A632.9.3.RB - Role of Emotion in Decision Making

In this video, Prof. Baba Shiv of Stanford University speaks to the importance of emotion in decision making, particularly as related to confidence. After watching this video, reflect on two situations; one, in which you were extremely confident of the outcome and what your attitude was towards the subject; and second, a situation in which you were less confident or not so confident of the outcome. Based on this module's readings and this video write a reflection blog detailing the situations above and describing the role emotion played in decision making. Include what emotional reactions you experienced for each scenario.

My example of a decision that I was very confident in my decision was tap water was undrinkable due to a construction mishap while I worked at the USO. The regular manager was out on vacation so I was in charge on managing the USO lounge. That day ended up being a test of Murphy’s Law. When I walked into the lounge at 8:00am the volunteers were up in arms telling me that our tap water was brown when it came out of the faucet. Right away my emotions went to: frustration, anxiety and determination. With multiple flights coming home from deployment I had to fix the problem. To make matters worse our reserve of bottled water had already been used up from the night before. At this point in time according to the Cynefin Framework I was in the complicated domain (Snowden, Boone, 2007). I knew what my problem was, and all I needed to do was call airport maintenance and they would fix my problem and we would be back to normal operations. Unfortunately, airport maintenance took several hours to come into our lounge and once they did, they told me they couldn’t fix the issue because it was the construction crew’s fault so they were responsible for fixing it. My situation had gone from the complicated to complex domain very quickly. After a lot of finger pointing and people dragging their feet I had enough. I called airport maintenance back and gave them an “impassioned” speech and explained the consequences of us not having water for returning troops. I also recommended that they talk face-to-face with the construction company to find a solution to fix our water.

Before noon hit, I had entered the chaotic domain because airport maintenance and the construction company were not communicating with each other and it became clear to me that I had to act to stabilize the variables that were in my control. (Snowden, Boone, 2007). I grabbed my 3 volunteers and debriefed them on the situation. One volunteer asked, “What are you going to do?” I said, “We’re going to keep throwing darts at a dartboard until one sticks!” I directed one of the volunteers to ask the airport’s Starbucks if they could donate a large thermos of coffee so our guests could still have hot coffee. I also made one of my volunteers in charge of notifying me of any changes in the water, phone calls from maintenance and to notify me of the progress. In the meantime, I went to airport management and several restaurants, explained the situation and asked if they could get water donated to us. Thankfully we got enough bottled water donated to maintain operations. Ironically, a few short hours after speaking with airport management the construction company and airport maintenance fixed the water problem just in time so that troops coming home from Afghanistan could enjoy a cold bottle of water or a hot cup of coffee.

Emotionally, was very frustrated by the lack of professionalism and laze fair attitude from airport maintenance, which caused me to have an “impassioned” conversation with them. I wanted them to understand that they were negatively affecting 100’s of military troops coming home that day, and that their first vision of “home” would be brown water if they didn’t fix it. As Dr. Shiv points out, passion can be persuasive (2011). My assumption is that once I talked to airport management about water donations they also felt the need to act, and communicated to the construction company and airport management to fix the problem. My determination to get the problem solved as quickly as possible allowed my confidence to be contagious (Shiv, 2011). When communicating with the volunteers they knew that I was determined to find a solution, so supported my directives. As they day progressed and pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place I became more and more confident that I was making the right decisions as a manager. I also got an adrenalin rush from the situation. I was highly passionate and motivated to fix the problem and as a result I was more engaged which allowed me to push myself harder when faced with multiple setbacks. This is what Dr. Shiv describes as the “extraction of utility” the ability of emotion to increase confidence, engagement and effort (2011).  

An example of when I wasn’t as confident about the outcome of my decision was when my husband and I were planning our wedding.  We initially decided to do a traditional wedding but we quickly found out that “traditional” was easier said than done. We first had the difficult task of deciding to have our wedding in Washington where we lived vs. Montana which is where I grew up and my family lived. We then started to look at wedding venues and were faced with sticker shock. We also had major difficulty setting a date due to my husband’s unpredictable military trainings. In addition to this, I was constantly being bombarded with questions like: What are your wedding colors? Who are your maids of honor? What are you buying for party favors? etc. With each question I saw dollar signs and meaningless decisions. Emotionally I was feeling anxious, overwhelmed and frustrated by constant questions that I didn’t have the answer to, or didn’t care about. It seemed like every decision we faced was either in the complex or complicated domain of the Cynefin Framework (Snowden, Boone, 2007). There were always the multiple variables of accommodating family memebers, what was “tradition” and what we actually wanted.

Fast forward 9 months we hadn’t even set the date. Looking back, I was confident about getting married, but not about our decision in having a traditional wedding due to the cost. As a result of our lack confidence we procrastinated on major decisions.  Dr. Shiv (2011) would point out that our anxiety caused us to be less passionate about the planning process and as a result we procrastinated on almost every decision. Snowden and Boone (2007) would say that I was in the disorder domain. I couldn’t accurately assess the problem and as a result I was unable to make a decision.  After some conversations my husband and came to realize that financial and emotional stress of a traditional wedding was not in our best interest as a couple. We decided to do a simple backyard wedding with close friends and immediate family. Once we made this decision it was like a burden had been taken off of our shoulders. Although we knew some family members would be disappointed, we felt instantly more confident in our decision and very quickly we set a wedding date and made the necessary arrangements.

This life decision and life event taught me several important lessons. However, with regards to decision making, it taught me that my reaction to anxiety with emotional decisions is to procrastinate. Now I know that if I am postponing a decision for seemingly no reason, I do a gut check to analyze my own emotions. This will usually result in having an honest conversation with myself and asking myself if I am fearful or anxious of the situation and why. From this experience I learned that emotions are very powerful in decision making, and subconsciously they will keep you from making a decision if it isn’t something you truly want to do in the first place.
 

As Dr. Shiv (2011) points out, there can be a bias in undervaluing emotion in decision making. Nosich (2012) points out that examining one’s emotions is essential in critical thinking. It is tempting to take a Vulcan like approach to decisions and allow logic to rule. However, as Capitan Kirk showed Mr. Spock, human nature is not logical. “Emotions are not really under our direct control, but how we act on those emotions often is.” (Nosich, 2012, p.27). I didn’t have any control over my feelings of frustration when I walked into the USO and saw brown water, but I could control how I handled the situation. I couldn’t control my feeling of anxiety when trying to make expensive decisions for a traditional wedding, but I could make the choice to listen to my anxiety and go a different direction that made my husband and I much happier. In both of these examples emotions played a vital role in my decision making, but in very different ways. One fueled me to push forward and stay the course, while the other prompted me to abandon a decision and choose a different path. 

With regards to the Cynefin Framework as we have discussed in class, my first situation teetered between the complex and chaotic domain during various points of the day until I was able to gain control of the situation to get it into the complicated or simple domain. I wonder if my confidence also played a role in me being able to assess the necessary action I needed to take. Although I didn’t know about the Cynefin Framework at this time, I took the right measures to decompress the situation based off of my instincts. However, in my second example, I wasn’t confident and therefore was in the disorder domain until my husband and I were able to address the problem honestly. Although Snowden and Boone (2007) points out this framework can be used in a wide variety of decision making situations, I don’t feel that it address how emotion plays a role in decision making, especially when the emotion is the variable that is causing poor decision or lack of action. Perhaps the argument would be that this model would help the decision-maker stay objective to the situation. Overall, I will have to give more thought into how the Cynefin Framework fits in with emotions and decision making.  

    

References:

Nosich, G..(2001). Learning to Think Things Through: A Guide to Critical Thinking Across the Curriculum. (4^th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

Shiv, Baba. (21 October 2011). Brain Research at Stanford: Decision Making. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRKfl4owWKc&t=330s

Snowden, D. F., & Boone, M. E. (2007). A leader's framework for decision making. Boston: Harvard Business Review.