate on your loan. But a search engine won’t know why you’re buying the car, how you intend to use it, or what impact the purchase will have on your budget. Ultimately your decision needs to come from a clear understanding of your needs, values, and goals — information that’s outside the reach of their algorithms.

11 Myths About Decision-Making

I’ve been studying decision-making for more than 20 years and have identified a number of deeply ingrained and counterproductive myths that harm our ability to make decisions. The most common of these myths include:

1. I like to be efficient. So many of us think efficiency means jumping right in and making a decision. But to be truly effective, we need to be clear on what we are solving for. Rushing can lead you to make a decision based on the wrong factors, which ultimately will lead to regret. For example, walking into a car dealership and buying the first car you see may feel efficient, but may mean you end up with the car the salesperson wants to get rid of, not the car that best fits your needs and budget.

2. I’m too busy; I don’t have time to give to this decision. Putting off a decision is a decision in and of itself. However, intentionally slowing down to get clear on what you’re solving for will speed up your efficacy. You’ll save time later by spending quality time now to avoid having to revisit the decision. For example, taking a little bit of time to research prices before visiting a car dealership will better help you negotiate the price of the vehicle.

3. I just need to solve this problem at this moment. This is the classic example of “losing the forest for the trees.” Our problems sit in a context. A narrow focus may solve the wrong problem, or only partially solve the problem. If your car breaks down unexpectedly and you rush out to buy a new one, are you considering your needs beyond the present?

4. This is my decision alone; I don’t need to involve others. Our important decisions do involve other stakeholders. Avoiding this bigger picture of who else is affected by a decision can, at best, only partially solve the problem, and may exacerbate it. For example, if your spouse or child can’t drive a stick-shift, do you really want to buy a manual transmission car that no one else in the family can get out of the driveway in an emergency?

5. I know I’m right; I just want data or an opinion to confirm my own thinking. Known as “confirmation bias,” this decision-making flaw has been behind notorious failures from the Bay of Pigs to the subprime loan market implosion to the NASA Challenger explosion to the Deepwater Horizon environmental catastrophe. In each case, disconfirming data was available and should have raised concerns, but groupthink set in, and no one wanted to raise the red flag. To better understand and define the limitations of what you think you know, look for contrary examples and evaluate rival explanations. These techniques can prevent “frame blindness” to keep you from seeing what you want to see rather than what may be present. For example, maybe you’ve settled on the Crosstrek in your car search, but you decide to look around anyway. Could your preference for the Crosstrek influence how you evaluate the other cars? Could you be looking to confirm your inclination rather than buy the best car for your needs? To pry open cognitive space, first consider your needs and then look for cars that fit those parameters.

6. I trust my gut. It’s great to rely on your instincts when picking a breakfast cereal. But for larger, high-stakes decisions, when we rely on our gut, we are relying upon bias and faulty memory. Important decisions benefit from prying open cognitive space to allow for new information and insight. You may have set your mind on the Suburu Outback because you have fond memories of your family having one years ago, but some drivers find the driver’s seat uncomfortable. Skipping the test-drive may result in a car that doesn’t work for your long drives.

7. Decision-making is linear. In fact, good decision-making is circular; it needs a feedback loop as we gather information and analyze it and our thinking. At times we need to go back to find information we’ve glossed over, or to gather new information or conduct a different kind of analysis. When buying a car, for example, you might think that doing your research first and then going to a dealer and negotiating a price is enough. But there are many dealers, and they each have leeway to negotiate a price, so circling around and comparing offers may get you a better price.

8. I can pull my ideas together well in my head. Large decisions are made up of multiple smaller decisions. When we try to keep all of those moving parts in our mind, we end up relying on a faulty memory and a distracted mind. Our emotions can also get in the way, leading to biased thinking. Keeping a record is an important part of thinking and analysis; both Albert Einstein and Leonardo da Vinci kept notebooks. We may never be as brilliant or creative as either of these great thinkers, but we can take a page from their notebooks and write things down to create a record of our thinking and our work.

9. I have all the information I need. While we may want to forge ahead, we can improve our decisions — and our satisfaction — by investing in a little bit of research and confronting assumptions with evidence. Your best friend might love her car, but that doesn’t mean it’s the car for you, particularly if it won’t fit your daughter’s hockey equipment. Looking to the experts, such as Consumer Reports, which does substantive research, can help you make an educated decision that’s also right for you.

10. I can make a rational decision. Psychologists far and wide, such as Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, have demonstrated that as much as we’d like to believe it, none of us are rational. We all operate through a dirty windshield of bias based on past experiences and feelings. You might think you won’t get taken in by a car dealer, but they are professional salespeople who know how to evoke an emotional response.

11. There’s just one way to do this. Whether it’s how the bed should be made, which diet to follow, or how to divide up your retirement account, there’s always more than one way to get to “yes.” We’ve been conditioned out of listening to other voices, siloed in our information, environment, and social (media) circles. But getting outside your routines and patterns leads you to seeing things differently. You may always have gone into the dealership to buy cars, but more and more, people are negotiating car purchases online and through texting and email.

Take a Time Out

Underlying these myths are three common and popular ideas that don’t serve us well: First, as busy people, we don’t need to invest time to make good decisions. Second, we are rational human beings, able to thoughtfully solve thorny and high-stakes problems in our heads. Third, decision-making is personal and doesn’t need to involve anyone else.

All three of these assumptions are false — and problematic for clear thinking and analysis. We are not computers. We are social beings who operate in community. We need time for reflection, an ability to confront unconscious biases or to consider the bigger picture.

One way to combat these biases is to put a speed bump in our thinking — a strategic stop to give us time to pause, to see the whole picture, and to reflect on what we’re experiencing. Slowing down can help improve efficacy by steering us away from our reliance on these decision-making myths and reflexive behaviors.

I call these strategic stops a “cheetah pause.” I came up with this term after learning that the cheetah’s prodigious hunting skill is not due to its speed. Rather, it’s the animal’s ability to decelerate quickly that makes it a fearsome hunter. Cheetahs habitually run down their prey at speeds approaching 60 miles per hour but are able to cut their speed by nine miles per hour in a single stride. This allows them to make sharp turns, sideways jumps and direction changes.

In decision-making, too, quality thinking benefits from periods of thoughtful deceleration. These calculated pauses empower you to check and challenge your biases, consolidate your knowledge, include others and enable you to decide whether to pivot and move in a new direction or stay the course before accelerating again.

Here are five questions to ask yourself in these cheetah pauses:

Which decision-making myths am I relying on to make this decision?

How will this decision move me toward my life goals?

Are my feelings related to this decision based on what’s actually happening or do they reflect my learned patterns of behavior?

What information is out there in the world that could help me make this decision better?

How can I better understand the perceptions and perspectives of others involved in the decision?

The next time you’re speeding toward a decision, let the cheetah pause remind you of the value of taking a strategic stop. This vivid cue can help you see past decision-making myth “trees” and beyond the “forest” of biases that they rely upon, improving your decision-making skills. The right complex decision result for you is out there in the jungle — and you (not your smartphone) have the tools to find it.

Which decision-making myths am I relying on to make this decision?

How will this decision move me toward my life goals?

Are my feelings related to this decision based on what’s actually happening or do they reflect my learned patterns of behavior?

What information is out there in the world that could help me make this decision better?

How can I better understand the perceptions and perspectives of others involved in the decision?

The next time you’re speeding toward a decision, let the cheetah pause remind you of the value of taking a strategic stop. This vivid cue can help you see past decision-making myth “trees” and beyond the “forest” of biases that they rely upon, improving your decision-making skills. The right complex decision result for you is out there in the jungle — and you (not your smartphone) have the tools to find it.

Source: HBR 20 Apr, 21

What Good Leaders Do When Replacing Bad Leaders

 

Every leader who fills a top role previously held by someone else faces the same challenge: They must deal with the outgoing leader’s accomplishments and shortcomings. When your predecessor was successful, you will be judged against their accomplishments.

But when replacing a poor or controversial leader, you may have to take accountability for your predecessor’s mistakes, while simultaneously creating a new vision for the organization. Poor leadership can damage an institution, whether it’s a government or a Fortune 500 company, and often a new leader must take aggressive action in order to save the enterprise — while avoiding throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Finally, all of this must also be done within an organization that may be both skeptical and exhausted.

Managing all of these tensions can be challenging for even the most seasoned leaders. As an executive coach and consultant, I’ve helped dozens of leaders navigate this transition over the past two decades. I’ve seen leaders rise to the occasion, but I’ve also seen struggles, even when leaders come with the best intentions. With a few basic strategies, it’s possible to not only help a company move on from poor leadership, but to transform the organization and help everyone within it reach their potential.

1. Acknowledge the contributions of the previous leader

Good leaders create a separation between the past and the future. Many people are inclined to do this by completely ignoring their predecessors — or worse blaming the previous leaders for all the faults and challenges facing the organization. This is especially tempting if your predecessor is viewed in a bad light.

But good leaders acknowledge the past realities, including the likelihood that any leader, no matter how poor, did something right. You will probably have employees supportive of previous leadership, and they will have mixed views on what went wrong before and what has to be done differently. New leaders are well advised to acknowledge any positives that a predecessor brought while also openly discussing the trauma and damage they created within the enterprise.

Sometimes, the reason for parting isn’t as heavy, but still must be addressed. I recently helped with the CEO transition of a large multinational company. The business had suffered greatly during the pandemic, and as a result the business strategy had to evolve dramatically. The board determined that the previous CEO wasn’t the right person for the next phase.

As we managed the transition, the new CEO continually emphasized gratitude for his predecessor, who had built the company up, reaching extraordinary levels of success. He simply wasn’t the right person to get the job done going forward.

Successful leadership is about the art of balancing these two seemingly opposite truths. The predecessors certainly weren’t idle, but they also were not effective or were not likely to be effective going forward. Good leaders must acknowledge both of these things directly, authentically, and with integrity.

2. Enable a vision for the future by creating a space for forgiveness 

Most bad leaders’ actions are, in some part, rooted in good intentions. But often even the best of intentions have unintended consequences or worse, result in collateral damage.

Acknowledging the gap between the previous leader’s intentions and results can be as simple as saying “I understand the previous executives had big dreams for this company, but their methods (or approach, or style) didn’t work.”

Often, we judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their actions. Reminding people of this doesn’t absolve the previous leader, but it does humanize outgoing leadership and creates room for forgiveness.  As the saying goes “to err is human, to forgive divine.”

In this context, forgiveness creates room for a new vision and direction and allows people to let go of the past and move into the future together. Resentments have a gravity of their own that often leads us to repeat the patterns of the past. Forgiveness often has the opposite effect and creates room for new possibilities.

In one example, we helped a new CEO take over from the dynamic but controversial founder of a tech company. To create space for forgiveness, the new leader held a senior team meeting focused on three questions:

What about how we have worked and operated do we want to maintain?

What do we want to leave behind?

What do we want to create anew?

What the team discovered was that many of their current methods were effective, and that those philosophies were enabled by the previous leader. However, there were also some things that needed to be left behind. That balanced view allowed for feelings of both appreciation and forgiveness regarding the previous leader, while repositioning the go-forward efforts as a healthy evolution. There was no negation of the past leader and what had been put in place, good or bad. Circumstances change, requiring leaders to evolve and adapt.

3. Seek to understand your employees’ experiences

Many new leaders falter when they simply see themselves as the corrective force to their predecessors without investing the time to understand the full impact of the previous regime or by failing to include their teams in creating the future. You don’t automatically become a good leader merely by taking over for a bad one, or in having a different perspective from the outgoing executive. Ultimately, you become a good leader by leading differently and more inclusively.

Listen to people who felt the adverse effects of the previous leader and use that information to inform your vision. Explicitly ask individuals or groups within the company how can I help you now? What do you most want and need going forward? What do you hope I will do? What do you hope I won’t do? Bad leaders don’t ask those questions, but good leaders always do.

In the executive transition at the multinational company discussed earlier, before the new CEO issued any new plans or strategies, he started interviewing. He spent a full month meeting with and talking to employees at every level of the organization and saw what was needed for the company to evolve. When he rolled out his strategic plan, it was received with universal enthusiasm because every employee saw their voice represented in the go-forward vision.

Humans are built to move on and once they feel truly understood they often move on of their own accord. This can’t be rushed, but if you give them a vision of what “could be” most people will gladly leave the past behind. You can’t force people to move on, but you can show them that things will be different by listening and taking their hard-earned lessons to heart.

By acknowledging the gap between the actions and intentions of a previous leader, recommitting to your own vision, and asking the people under your leadership what they need, you can be on the path to not only replacing a bad leader, but becoming a much more effective leader yourself. Whether it’s replacing an outgoing CEO or a president, leaders who commit to these practices will unlock the energy and wisdom of the people they lead. In so doing, they will help create a future that is distinct from the past and that makes sense for everyone.

Source: HBR 16 Apr, 21

6 Must-Do’s Post COVID-19 Recovery!

Recovering from COVID usually takes around 2 weeks (for mild cases) and about a month for people with a serious infection. But COVID has an excellent recovery rate in India right now which is above 90%. That is why most people who contract this viral infection recover soon and slowly get back to their old lifestyle.

If you or someone you know got infected and recovered, congratulations! But remember, even though the virus is no longer in your body, you still need to be cautious about what you do in the next few days. Here is a complete guide to post-COVID care.

The need for post-COVID care

The coronavirus is a nasty microbe that can do a lot of damage to your body. If your infection was moderate to severe, it is possible that the virus did some amount of damage to your respiratory system. Even people with mild infection have to be alert in the post-infection stage because symptoms of other health conditions triggered by the coronavirus may surface. The body becomes weak after having battled the dangerous virus for so many days. You may feel drained and lethargic, which is quite natural.

That is why, even if your body has killed off all the viruses, you still need to shower yourself with a lot of love and care. This will ensure that you are completely healed and if there is any requirement for additional healthcare checks, you will be able to take the right action at the right time. 

Take rest

Most doctors suggest that you stay isolated for another 7 days, especially now that some studies have found that even if the symptoms disappear, the virus may still linger in your body. If possible give yourself a week of complete rest after recovery. A well-rested body can focus on healing. Get enough sleep because when you sleep, your body speeds up the recovery procedure. Do not resume your old lifestyle right away. Too much work, stress and anxiety will make you ill. 

Have a nutritious diet

Food eases the path to recovery. The right kind of food will help you gain your strength back in days. Make sure your diet includes plenty of proteins such as lentil soup, legumes, seeds, nuts,  boiled eggs, and chicken stew. Proteins repair the body. Eat small portions for easy digestion. Don’t forget to eat at least 1 fruit a day. Drink plenty of water to stay hydrated.

Exercise a little every day

Exercising may sound unappealing, but it is essential for a speedy recovery. Working out improves blood and oxygen circulation. It helps to detoxify your body. It can also help your brain produce more happiness hormones which will lift your spirits – something that is greatly needed after you’ve contracted COVID. Only exercise as much as you can. Do your favourite kinds of exercise and don’t push yourself too much. 10 minutes a day will suffice.

Play a few memory games

COVID is known to damage brain and neural cells. To prevent future memory problems, try playing some memory games like sudoku, mathdoku, crossword, jigsaw, etc. this will also help you while away the time without getting bored and irritated.

Check your blood oxygen level

Continue to monitor your blood oxygen saturation level with your oximeter. Even if you have recovered from COVID, there could be lung damage that you don’t know of. If so, your oxygen level will fluctuate and dip below 90. You will need to visit the doctor. 

Watch out for other symptoms

COVID can have long-term consequences for your health. So you have to be alert. COVID can cause both lung and heart damage. If you begin to experience shortness of breath, tightness in the chest, warm flushes, consult a doctor right away.

COVID care is essential and should not be ignored. This is a great investment for your future health!

 Source: Pharmeasy 

https://pharmeasy.in/blog/6-must-dos-post-covid-19-recovery/

Flipkart’s largest fulfillment centre approved in Manesar, to create 18,000 jobs

 

The fulfillment centre will essentially cater to parcel goods, white goods and furniture. Approximately 6,000 direct and 12,000 indirect jobs will be created through this investment.

In a move that was in due process since the last year, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar has approved the allotment of 140 acres in Manesar to Flipkart for setting up its largest fulfilling centre in Asia.

In view of the increasing demand for warehousing as numbers of home delivery have exponentially risen since the pandemic, Instakart Services Private Ltd, a Flipkart group company, is planning to set up a series of fulfillment centres and associated logistics infrastructure across India to enable its market growth .

The approval was granted at the meeting of the Haryana Enterprise Promotion Board presided over by Khattar. During the meeting, the Chief Minister was apprised that the land, belonging to the Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd (HSIID), allotted at price of Rs 3.22 crore per acre to Instakart, will not only give impetus to further investments in the region but would boost market access opportunities for MSMEs. This move will further pay to counter the rising demand of jobs for the people and provide opportunities to them.

To attain this goal, the company aims to construct regional distribution centres across the country to strengthen its network capabilities.

The company is planning to build a logistics campus in the National Capital Region, in proximity to Gurugram - Manesar area.

The fulfillment centre will essentially cater to parcel goods, white goods and furniture. Approximately 6,000 direct and 12,000 indirect jobs will be created through this investment, a state government statement said. Once completed, this fulfillment centre will be the largest centre in Asia, supporting upto 18,000 jobs for the people. 

Though no date as such has been fixed on construction of the said building, it is interesting to note that as employees go full time ‘work from home’ setup, the demand for warehousing will go further up and up and Flipkart may move forward for expansion in the future.

Source: People matters 07 Apr, 21