Just finished a book that I started a few months ago and had a couple of chapters to complete. It’s called How We Decide by Johan Lehrer. I really enjoyed reading this book and thinking about how our brain works when it comes to decision making activities.
I enjoyed figuring out my own patterns on decision making and thinking about those of the people that I lead. The other day I was sharing with a colleague about my decision making habits and it brought to mind this book and that I had not completed it yet.
The way my particular brain works is that I am quite analytical about things. I am always for more details, more information so that I can make the right choice. This is just fine for those of us analytical types, but the book talks about when landing on the decision, your best decision will usually be from the gut and not from the raw data. After reading and evaluating the way I come to decisions, it’s not too far off what the book is talking about. While I drive those crazy around me looking for all the inputs to a problem, I still respond to the solution with my gut instinct.
The book is telling me that this is actually the best way to go! It doesn’t mean I ignore all of the inputs, on the contrary, I take them all into consideration. What I have learned from reading this book is that most of our intuitions are based on sub-conscious knowledge. So if you and I perform due diligence on fact finding, then follow our gut instinct, we will find more often than not that we choose right.
How do you make decisions? Fast, slow, never? What is the biggest thing you wrestle with when making decisions? The aftermath of second guessing?
jp
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