It's not uncommon for a leader facing a hard decision to defer it and "kick the can down the road." This is both readily understandable and a potentially serious problem, because if they kick the can too far they reach a point where the decision will be made for them by someone else, and not always to the leader's benefit. So a theme in my practice is helping leaders understand why they defer hard decisions and when those rationales may be unwarranted. Not all the factors below are present in every situation, nor do they affect all leaders equally, but whenever a leader kicks the can they're likely being influenced by at least one or two:
They overestimate the costs and underestimate the benefits.
Hard decisions are hard not only because of the cognitive difficulty of identifying the best option, but also--and sometimes especially--because of the feelings evoked by the prospect of the inevitable costs. And in most hard decisions all possible options carry a set of costs. Every alternative will have a negative impact on someone, and that may include the leader. Every alternative offers some benefits as well, but they may seem vague and abstract relative to the costs, which in contrast are painfully vivid. [1] Given the strength of the human impulse to avoid negative emotions, leaders often overestimate the cost of a hard decision, and underestimate the benefits--including the relief that will come when the choice is made. And so they defer, hoping for a reprieve. Kick...
They're too optimistic.
Note that this isn't mutually exclusive with the point above--a leader can overweight costs while also maintaining an unrealistic degree of optimism. There's a correlation between optimism and effective leadership, in part because the optimistic leader has a contagious effect on others, rendering success more likely. [2] Many of my clients are also founders, and you don't launch a risky new venture without a healthy dose of optimism. But the optimism that spurs leaders on also has a shadow side. In some circumstances there are no "good" options, only various degrees of bad, and optimists can find it profoundly difficult to select the "least bad" option, even to the point of rejecting data they disagree with. [3] They tell themselves that a better option is sure to emerge eventually, and it might even be right around the corner, so why not wait a little longer? [4] Kick...
They feel guilty about past decisions.
Many hard decisions faced by a leader have their origins in a previous decision that turned out to be a mistake. The decision to fire someone was preceded by the decision to hire them. The decision to make cuts was preceded by the decision to grow. The decision to shut down the business was preceded by the decision to launch it. Leaders tend to have a higher-than-average need to exert control over their environment [5], and in my experience this is often accompanied by a heightened sense of responsibility. While this is certainly laudable at times, it can also result in a form of paralysis. The leader feels guilty because of their prior decision, and they're hoping that by deferring the hard decision they may be able to expunge the guilt. Kick...
They're overwhelmed by data.
There's rarely a shortage of data in contemporary organizational life, but that's a mixed blessing. [6] Leaders often benefit by having some facility with technical analysis, but very few hard decisions are made on the basis of data alone. In cases where the data is conclusive, the decision was made before the problem reached the leader, or the leader made the decision without undue anguish. But most hard decisions are hard because the data is not conclusive, and the leader must use the data as a starting point for analysis rather than asking the data to provide the answer. And yet in some circumstances the leader feels precluded from making a decision until the data tells them what to do, so they conduct yet another round of analysis. Kick...
They don't trust (or can't access) their intuition.
A corollary to data-overwhelm is a leader's inability to trust or access their intuitive judgment. Note that intuition is not some mystical power--it's nothing more than pattern recognition on the margins of consciousness, the mind's ability to perceive and interpret subtle signals that logical reasoning has overlooked. [7] Not everyone's intuition is trustworthy, nor is anyone's intuition accurate at all times. [8] But because most hard decisions can't be resolved via conclusive data, the leader must typically rely to some extent on their intuition. If they're habitually unable to do so, or if a chaotic environment makes it difficult, they may well feel stuck. Kick...
So if you're facing a hard decision that you've already deferred, and you're tempted to do it again, what can you do? How can you stop kicking the can down the road? A first step is simply being mindful of the factors above and asking whether any of them apply to you. And despite the wide range of possible scenarios, note a theme that runs through all of them: emotions. Fear of the costs. Excessive optimism. Guilt about the past. Overwhelm. Distrust.
No matter what the circumstances, it's likely that emotions are playing a role in your impulse to defer the hard decision, and overcoming that impulse in order to make a choice will entail a degree of emotion regulation. And as I've written before,
To be very clear, emotion regulation does not mean suppressing our feelings. Suppression is essentially an act of make-believe--we pretend we're not feeling what we're feeling and hope to distract ourselves until the feeling passes. We can do this for short periods, but not for an extended length of time--and some research suggests that the effort may be counter-productive. In contrast, emotion regulation involves improving our ability to sense, comprehend, articulate and express what we're feeling, and we develop those skills by getting closer to our emotions, not by distancing ourselves from them. [9]
And although some emotions can serve as obstacles, tempting you to defer the hard decision, others will play a vitally important role in your ultimate choice, enabling you to process vast amounts of information very efficiently as you arrive at a conclusion. [10] The key is identifying your full range of feelings, labeling them accurately [11], determining which ones are preventing you from making a decision, and asking whether that response is truly justified.
This is a companion piece to the following:
Stop Worrying About Making the Right Decision
Leadership, Decision-Making and Emotion Management
Footnotes
[1] This pattern is the focus of one of the most widely-cited papers in psychology: Bad Is Stronger Than Good (Roy Bauermeister, Catrin Finkenauer, Ellen Bratslavsky, and Kathleen D. Vohs, Review of General Psychology, 2001). This paper has been so influential over the past two decades not only because its findings have proven robust, but also because we see its implications in countless domains of life: "The greater power of bad events over good ones is found in everyday events, major life events (e.g., trauma), close relationship outcomes, social network patterns, interpersonal interactions, and learning processes." And I see this pattern reflected repeatedly in my work with leaders:
- Your 360 Report Is Ready
- Why You Can't Stop Thinking About Something
- Feedback Is Not a Gift
- Neuroscience, Leadership and David Rock's SCARF Model
[2] For more on leadership and optimism, see Dispositional Affect and Leadership Effectiveness: A Comparison of Self-Esteem, Optimism, and Efficacy (Martin Chemers, Carl Watson, and Stephen May, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2000), and Impact of Leadership Style and Emotion on Subordinate Performance (Janet McColl-Kennedy and Ronald Anderson, The Leadership Quarterly, 2002).
[3] See the discussion of "Outlook" in The Emotional Life of Your Brain: How Its Unique Patterns Affect the Way You Think, Feel, and Live--and How You Can Change Them (Richard Davidson and Sharon Begley, 2012): "An excessively Positive Outlook...impairs your ability to learn from mistakes and to postpone immediate gratification in favor of a greater payoff in return." (page 229)
[4] Irrational optimism is often a factor preventing a leader from making the difficult decision to shut down a business. For more on that topic, see Why Some Entrepreneurs Don't Know When to Quit
[5] Extensive research on leadership and control has been conducted by Jerry Burger of Santa Clara University--see the following: The Desirability of Control (Jerry Burger and Harris Cooper, Motivation and Emotion, 1979), Desire for Control and Achievement-Related Behaviors (Jerry Burger, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1985), and The Effects of Desire for Control on Attributions and Task Performance (Jerry Burger, Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 1987).
[6] See The Siren Call of Constant Data and When an Educated Guess Beats Data Analysis (Oguz Acar and Douglas West, Harvard Business Review, 2021).
[7] What is an "Explanation" of Behavior? (Herbert Simon, Psychological Science, 1992): "The situation has provided a cue; this cue has given the expert access to information stored in memory, and the information provides the answer. Intuition is nothing more and nothing less than recognition."
[8] Psychologists Gary Klein and Daniel Kahneman have jointly explored the extent to which our intuitions are accurate. See Strategic decisions: When can you trust your gut? (Olivier Sibony and Dan Lovallo interviewing Daniel Kahneman and Gary Klein, McKinsey Quarterly, 2010):
McKinsey Quarterly: Is intuition more reliable under certain conditions?
Gary Klein: We identified two. First, there needs to be a certain structure to a situation, a certain predictability that allows you to have a basis for the intuition. If a situation is very, very turbulent, we say it has low validity, and there’s no basis for intuition... The second factor is whether decision makers have a chance to get feedback on their judgments, so that they can strengthen them and gain expertise. If those criteria aren't met, then intuitions aren't going to be trustworthy.
[10] Antonio Damasio on Emotion and Reason
[11] Vocabulary of Emotions [PDF]
Photo by Ivan Radic.
