How Much Time is Required to Make a Great Decision?
Making a decision can be as simple as a quick, from-the-gut choice to hire Mary instead of Steve, or a deliberative, months-long process where every possible alternative is weighed before going with the blue package wrap.
Is there a middle ground on the decision-making continuum, an ideal point where a decision is neither half-baked nor over analyzed?
Michael Norton, an expert on decision making psychology at Harvard Business School, is the first to admit he doesn't have the answer. "We still don't know the right amount to think for any given decision, which is a fascinating decision yet to be solved," he tells HBS Working Knowledge.
But what he does know is that decision makers -- and that means you -- need to think more about thinking.
"We set out not to tell people whether they're thinking the right way, but just to get them thinking, 'I'm supposed to be making a decision right now -- am I thinking too little about this, or am I thinking too much?' Both of those could lead to mistakes."
Managers often think too little about a decision out of habit. We don't have a lot of time to begin with, and gut-decisions have worked in the past, so we'll make a quick decision this time, too. The problem is that we start to make almost every decision this way. I tend to think of George W. "I am the decider" Bush as a quick-action guy, someone who would gather just enough facts, consult with people close to him, and issue the command.
Other managers go to the opposite extreme, analyzing every possible factor and some that aren't even relevant before making the call. Norton points to Bill Clinton as an over-analyzer, bogged down in the wonk weeds at the expense of timely action.
For managers, then, the key is to think about your own thinking. Am I making a quick decision because that's how I have always made them? Am I choosing blue for this new product because blue worked well for the last one? Or am I victim of over-analysis paralysis, considering factors that really aren't important to the decision? Am I wasting a valuable opportunity to act quickly by thinking too much?
For me, thinking longer over an important decision works better than a rush to judgement. Give your brain a problem to solve and it works on it in the background, while you go about doing other things. With a little marinating, the solution often becomes obvious. Most of the decisions I've lived to regret were the ones made in haste -- and I still have my Apple Newton to prove it.
How do you characterize your own decision-making process? Are you more likely to over think or not think enough?
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