As part of the work that we do with leaders I was asked if I would write a guide to help leaders make decisions. I like to do some research first, so I googled (and google-scholared) decision making and there are lots of very sound decision-making tools and explanations that take you through a logical process.  They are well thought through, but they need time, information, and objectivity.

But then I thought about the decisions that we really have to make in life, both as leaders and as human beings, and the reality is that life gets in the way of these nice logical structures. 

I have had to make one life or death decision in my life, I had three minutes to make it, the surgeon explained the two possible outcomes and then I was on my own.  No time for anything but a choice. No nice logic structures, just a choice of two evils.

The big decisions are like that, they are a mix of logic and emotion, often a choice of two evils, and they are always under time pressure.  If they are not time pressured then it is not a decision, it is early-stage debate. If the answer is obvious then anyone could make the decision. If it is not emotional then it’s not a real decision.  That’s because there are people in the equation. 

 Think about making people redundant.  It is a horrible thing to do because it is a result of business or market failure, but you do it to save the rest of the company.  On both occasions that I have had to do this at scale the financial logic was inescapable, what confused the issue was the damage we knew it would do to the individuals and the wider business culture.  Logic said do it as cheaply as possible and move on, emotion said otherwise.  Emotion won – and rightly so.

 You can’t put that emotion into a logical decision tree.  So thinking about what a real world process would be it became:

• Collect as many facts as you can in the time available.
• Arrange them into some sort of format, if only in your head. Sometimes tools and decision trees can be helpful but always remember you are dealing with people.
• Think about the consequences if you have time and do your best to soften them.
• Trust your gut and act.
• After the event tell the truth about the event, do not add gloss or blame others.
• Then know that you did the best you could in the circumstances, live with the consequences but be gentle with yourself.