Making Better Decisions During A Crisis
Out-think your brain with these 3 tactics
Posted on 06-09-2020, Read Time: Min
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As the owner of a small business in the midst of a global pandemic, I am no stranger to making quick, tough decisions.
While it may be difficult to think past the next few months, thinking long-term has never been more vital.
Crisis and resiliency expert Robert MacFarlane defines a crisis as “an event that threatens the strategic objectives, reputation or existence of an organization.” A crisis is inherently unpredictable: it’s an unexpected and volatile situation that forces responders to react quickly to rapidly changing conditions.
Even when protocols or procedures are in place, an appropriate response needs to fit the circumstances at hand. Responders are often under significant constraints and time is of the essence.
Why You Need to Out-Think Your Brain
When you’re exposed to a variety of stressors—like in a crisis—your brain takes drastic action.The limbic system, or, as neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux calls it, “the emotional brain,” becomes extra vigilant. Under duress, it will react to even the slightest potential danger before the prefrontal cortex—the part of your brain responsible for making executive decisions—has a chance to really weigh your options.
So what does your brain cause you to do when in crisis?
● Fuel your flight or fight response – It robs the decision-making apparatus in your prefrontal cortex of the energy it needs to do its job. It’s great if you’re staring down a predator, but not so much when you’re trying to think through consequences and decide on the best course of action in a crisis.
● Rely on shortcuts – Your attention narrows: you fixate on some information without adequately considering all the available data, overemphasizing unimportant information and filtering out other valuable clues. You also start to seek out new information that confirms your existing point of view. These techniques aren’t necessarily bad. They’re designed to be ‘fast’ and ‘frugal’, as psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer refers to them. But if you don’t focus on the right things, the consequences could be severe.
● Compromise your memory – The stress of a crisis also compromises our working memory. We also have trouble accessing our long-term memory and lean more heavily on information that’s immediately (or easily) accessible to us. As a result, we may simply be unable to recall and integrate critical information—even well-honed expertise—that would produce a better outcome.
If you let your brain get the best of you, it could result in bad decisions.
Our ability to make good decisions depends on the quality of information we have access to, as well as our ability to recognize it as good information. But because of the way our brains work, we’re not as capable of doing that when we’re under significant stress.
Instead, we rush things and may not be able to identify faulty details until it’s too late, or we feel overconfident in the choices we made and try to rationalize them, even after facing negative outcomes. Rather than resolving the crisis, we may be escalating it.
Out-Think Your Brain with These 3 Tactics:
1. Have a mitigation strategy ready. When you’re in crisis, you need to react quickly. Being able to effectively solve a problem is the key to success. Use problem solving tools like the A3 Problem Solving Tool (originally developed by Toyota) to help your team to reflect on how the decision is being made as well as what the decision will be to make sure you aren’t falling prey to cognitive biases.
2. Limit and reduce stress when it happens. Stress is inevitable; however, you can take steps to mitigate its impact. Stress management training can help you apply techniques proven to improve your ability to cope with stress. Exposure training, breathing techniques, relaxation methods, and crisis simulations can all help build confidence in one’s ability to perform in a stressful setting and limit the impact of stress on your cognitive abilities.
3. Understand how stress affects your thought processes. Being aware of how your brain responds to a crisis can help you to recognize when your decision-making has become subject to unconscious biases. This might give you the opportunity you need to slow down, assess the situation, and think rationally rather than relying on shortcuts.
Knowing how to lead during a crisis, will allow you to make moves that improve outcomes, limit your liability and position your organization to emerge even stronger than before.2. Limit and reduce stress when it happens. Stress is inevitable; however, you can take steps to mitigate its impact. Stress management training can help you apply techniques proven to improve your ability to cope with stress. Exposure training, breathing techniques, relaxation methods, and crisis simulations can all help build confidence in one’s ability to perform in a stressful setting and limit the impact of stress on your cognitive abilities.
3. Understand how stress affects your thought processes. Being aware of how your brain responds to a crisis can help you to recognize when your decision-making has become subject to unconscious biases. This might give you the opportunity you need to slow down, assess the situation, and think rationally rather than relying on shortcuts.
One more thing to add – not only will our current crisis impact leaders, it’s likely to take a toll on your employees, teams and trainees.
To do our part, in partnership with registered social workers at Red Maple Professional Coaching, we are using our skills and expertise to help anyone who might be struggling with COVID-19. To do this, we’ve created 5 FREE AND QUICK scenario-based lessons as a part of our Learning Snippets platform. The Snippets address some of the common coping challenges employees are facing in their work and personal lives.
The complementary resources can be found at https://www.learningsnippets.ca/. Please don’t hesitate to pass them on to your team and stay and well in these trying times.
Author Bio
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Aaron Barth, the Founder and President of Dialectic, is an expert in HR, employee engagement, unconscious bias and organizational culture. He equips leadership with the tools they need to better understand how to create, encourage and maintain a thriving workplace culture and diverse workforce Connect Aaron Barth |
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