“The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee.” – Tom Hanks, You’ve Got Mail
I was in the final stages of gathering the facts surrounding an incident for which I had been assigned as an investigating officer. Conducted under the auspices of Army Regulation 15-6, my investigation was essentially an inquiry that could – depending on my recommendations – lead to serious, even career-altering consequences. Although the inquiry presented an added demand on my already limited time, I was determined to see it through and ensure accountability was delivered.
The facts were crystal clear. Through multiple witness statements and interviews, I had a well-documented timeline of events that detailed the who, what, when, and where. While that information might suffice to present a final report, I needed to understand the why.
Why did the individual make the decision that caused the incident?
More than any other factor, the why had the most significant bearing on my recommendation. There was no question whether he was responsible for the outcome; the only question left was why he made the choice that he made. His thinking in that moment would shape the consequences that I would recommend.
Bourbon and Poor Choices
There is a humorous scene in the 2016 film, London Has Fallen, in which President Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart) is jogging with Mike Banning (Gerard Butler), the chief of his Secret Service detail. As the two are picking up their pace and Banning leaves the president behind, Asher asks, “What are you made of?” Banning replies snarkily, “Bourbon and poor choices, sir.”
Poor choices and bad decisions are almost cliché at times. Spend enough time peeling back the onion on any situation where the outcome proved less than ideal, and poor choices and bad decisions were a driving factor in the end result. And, during the course of my time in uniform, every investigation landed me in the same place: “Can you explain to me the thinking behind your decisions?”
People make bad decisions for any number of reasons. Sometimes, they choose a path without all of the facts necessary to make an informed decision. Often, a bad decision is the result of acting out of emotion rather than reason. And other times, people make poor choices just because that’s what they do. In the hands of someone with decision-making authority, stupidity will always stand out.
The Hidden Traps
Making timely, rational, and informed decisions is the secret sauce for any successful leader. It doesn’t always have to be the right decision, either, but one that moves events along a path that ultimately makes it the right decision in the moment. That requires a leader with an innate understanding of systems thinking, a good sense of cost-benefit calculus, and comfort with risk.
In a classic 2006 Harvard Business Review article, the authors ask the simple question, “Where do bad decisions come from?” In their research, they explored the thinking behind those bad decisions, peeling back the onion on the hidden traps that sabotage our choices. “Sometimes the fault lies not in the decision-making process but rather in the mind of the decision maker.”
In an expansive study focused on senior business leaders, they identified and documented six psychological traps that plague decision-making. “The best defense is always awareness,” they warn. Self-awareness, that is. The better you know yourself, the better able you are to not fall prey to your own cognitive bias.
1. The Anchoring Trap.
Too often, people make a decision based on the first piece of information they receive, anchoring to that information for subsequent decisions. Colin Powell was well aware of this when he cautioned, “Never believe the first thing you hear.” The first report is often wrong.
2. The Status Quo Trap.
People abhor change. It’s not uncommon for people to be so wedded to the current situation that they fervently resist change, even when better alternatives are available. How bad is it? John Kotter wrote an entire book on this subject. That’s how bad.
3. The Sunk Cost Trap.
Have you ever invested so much time, effort, and money into something that you powered through even though you knew it was the wrong decision? Guilty. Now, let’s talk about defense acquisition. You know where this leads.
4. The Confirming Evidence Trap.
Racehorses wear blinders for a reason. We often do, too. We sometimes get so fixated on what we think is true that we disregard any contradictory evidence. Spend an hour on social media debating <insert random divisive topic here> and see for yourself.
5. The Framing Trap.
Also known as shiny object syndrome or the squirrel technique, this is a form of cognitive bias where people are influenced by how information is presented rather than its factual content. That’s why we like to tell the boss that we have a 90% readiness rate rather than “on any given day, 10% of our junk is on blocks in the motorpool.”
6. The Estimating and Forecasting Traps.
To be fair, this is actually three traps rolled into one – the overconfidence trap, in which people overestimate the accuracy of their forecast; the prudence trap, in which people become overly cautions to a fault; and the recallability trap, where a forecast is skewed by vivid or dramatic recent events. Think the weatherman (or woman) and the people on sports talk radio telling you how to gamble away your money. Their jobs involve convincing you that they’re always right. They’re not.
When I finally sat down with the individual at the center of my investigation, we spent a fair amount of time talking around his thinking. He understood that his decision set in motion the chain of events that led to the inquiry. But he also believed that he could avoid the consequences of that decision by not answering the why. He couldn’t. My thinking wasn’t clouded by bias or impacted by emotion. The outcome cut a return path directly back to his decision. In the end, he grasped that inevitability: “Sir, it’s on me. I didn’t think anyone would ever check.”
