Ep. 147: Emotional and Rational Decision-Making in Organizations

In this episode of Definitely Maybe Agile, hosts Peter Maddison and David Sharrock explore the complex dynamics between rational and emotional decision-making in organizations, particularly when implementing new ways of working at scale. They discuss the challenges of presenting data-driven solutions and the often unexpected emotional responses these can trigger. The conversation delves into the psychological aspects of decision-making, including the impact of past experiences, and the importance of recognizing and addressing emotional responses in professional settings. Peter and Dave offer insights on effective communication strategies, the significance of timing and presentation methods, and the need to understand hidden incentives that may influence reactions to proposed changes.

This week´s takeaways:

• Recognize when a discussion is becoming unproductive due to emotional responses, and be willing to step back, listen, and allow time for tensions to dissipate before proceeding.
• Tailor your presentation of data and information to your audience, keeping it simple and clear.
• Be aware of hidden incentives or underlying factors that may be influencing someone's response to a proposed change. Listen actively to understand their perspective and concerns beyond the surface-level reaction.

Don't miss this episode brimming with practical advice and actionable strategies for navigating the intricate landscape of organizational decision-making.

Chapters

• 0:04 Rational vs Emotional Decision Making
• 12:59 Effective Communication in Decision Making

Transcript

Peter: 0:04

Welcome to Definitely Maybe Agile, the podcast where Peter Maddison and David Sharrock discuss the complexities of adopting new ways of working at scale. Hello Dave, how are you doing today, Peter?

Dave: 0:15

it's great to catch up with you again and this is going to be an interesting conversation. I think we're going to pry and talk about quite a fluffy topic here.

Peter: 0:24

Fluffy oh fantastic. Yeah, that sounds like one of the little stuffies my daughter's been making. So the topic today is well rational versus emotional, and so we were just chatting earlier about some of the sort of challenges we run into in organizations and trying to help people through some of the decision making aspects, and sometimes even when you've got the data and you put the data in front of people and say, look, it's obvious, you need to go this way, they still go.

Dave: 0:55

Yeah, oh, I would say it's more than sometimes. I mean, it's one of the I could I have lost count of how many conversations I've had about organizations wanting to be data driven about. You know, we work in a technical field, so very smart, very technically, data analytical type of people put an opportunity on the table or put the solution on the table, which all of the data points to this is the right rational thing to do, which all of the data points to. This is the right rational thing to do. And yet change management is how on earth do I get this obvious sort?

Peter: 1:32

of.

Dave: 1:32

Thing solution agreed to when people they don't make decisions based on rational data. I mean, that's a way I kind of justify it afterwards. But I'm going to make a decision if I'm involved in it. It's an emotional decision, it's part of who I am perhaps.

Peter: 1:45

Yeah, people don't just look at things purely from the data and they can have other information you may not be aware of. There's lots of reasons for this, but sometimes it can just simply be like oh, I mean, one of the common ones we often talk about is well, 10 years ago, when I was a lad, I saw this all go badly wrong and I ain't doing that again.

Dave: 2:08

The three Yorkshireman sketch right, but is that so? This is, I often think of this. This is and a colleague of mine reminds me of this many times which is a make-dealer hijack right. What's really happening here is not that my logic is better or worse than your logic. It's that my logical, analytical part of my brain isn't getting a look in, because when I hear the decision coming down, I feel I'm freezing, I'm fighting or I'm fleeing because it somehow attacks my position in some way.

Peter: 2:39

Yeah, my status or my certainty about what I'm doing is impacted. So I'm like, oh, this isn't good, Like this data looks bad, makes me look bad.

Dave: 2:50

I've got to like I'm going to run or I'm going to fight or th at's a natural reaction and, unfortunately, if I think back to the other side, so if I'm listening to that conversation and I'm listening to pushback and I'm listening to reasons why, often I'm now challenged in the same way. So my own amygdala comes in and says hold on, you need to. You know, this is a tennis match and you need to knock this one back. And here's the data that they need and here's the thing they're missing. And now we get into this sort of to and fro of, like a tennis match, things going backwards and forwards, but the rally never ends because we're not really going to. You know, there isn't compromise or collaboration happening. It's one side or the other is going to win and the other side is not going to win.

Peter: 3:34

Yeah, exactly, and it's essential to be able to take a step back out of that and listen and say, like, what is causing this reaction? And I thought I was presenting clear numbers here that were quite valuable and they tell a story, and it's a good story and it's one that says what we should do next and why am I getting this reaction that it's not aligned to that.

Dave: 3:57

Yeah, I would say the first thing there is just recognition. So recognize you're getting into that step, that discussion. It's not going to go anywhere. That's useful. So stepping back a little bit. I also feel that often we then dig deeper and try and overwhelm with data, just you know, turning off the presentation, pushing everything to one side and having a conversation to say, ok, talk to me, tell me your, what are you seeing, what are your concerns? And listening and just getting a conversation going.

Dave: 4:33

Because the thing about that amygdala hijack is I need to kind of give time for the kind of the energy to flow to finish up. So I'm always reminded in the back of my head is if we're driving along and somebody cuts us off and we have to slam the brakes on, that pushes adrenaline into our system, but that adrenaline then takes tens of minutes to dissipate. So we're on edge now for the next 15, 20 minutes and we're in that same situation here. So we're, we've got that sort of boost response that, even though the car that cut us off has disappeared and we're now driving home just as we were before, we still have the consequences of that sort of sort of sudden, um, adrenaline rush that we've got to allow to dissipate and be aware of that as we're going forward yeah, and it's a.

Peter: 5:22

it's a very critical point you bring up there, especially when we've got sort of back-to-back 30-minute meetings and you don't know what happened in the last 15 minutes. The response you're seeing may have absolutely nothing to do with it, so maybe I should just come back and do this again.

Dave: 5:39

Yeah, well, I mean, I think we're kind of saying that with a smile on our face, but actually it's a very important thing to recognize. If these decisions are kind of significant, going to shake up their work environment, then we're going to pause, recognize it. We've got to listen out and give it time, and I think that in today's world we don't have the time, and so how do we create that space, that time, so we can do that?

Peter: 6:02

I think that's in particular.

Dave: 6:04

Sometimes we kind of have that conversation that says, look, we're adults here, we, you know this is work, we need to be able to move through and make decisions quickly. But that's not recognizing that people are kind of being pulled backwards and forwards by this emotional tension that they might be feeling and not everybody has that for every topic, but there are things where you know it's the sort of thing that we're going to pick up as we see what's going on. And I think the second thing on the listening part of that listening is to kind of reduce the impact of the sort of shock to the system that may have been generated. But the other part of that listening is to understand the landscape from the other's perspective.

Peter: 6:40

Yeah, like, and listen, like, learning your audience when you're presenting this is critical, like it. Uh, what do they see? If you can do that prior to going and presenting data that can be very valuable? Um, like, if you, otherwise you could walk in and present something which isn't meaningful to them. So it's uh, or something that they're they've seen before and understanding, if I mean if somebody is likely to be reacting differently. I have intentionally moved sort of interactions, especially if it's something where I'm going to need somebody's attention. Uh, move them from. Oh, you mean, they're just going to be coming out of a two hour long executive session.

Peter: 7:17

Uh, let's do this tomorrow, let's not do this right after it and cause they're going to be in a probably a better state of mind at that point. And the I think there's another piece here as well around um, the you can get that emotional response if the data isn't clear as well. It's uh, if there's a. So having it presented in a way that it clearly articulates what you're trying to do, that there's. There is definitely a a way to do that well and a way to do that badly. And using the right presentations of data is key. Like some of the interesting ones that I I see are like graphs that uh, like linear graphs which aren't cumulative, to show uh like in, in and out of systems, and stuff like that will you spikes, but it won't give you an idea of the trend or anything like that.

Dave: 8:07

That type of piece I'm always reminded. So I spend a lot of time with people going through workshops and I'm continually reminded of how challenging people find ambiguity or uncertainty. So, to your point, if I'm looking at data and I'm looking at this sort of data-driven decision, but I don't follow the data, now I'm not doing a data-based kind of a data-driven decision. I'm not buying into that. I'm buying into ambiguity and uncertainty and I and that that throws up the sort of amygdala hijack again yes, yeah right, and so that ambiguity is that.

Dave: 8:44

But then the other side, like we've all we've presented at many different places, and one of the golden rules of presenting is never, ever put maths on your slide and never, you know, put graphs which are particularly challenging on your slide. In fact, barely ever put graphs on the slide. And this is part of the headache that we have is that the audience there will be people in the audience who are totally on board with following your logarithmic axes and the you know the kind of whatever ellipsis of probability that you're trying to show and what the right decision is. But the reality is most people need something much, much more in layman's terms to be able to buy into that story.

Peter: 9:22

Yes, and that's I mean. One of the general rules when you're presenting is you need to do this in a simple know your audience like. Make it as simple as you possibly can to articulate the points you want. Don't overload slides with lots of tiny print and lots of math and lots of graphs, because that'll just confuse people and they won't know what they're supposed to be looking at. I've got a presentation tomorrow.

Dave: 9:43

I've got to zip through it now and get rid of all the graphs in it, Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. I think this is such a it's actually a really difficult bit to get right yeah.

Peter: 9:56

Yeah, because there's always this balance between the two. And again, this keeps coming back to understand who you're presenting. So if it's something like a one-on-one discussion with somebody who you know is very data-driven and they're going to want to see that math, then include it. Or if you're going to be presenting into a room full of executives, if you, if you think you might need, you put it in the appendix, like have it at hand should you need it, but don't make it a part of the first thing. And going back to the, this sort of rational versus emotional piece, it's like it's that that's the key part is like understand who you're going to be presenting, from listening for, like, whether the message is getting through, understand whether you're. You're finding yourself in that back and forth. As you described it, it's the are, we are, we escalating here. It's like you didn't like my data, so I'm sending you more data, and you didn't like that, so I'm sending you even more data. And now we're just at a sort of a data war at this point. And I.

Dave: 10:49

I just wanted to add into the conversation that we're having right now is it's.

Dave: 10:53

It's so difficult to look like we think everybody should be rational. This is one of those beliefs that in 15, 20 years, our kids are going to look at us like we're idiots because we thought this was a normal thing. When we think about emotional or irrational, it isn't what many people may be thinking about, about somebody you know really not raising their voice, losing their temper, getting upset about it. These are much more subtle than that. This is when we're working with somebody. They're not emotional about it, they're not understanding what's the decision, where the decision is going, and it's because of that that hijack which is happening, which means that the part of the brain is responding in a different way, as reacting rather than being thoughtful and analytical and so on. And I think that one's just a little subtle thing for us to be aware of, because it's not actually raised voices that gives you the indicator. It's body language which is closed off. People are saying their arms, it's people leaning back and not asking questions when they normally ask questions.

Peter: 11:53

Yep, it's that, it is. It's this. Am I looking for these signs in the other person that I'm looking for? Are they? Because that'll give you the indicator, even if they're not saying it or they're not reacting in a strong way are they? Are they actually understanding what you turned up to say to them? Are they? Is the message coming across? Yeah, so, with that in mind, how would you sum this up?

Dave: 12:18

Wrapping this up. I feel like one of the things that's come out in our conversation which is really powerful and valuable is that recognition that we're not getting our point across and being aware that we are probably in that just getting into that mode of more information we'll get, there we'll go and actually being able to step away from that.

Dave: 12:36

So I think that's one of the first things is being self-aware enough, or being having somebody can nudge you in the elbow with their elbow and say I don't think we need to change the direction here. This isn't getting where we want to. So I think that's one first thing which is super important. Then the second thing is, as a consequence of that, it needs 10, 15, 20 minutes.

Dave: 12:59

I really loved what you said about they've just come out of an executive session. That is not the time to try and get buy-in for a new, innovative idea. There is, you know, find the time which is both available to them but also the right time, because they're coming to you from lunch or whatever it might be, but somewhere that they're not kind of, you know, already put in the wrong mindset perhaps. So I think that recognition we've got to walk through and allow whatever adrenaline to dissipate is super important. And then I think just you know the fact that part of that conversation is listening to understand what they're seeing, what their concerns are, so that we're addressing the right question yes, yeah, I think that's good.

Peter: 13:37

I think, um, I think the only one we didn't cover that we had it was looking for the hidden incentives like what's, uh, what might else be driving this right? It's, uh, the um is is somebody reacting the way they are because they've got some other uh reason, something else that's driving them that you may not be necessarily immediately aware of, but listening for that as well.

Dave: 13:59

If something appears to be a purely emotional response to something, there may very well be a reason for behaving that way, If I'm going to affect your livelihood in some way, your compensation it is likely to kind of cause a defensive or attacking response, right? I think the interesting thing there is incentives. We should, of course, have taken the time to go find out about them, but by definition, hidden incentives are often hidden and you can't necessarily find them. It's not unusual to uncover them quite late.

Peter: 14:30

Yes, yeah, exactly, well, awesome. So, as always, I appreciate the conversation and if anyone would like to send us feedback, they can at feedback@d efinitelymaybeagile. com. And don't forget to hit subscribe, Peter. Thanks again, it's always a pleasure. Thanks, Dave. You've been listening to Definitely Maybe Agile, the podcast where your hosts, Peter Maddison and David Sharrock, focus on the art and science of digital agile and DevOps at scale.