Decision-making power is not innate.

The essence of effective management lies in excellent decision-making mechanism. Unfortunately, decision-making power is regarded as a personality trait similar to courage. Some people just can pull the trigger decisively? For example, excellent managers; And others can't? These indecisive guys are afraid of being forced to accept the consequences of their actions.

However, some sociologists are subverting the above viewpoint by deeply studying the psychological and social factors that affect people's decision-making. By studying better decision-making mechanism, they hope that decision-making will not be as mysterious as witchcraft, but can be learned and mastered like carpentry.

Chip, a professor at Stanford Business School? Chipheath and Dan, a researcher at Duke University's Social Enterprise Development Research Center? Two brothers, Dan Heath, co-authored two excellent popular social science books, Made to Stick and Switch. Their new book Decision-making: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work explores the latest research results in the field of decision-making.

They wrote? Resolutely is a choice in itself. Decision-making power is a way of behavior, not a genetic feature. It enables us to make brave and confident choices, not because we know that we must be right, but because it is better to try and fail than to delay and regret. ?

The Heath brothers pointed out four factors that hinder effective decision-making: the first point is the narrow framework, which limits the range of choices we consider; The second point is to confirm the deviation. We tend to look for evidence to support our existing views. The third point is short-term emotions, which will gradually fade over time; The last point is overconfidence.

The Heath brothers made a suggestion. Packaging? The four-stage process aims to solve four obstacles that hinder decision-making in turn. Do we have to do this? Broaden your choice space? Avoid simple either-or decisions. Should we? Put your assumptions into reality to test? Make sure that our decision is based on facts and not prejudice. Should we still? Reduce emotional interference before making a decision? Or when faced with a major decision, you should set aside some time to think, instead of letting yourself be influenced by the current mood. Must it be done well in the end? Prepare for mistakes? Because we are likely to make mistakes.

The Heath brothers convincingly pointed out that poor decision-making mechanisms can be seen everywhere. Take the recruitment interview as an example. At present, the common practice is not to let the candidates try to perform the specific tasks that the recruiter wants them to perform after joining the company, but to let the candidates sit in a room and judge whether they are capable of performing their duties by asking questions. The book says,? Imagine if the coach of the American Olympic track and field team used two test methods when screening athletes participating in the 4x 100 relay race. One is to let athletes compete on the runway who runs faster. The second is to interview an athlete in the conference room and judge whether he answers questions like a scud. ?

The Heath brothers said that people often make decisions too hastily. What we should really do is to conduct some small experiments to test whether our ideas are correct before making decisions and implementing them.

Many ideas in the Heath Brothers book are similar to those of Francesca, a professor at Harvard Business School. Francesca Gino's views echoed at a distance. Gino wrote in his book "Off track: Why our decisions are derailed and how we can stick to the plan" that if we can be aware of all kinds of strange factors that affect our decisions, we can better control them.

For example, most people tend to overestimate their talents and abilities. If we are asked to evaluate our own qualities, including decision-making ability and physical attractiveness, most people will think that their conditions are above average. We think we are better than we really are. This psychological tendency is the chief culprit that prevents us from making the right decision.

We prefer to listen to the advice we get after paying, regardless of the quality of these opinions. The fact that we spend money on advice makes us credulous, which is taken advantage of by expensive consultants.

But once you understand these tendencies of human psychology, you can use them to convince others. The hotel found that when telling guests that others are also reusing towels, the utilization rate of towels is much higher than when only reminding guests that reusing towels is beneficial to the environment.

We always tend to do more things that we think others want us to do, whether good or bad. In some cases, it is perfectly reasonable to imitate people we trust and respect. But the worrying fact revealed by the experiment is that even if we find that we are only slightly similar to others, whether it is related to our current decision or not will affect our behavior. If we find that someone's birth month or name is the same as ours, the probability of imitating this person's behavior will increase. Mining similarity, no matter how far-fetched, is a skill that every excellent salesperson knows.

Like the Heath Brothers, what is Professor Gino's solution to the decision-making bias? Dilute personal color and make the decision-making process objective. Be sure to control your emotions, adjust your perspective by constantly adopting other people's suggestions, enrich your choice space, and look at the problem from the other side's point of view. We need to explore the sources of our information bias and psychological bias. We must also constantly think about whether we can reconstruct a decision to achieve our goal.

Professor Gino quoted 19 12 Theodore? Example of theodore roosevelt's campaign leader. At that time, the campaign team printed 3 million brochures with photos of Roosevelt, but the photos themselves were not authorized by photographers. Instead of putting himself at the mercy of the photographer, the person in charge sent a telegram to the other party, saying: We plan to distribute millions of pamphlets with Roosevelt's photo on the cover. This will be an excellent opportunity to improve the visibility of the selected studio. How much are you willing to pay us if we choose the photos you took? Please reply as soon as possible. ? The cheerful photographer called back and offered to pay $250. The problem is reconstructed and satisfactory results are obtained.

Dennis? Dennis Barker is the co-founder of Imagination School and the former CEO of AES. Baki believes that decentralization of decision-making power is a very powerful management method. Many times, the management firmly holds the decision-making power in their hands, because they feel that this is in line with their status and salary level. But in his latest business novel "The Decision Maker", he points out that more people in the whole company should participate in the decision-making process.

Bucky set the novel in an old-fashioned manufacturing enterprise. The operation of the company is barely maintained, and the workers are not interested in their jobs. When the new management installed a marble game machine to boost morale, the employees snickered.

Subsequently, the new management decided to take a bold move: give up the decision-making power and introduce what Baki called "yes"? Decision maker process? Mechanism. According to this process, when a problem arises, the leader of an organization must first decide who will make the decision. Selected? Decision maker? It must be someone who is familiar with the problem and knows its background. If the problem is related to a manufacturing link, then the decision-maker should be the person who deals with the link every day, not the senior manager who never goes down to the production workshop.

Next, the selected decision-maker must seek the opinions of others to ensure that the decision can be supported by factual evidence and multiple angles. In the end, decision makers must make a decision.

According to Baki's description, the implementation of this process can be said to be thrilling. Managers are afraid of losing control. And suddenly being given such a great responsibility makes employees feel dizzy. However, with the passage of time, this mechanism enables employees to form a stronger sense of ownership, more willing to share knowledge with others, and ultimately improve the quality of decision-making.

The above three authors all mentioned the same point: in our life and work, there are core problems that need to be completed first, and the decisions we make determine whether we will achieve our goals or fail. The good news is that improving the decision-making process is something that all of us can do. (Translator/Mara)