How do we make decisions?
Decisions govern our lives, from the moment we wake up to moment we fall asleep, and beyond – scientists estimate that the average person makes 35,000 decisions every day – so we’ve decided to dedicate today’s Virtual Coach to how we make them.
- A LinkedIn post from Kenton Cool
Earlier this week our Co-Founder, Kenton Cool, shared insights about his experience of decision-making at high altitude and how he believes this transfers across to organisational environments.
As part of a high-performing team, Kenton’s experience is that decisions are reliant on trust being present. Without trust, team members start to experience uncertainty, unease, frustration, skepticism and, ultimately, indecision.
- Research insights from Professor Alan Felstead
How about this research from Professor Alan Felstead at Cardiff University. In the Skills and Employment Survey 2024, Alan’s research team found employees reporting a decreasing level of influence over what tasks they did, how they did them and how hard they worked. In 1992, 62% of British employees said they had a great deal of influence in these areas. By 2012, that had fallen to 44%. And in 2024, it had fallen even further to 34%.
Professor Felstead points out that over this period organisations introduced multiple means to capture employee voices – committees, engagement surveys, project teams, suggestion schemes – but whilst the mechanisms grew, the autonomy did not.
When he was asked whether technology is to blame, he argued it enables rather than causes: “Workers are not controlled by computers, but workers are managed by managers, and managers are behind those computers.” Felstead looks to middle management, suggesting that senior leaders might endorse participation and autonomy, but frontline managers retain their grip on control.
How does your organisation stack up? Have you built ways for employees to be heard, whilst unwittingly narrowing their opportunities to make decisions?
- Workshop creation with organisations
We have also had a blast doing one of our favourite things this week – working with an organisation to create a skills development workshop that speaks to their challenges specifically. We’ve observed the multitude of characteristics and behaviours displayed by individuals and teams that serve to help, or hinder, communication, subsequently impacting the decision-making process. We can’t wait to support them in optimising their approaches to decision-making.
How about starting with the fantastic decision-making quote from Kenton’s LinkedIn post, by Marcus Tullius Cicero:
“More is lost by indecision than by wrong decision”
How will you approach decisions this week? Get cracking by building trust, empowering employees, and being aware of the characteristics and behaviours that might impact the process. Good luck! You’re In Cool Company…
