"You know what to do, just do it"

General Norman Schwarzkopf once said, "The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do.  The hard part is doing it."  There is nothing wrong to be afraid or anxious about making decisions, particularly during times of crisis (for a very thorough and in-depth study of this topic, see the book, "Making Decisions Under Stress: Implications for Individual and Team Training", edited by Janis A. Cannon-Bowers and Eduardo Salas).  However, the truly great leaders are the ones that rise above their fears to go ahead and make the difficult decisions.

If you have been reading my blog over the years, you know that one of my favorite television mini-series was the 2001 HBO series "Band of Brothers" (based upon the book of the same name by Stephen E. Ambrose - also one of my favorites), which was produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks.  The series tells the story of the men of E ("Easy") Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division from the start of their jump training in the United States and on through to the end of the European Theater of World War II.  I recently watched one of the later episodes, "The Breaking Point" which occurs shortly after the famous Siege of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge.  The episode is a character study of good versus bad leadership during a crisis.  The Company's Commanding Officer is 1st Lieutenant Norman Dike, who is the "bad leader" in the story, while the Company's First Sergeant (later promoted) Carwood Lipton is the "good leader."  Lipton describes Dike's shortcomings poignantly as follows:

"He wasn't a bad leader because he made bad decisions.  He was a bad leader because he made no decisions."

In both examples, the quote by General Schwarzkopf and the episode in "Band of Brothers", there is a suggestion that leaders should not succumb to the so-called "paralysis by analysis."  Some times, executive leadership requires executive action.  There are times when leaders will be forced to make a decision without limited information.  At these crucial points, they may have to make a decision based on their "gut feelings."  As the early 19th century German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote:

"He who deliberates lengthily will not always choose the best."

The question then becomes, why are some leaders hesitant to make decisions - and for that matter, why are all of us sometimes hesitant to make decisions?  There are countless studies that have tried to answer this exact question, but I want to focus on just three of them.  I've covered one of these studies in a previous post ( "The Tyranny of Choice").  So, let's talk about this one first.  Sheena Iygengar and Mark Lepper published "When choice is demotivating: Can one desire too much of a good thing?" in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 2000.  In their study, consumers were asked to select a gourmet jam from either a set of six types of jam or a larger set of 24-30 types of jam.  Consumers were more likely to buy the gourmet jam when confronted with a limited number of choices.  Only 3% of the consumers bought jam when confronted with the larger set of choices, while 30% of the consumers bought jam when confronted with the limited set of choices!  Moreover, the consumers reported a greater degree of satisfaction after they made their selection when confronted with the limited set of choices.  In other words, one of the reasons why we have difficulty making decisions, particularly under stressful conditions, is that we are seemingly paralyzed by the number of choices.  Based on this study then, leaders can make their jobs easier by narrowing their focus (i.e., set priorities) and limiting the number of decision choices.  Where feasible, pushing decision making authority to front line leaders and managers (see "HRO: Deference to Expertise"  and "You know what to do...") can help facilitate better decision making for the times when the executive leader has to be the one to make the decision.

The second study that I want to review speaks more to the fact that we are incredibly uncomfortable making decisions under conditions of uncertainty.  In a study by Amos Tversky and Eldar Shafir published in 1992 in the journal Psychological Science ("The disjunction effect in choice under uncertainty"), college students were offered the choice to purchase a trip to Hawaii over winter break.  There was a catch though (there's no such thing as a "free lunch" after all) - the students were told that they had taken a test before the break.  If they passed, nothing further was required.  However, if they failed the test, they would have to take the exam on the first day back from winter break.  The vacation offer was only good for one day.  Just over half of the students who passed the exam decided to purchase the vacation offer (conceivably as a reward for their test performance), while a slightly larger percentage who failed the exam decided to do so (conceivably as a consolation for failing the exam).  Here's where it gets interesting.  In a different group, students were told that they wouldn't find out their exam scores until after the offer to purchase the vacation had expired.  Less than a third of the students chose to purchase the vacation when they didn't know how they fared on the exam!  In other words, adding the element of uncertainty changed the decision to purchase the vacation offer significantly! 

As I stated above, it is rare that a leader will have access to all of the information that he or she needs to make an important decision.  However, by recognizing that (1) uncertainty makes us all uncomfortable and (2) that's completely okay is important.  Sometimes the mere recognition that uncertainty is uncomfortable is all we need to push ourselves into making a decision.  In the second part of the Tversky and Shafir experiment, students were told that they could pay money (a non-refundable $5 fee, which after all, is a lot of money for a college student) in order to delay the decision on purchasing the vacation package for a day until after they found out their exam scores.  In other words, we will go to unbelievable lengths at times, just to get more information to make decisions!  Leaders should avoid that temptation to eliminate all uncertainty and instead focus their efforts and energy on making the decision with the information that they have at hand.

The third and final study was published by Timothy Wilson and colleagues in 1993 in the journal, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin ("Introspecting about reasons can reduce post-choice satisfaction").  Here again, college students were given the choice of two different posters showing famous works of art to hang in their dormitories.  Half of the students were asked detailed questions about why they liked or disliked one poster over the other.  The remaining half of the students were told just to pick based on their gut instinct.  Those students who went with their gut were much more satisfied with their decision several weeks later.  In other words, we may have a tendency to over-analyze decisions to the point where we make a decision that we will later regret.  Our first hunch or gut feeling really tells us how we really feel, and we should learn to pay attention.

I am not saying that we should always go with our gut instinct.  I am also not saying that we shouldn't be careful about the decisions that we make.  I am simply calling attention to the fact that leaders have to make decisions, at times when they are pressured to do so with limited time and limited information.  The best leaders acknowledge their limitations, use what information that they have to conduct a quick analysis, and then act decisively.  At times, that means going with a gut feeling.  We usually know what to do - in these cases especially, it's important to just do it.