“When You Come to a Fork in the Road, Take It” — Yogi Berra

We are faced by numerous forks everyday. There have been studies that on an average we make about 35,000 decisions every day! There are different types of decisions that we have to make on an hourly, daily basis. Numerous categorizations have been made — tactical, programmatic, operational, strategic, long-lasting, catastrophic, repetitive, quick, group etc. With the advent of augmented reality, artificial intelligence, and machine learning machines can already make decisions for humans and decision-making algorithms are getting stronger everyday. Yet we find ourselves in situations on a daily basis when we cannot make a decision. If we are making 35K decisions daily, if we are able to build machines and algorithms that can make decisions for us, if we can even make decisions in our sleep, why are we still faced with situations where we cannot make a decision? It should become muscle-memory right?

Why are we faced with indecision?

If we analyze our feelings quickly at such points, we will see that we are mostly afraid to “pull the trigger”, “get gun-shy”, — basically afraid to make the decision. Afraid of what? Afraid of losing a job, losing face, getting reprimanded, becoming less popular, afraid of being less than perfect, afraid that you did not plan enough, afraid of losing out, missing out or afraid of the unknown?

What can we do?

(1) Planning — I am a certified project manager — traditional, agile — the whole shebang. I love to plan. I love it when a plan comes together. But when I reflect back at things that really worked well over the years, they are times when I called the audible on the field, all the while keeping an eye on the plan.

(2) Unknown — the future is always unknown. I also believe hard work can make up for some of that unknown — prepare well, practice hard, set the stage. In the end luck plays a big role. Yes we can minimize bad luck or try hard to induce good luck, but we cannot control it — it is what makes life interesting! If you are afraid of the unknown, just accept that unknowns make our lives interesting. It is not that complex.

(3) Being popular— we love ourselves. Yes we strive to be selfless, yes we look away from the proverbial mirror-mirror-on-the-wall, but if we are asked “tell me about yourself” the first things we talk about is our strengths. I have yet to find someone who says “I am XYZ and I have these flaws…” the first time I meet them. But this innate desire to love ourselves creates this innate desire to be liked. At moments of indecision, this innate desire creeps up and if we can recognize that, control that we will be one more step closer to making the call.

(4) Perfection — We know we are not perfect, but we are forever trying to achieve perfection of some kind. Behavioral scientists talk about Satisficing Vs Maximizing — good enough vs perfect and in every case the former is a better alternative. Perfection is not a real thing, it is only a feeling and more importantly, a feeling that lasts momentarily. So why worry about something that can only last a few moments? At times of indecision, go with good enough.

(5) Losing — to win something you have to lose something. To get something you gotta give something. You miss every shot you do not take. Yes there are many more of these liners and we mostly agree with them. But we still make the mistake at the time of indecision. Why? Because we are scared of the consequences. When I am hit with indecision, I let people, that I think will be affected (positively or negatively) by the outcome of the decision, know that at the end of the day I will be wholly responsible for the consequences and if it does not work, I will work hard to fix it. Every time I have had the courage to do this, the decision was already made for me — I did not have to make it.

Here is a framework that works well for me when all else fails and I am stuck with indecision…

The Indecision Matrix & The Decision Matrix

If you think about it, most of the indecision will lie on the top left. But interestingly, the more you practice it, majority will start falling to the bottom right. This is what I have seen. It is really our perception of impact and risk (unplanned, unknown, unpopular, imperfect, losing). Think about indecisive moments from today. Basically we spend a lot of time being in an indecisive mode for things we can ignore for now!

Similarly when we are are decisive about things, we spend our energy deciding on things that fall on the top right. The more we practice we will see that they will start falling to the bottom left. Once again our perception of impact and risk (being popular, being perfect, being perceived as a winner). Basically we tend to spend a lot of energy deciding on things that we can ignore for now!

Not making a decision is also a decision

Once you start realizing this, you will see that you are making a lot of good decisions, quickly. It is actually funny if you think about it. We do worry a lot about indecision (why can I not decide?) or spend a lot of energy in making the decision (what will I get?) when all we need to do is ignore them, because at the end of it all, they do not make a big difference one way or another. Realizing which decisions to ignore, more and more, will help us focus on the real decisions that matter. And for the decisions that do matter, if you cannot make the decision, use my matrix above. It works!

Conclusion

It is simple really. When you are in a state of indecisiveness:

STOP
Reflect on what it is that you are feeling?
Sad? Happy? Afraid? Frustrated? Anxious? Panicked? Excited?
Reflect why you are feeling that way
9 times out of 10 you will get your answer
The 1 time that you do not, use the 2 matrices above…
…trust me. They work. Try it once!

This article from Aytekin Tank got me thinking more about this article that I penned today. Tnx!