Blink or Think: Two Approaches to Decision Making and Five Tips

By James Krouse on February 19, 2010 at 12:18 pm
Organization, Workplace

We all know people that make decisions in extreme ways: the guy who snaps up a real estate deal in a matter of minutes or the person who takes 10 minutes to decide between fries and coleslaw.  Most of us fall somewhere in between, but there are philosophies of decision making that can sway most of us either way.  In Blink, example, Malcolm Gladwell advocates relying on intuition based on experience to make quick decisions.  Thinking and deliberating for long periods of time earns you little in his world.

Michael Mauboussinn, on the other hand, urges us to think twice in his book…Think Twice.  Jim Hasket from the Harvard Business School Working Knowledge blog sums it up:

Now Michael Mauboussin, with his book Think Twice, makes the case for a more careful approach, suggesting that we place too much emphasis on intuition and personal experience as opposed to the “wisdom of crowds,” mathematical models, and systematically-collected data. He argues that “blink” serves us well in stable environments where feedback from previous decisions is clear and where cause-and-effect relationships can be identified. Unfortunately, in his view these conditions are more and more rare. As he puts it, “intuition is losing relevance in an increasingly complex world … more is different.”

So the debate is on: is it better to rely on our experience in today’s world, or make decisions based on based on all of the information you can get your hands on.  There’s a saying here that’s handy: Over analysis leads to paralysis.  Must be true, right? It rhymes.  The key to the phrase is “over”.  No one said the Analysis was a bad thing.  Gathering information, weighing the pros and cons and using all the information available to you in a reasonable time frame is just smart.  Just not too much of it.

Here are five tips and strategies to making a good decision in a timely manner:

1.)  You don’t have unlimited time…

When you’re buying a house, you have to weigh opportunity with timing with analysis of the market.  Can you look at every house on the market?  Probably not. You can look at healthy sampling and then make a decision.  As time passes, so will the opportunities to purchase houses you’ve seen.   Spending too much time on decisions can cost you opportunity.  The same applies to any business situation.

2.) Be prepared to back up a decision…

Sometimes things go badly and you have to answer for your choices.  Most successes and failures are made up of a combination of luck and careful planning.  Make sure when things go badly, you can show it was due to luck (or lack thereof).

3.)  Committees generally don’t make decisions…

Gathering together your colleagues to seek advice is a good idea, but these groups can sometimes just bog down the process because you’ll tend to focus on making everyone in the room happy.  You need to gather information, consider it, and then make a decision.  You won’t make everyone happy…except maybe yourself.

4.)  Don’t be afraid to make more time…

While time costs opportunity, time can also help you choose the right path.  Need more insight?  More studies?  More options?  More time to think?  Take it. Or take a reasonable amount of it to make a truly informed decision.  Sometime deciding to put off a decision is a good decision in and of itself.

5.)  See what other people have done…

This isn’t going to help all the time, but there’s no reason why you can’t do a quick search online to see what others have done in a similar situation.  Just remember, their outcomes are particular to their situation.  Yours may be different.  And then there’s always that luck thing…