Roadblocks to decision making

 

                                                    Image credit: Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke on pixabay

The four barricades to decision-making are

1) Narrow framing

I always found myself in this trap. I have read and heard about flexibility but I never thought such narrow framings were actually taking me far away from flexibility and vast opportunities. As I reflect back and review my life I have put myself many a time in such approach-avoidance conflicts, or avoidance-avoidance conflicts and landed up with compromising negotiation style. 

So, what is this narrow framing?

I remember my days of selecting my stream for senior secondary schooling. Should I choose PCMB (Physics, Chemistry, Maths, Biology) or PCMC(Physics, Chemistry, Maths, Computer Science)? The same drill happened when I had to decide should I drop out and prepare for my job or join a college? We come across such limiting decisions now and then. Should I buy this car or not? Should I opt to join another company or continue in this toxic government job? These "should questions" rumbling in our brains are limiting our potential to achieve more. We fit our choices within the limiting frame of this or that.

Reframing these questions can expand our horizons to infinity. Consider, for example, I have to make a choice between a Flat and a Villa Or Biology and Maths etc. How about reframing these questions as

a) What is the best way to make my family most comfortable at this moment? What are my most essential needs at this moment?

b) Since both subjects are of interest, is there any possibility of pursuing both and benefitting. 

We actually propose wrong questions and land up with a mediocre style of negotiations. 

2) The confirmation bias

This is a tricky one. We all fall into this trap, if not careful because it looks scientific. Let me explain it with this example:

This took me back to one of my own experiences. I had just started my job and had a serious fight with my super senior. Now, this super senior wanted to show that I was irresponsible and my allegations were baseless. So, that person spread the wrong words about me all over. To support her verdict, contacted my tutors who were not good to me. Other tutors consider me good and responsible, their views were nowhere on the list. So, finally, I look bad. 

Here I would like to draw your attention to Kate Brian's quote

"You can't make people listen to you. People only hear what they want to hear."

Indeed, we do everything to make our point stronger not a valid one. In my situation, the person could have explored both parties and then made a view about me. Just showing my pros and cons and labelling me as bad wasn't a wise move, I think. 

Chip Heath & Dan Heath quote in her book, "Decisive- How to make better choices in life and work,"  as 'Researchers have found this result again and again. When people have the opportunity to collect information from the world, they are more likely to select information that supports their preexisting attitudes, beliefs, and actions.' 

3) Short-term emotions

This is a very interesting perspective which I like the most. Discussing with my sister I would always say, "Keechad ke andar se sirf keechad hi dikhta hai, aapne aap ko keechad se bahar rakh kar soocho tho raasta nazar aayega keechad se bahar nekalne ka(If you are in the puddle, all looks marshy and stuck only; try visualizing by standing out of the puddle, you will be able to find ways to move out of the puddle)."

Whenever we are in tough situations, only the problems, negative outcomes, and failures surround us demotivating us to our core and we feel we are done. There is no hope. This is the point and time to change the perspective and view the problem. 

I am being carried back in my memories of when everyone was against me and it felt like I would never be able to prove my innocence. Life seemed torturous and I was left alone to suffer. Everything was going wrong as if the dawn of goodness had departed from me. I could not leave that place because of my commitments. The bleakness was slowly becoming my identity. At this point, I decided to stop feeling bad about myself and feel self-defeated. I thought let me start thinking of ways to make me feel good. I started with my artwork during my free time. This helped me change my perspective from defeating and bashing my enemies to creating something new and creative. In this way all tension was wiped away and the situation took control of itself. Since I was engrossed in my creativity my enemies had no way to show me as losing my mental balance. 

My short-term emotions were not available to my enemies to exploit them and intricate me to make wrong moves and get in trouble. They started getting frustrated. I started getting better. 

4) Overconfidence

There is a small difference between confidence and overconfidence. Confidence makes us complete the job as it falls within our calibre where as overconfidence is the showoff that we can do failing to assess our true capacity. 

This happens to me many a time. I close my door and head for my journey. I will climb down my stairs and wonder, have I locked my door, have I put my gas off etc. Many times I return back and check and confirm that I have locked my door and I have switched off my gas stove. This is confidence. 

In similar situations, if I say I always lock my door, this time also I must have locked it. This overconfidence can make me lose everything. 

Let us quickly list out the steps we take when we make a decision and where all the roadblocks show up: 

i) You encounter a choice ........... Narrow framing blurs our choices. I use OR rather than AND.

ii) You analyse your options............. Confirmation bias wants us to see what we know as good.

iii) You make a choice................... Short-term emotions influence our choices.

iv) You live with it..................... Overconfidence makes us live with mediocre choices. 

Now we know the sequence of roadblocks nicely paired with our decision-making process perfectly distorts the process of better decision-making. Referring to car driving on the road, we learn to drive safely on rough roads too. In the same way, in our lives also, we can handle these roadblocks by following these simple steps(WRAP). 

a) You encounter a choice ........... Narrow framing blurs our choices. I use OR rather than AND............. W- widen your options

How can you explore more options?

i) By avoiding narrow framing

ii) Multitracking

iii) Find someone who's solved our problem

b) You analyse your options............. Confirmation bias wants us to see what we know as good.............. R- Reality check for assumptions

Let us see how we carry the reality check?

i) Consider the opposite

ii) Zoom in, Zoom out

iii) Ooch

c) You make a choice................... Short-term emotions influence our choices........ A- Attain distance before deciding

A quick look at how we can create this distancing?

i) Overcome short-term emotions

ii) Honor your core priorities

d) You live with it..................... Overconfidence makes us live with mediocre choices......... P- Prepare to be wrong

Now, let us see how we can be prepared to receive what comes?

i) Bookend the future

ii) Set a tripwire

iii) Trusting the process.

A lot of information is there in this post so I restrict my elaboration on WARP. I will create another blog to explain them in detail. 

This post is a part of Blogchatter Half Marathon 2024

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