Understanding How & Why We Make The Decisions We Do

Nick Fewings, Managing Director

Guaranteed to help you better

understand your decisions and those of

your colleagues and friends

No doubt, over the course of your working life and

personal life, you’ve heard

someone make a decision and

found yourself saying to yourself

or them “I wouldn’t have

made that decision”

Yes, we’ve all done it!www.ngagementworks.com

In this slideshare, I am going to give

you an understanding of

why, given the same situation, different people make different decisions and

then explore the affect of this when you are working in a

team.

www.ngagementworks.com

When we make decisions that only affect us, it’s usually fine, especially if it doesn’t impact on any others, and we do make a

lot of these on a daily basis;

What clothes are we going to wear today?What clothes are we going to wear today?

What are we going to have for our breakfast, What are we going to have for our breakfast, lunch and dinner?lunch and dinner?

What music to listen to?What music to listen to?

The list is endless. www.ngagementworks.com

The way in which we make decisions is based on our perception of situations or people and also our behavioural preferences.

THAT’S WHY, ON OCCASIONS, WE DON’T UNDERSTAND THE DECISIONS THAT OTHER PEOPLE MAKE

To better understand what’s going on, we need to explore perception and behavioural preferences



PerceptionPerception is our reality of the

world around us. It is based on many things that gets us to our mountain top of perception from where we view and judge people and situations to inform the decisions that we make.

Your perception will, amongst other things, be based on what your parents said, did and told you, your education, your friends, your life experiences, your religious beliefs and your culture.


Image from Pinterest we see the world


PerceptionWhat do you see, an old lady or a

young woman? Both are in the image however one will appear easier to see than the other. Your eyes will pick a psychological trigger point to enable your brain to build the whole picture for you.

It may be the dainty nose of the young woman or the pointed chin of the old woman. There is no right or wrong in what you see first, just difference.

Share this with a friend or colleague, what do they see first?


PerceptionOur perception has an impact on

our decision-making process.

Take this situation with the spider, based on your perception of spiders, you will either get rid of the spider by picking it up in your hands or a container.

You may move extremely rapidly from the toilet and will not venture back in there until someone who has a different perception of spiders than you helps you out and gets rid of it.

Psychological Preferences

Carl Jung, recognised as the Father of modern day psychology, identified that when we make decisions, some of us will have a preference for, what he termed ‘Thinking’, decisions based on the task and logic.

Others will have a preference for making decisions based on relationships and emotions and he called this preference Feeling.


Psychological PreferencesEach of us will have a preference for making decisions as a ‘Thinker’ or as a ‘Feeler’


We can do both however just like writing with either our left or right hand, one will be more natural to you.

Measuring Our Psychological Preferences

There are many models and profiles that measure our behavioural preferences. The model I have been using successfully with individuals and teams for 20 years is produced by Insights.

It uses the work of Carl Jung and overlays colours onto the psychological preferences he identified to make it easy to understand and importantly use on a day to day basis.


Measuring Our Psychological Preferences

Each person on my team workshops receives their own unique Insights Discovery profile which is an incredibly powerful and highly-regarded personal development tool.

Included within the profile are graphs that measure your personal psychological preferences.


So How Does This Affect Team Decisions?

This was the team profile of an operational team I was working with.

An almost equal balance of ‘Thinking’, those in the top half of the wheel and ‘Feeling’, the lower half of the wheel.

So what was the situation they faced and what did they decide?


The Situation

The workshop was being held in a hotel. I was advised prior to the team arriving that there had been a case of the Novavirus, the sickness and vomiting bug.

The hotel had been closed and fumigated over the weekend.

The team had 2 options:

1.Stay at the hotel or2.Drive 6 miles to a sister hotel where there was a training room set aside.


Their Decision

They sat down in a small huddle (Earth Green) and allowed each person to share their thoughts without interruption (Earth Green).

Once everyone had been heard (Earth Green), they advised me of their decision.


Their Decision

They said that there may still be a chance that one of their colleagues might fall ill and that they couldn’t live with this possibility, no matter how small it may be (Earth Green).

They were using their group dominant Earth Green behavioural preference.

As such, they had decided to move to the sister hotel…now this is where it became interesting.


Their Decision

They then began to gather data (Cool Blue) and plan out (Cool Blue) how to get to the sister hotel. This was their group secondary colour behavioural preference.


Their Decision

1. Who knows where the other hotel is?


Their Decision

2. Has everyone

got transport to get there?


Their Decision

3. Do we know the postcode of the other hotel?


Their Decision

4. For those that don’t know where it is, do they have sat nav?



5. How should we order the convoy of cars?

Their Decision


We make decisions based on a combination of our perceptions and behavioural preferences

Based on Jungian psychology, we all have a preference for Thinking (Task) or Feeling (Relationships)

One of the above will kick in instinctively before the other however we can do both

When we work in groups of like-minded people, decisions may be influenced by the dominant preferences in play

When working in a team, it is important that we take into account both Thinking and Feeling preferences to ensure we have covered all basis before agreeing a way foreward.

Conclusion

I hope that you have found this Slideshare of value


If you have, please do keep in touch

@NgageingNick

[email protected]


http://ngagementworks.wordpress.com/

Leadership & Management

Understanding How & Why We Make The Decisions We Do