THE NUMBERS.

Rumour has it that adults make approximately 35,000 decisions a day; and 226.7 of those decisions are all about food! Children by contrast, are purported to be making about 3,000 decisions a day.

DECISION FATIGUE IS REAL!

You know that moment when you’ve finally reached the end of your work day and you give yourself permission to collapse wherever you’re sitting or standing - just for a moment, you tell yourself - and the thought of trying to decide what’s for dinner makes your stomach turn? That is a sign you’ve reached the limits of, and have exhausted, your decision making capacity.

Every decision we make - consciously or unconsciously - throughout our day drains a little bit of our mental, emotional and physical capacity. If we don’t protect or replenish our mental, emotional and physical energy, we eventually run out of our ability to make decisions which could then lead to either a) risky decision making, or b) decision avoidance.

DECISION FATIGUE SOUNDS LIKE…

Perhaps you’ve caught yourself thinking these things, or have heard your colleagues say things like:

• “I’ll tackle this later…” and enter into the procrastination cycle;

• “Oh I can’t decide: eeny, meeny, miny, moe - that will do…” and make risky, impulsive and ill considered decisions that might carry unwanted consequences;

• “I can’t deal with this right now…” or “Let’s wait for the next executive committee / steering committee meeting and table it there…” and avoid making the decision because there is a serious bout of indecision; or

• “When in doubt, I’m just going to say no…” and default to the safest perceived answer to maintain the status quo.

When decision fatigue increases, the quality of decisions decreases.

WHAT CAN I DO ABOUT DECISION FATIGUE?

One way to address decision fatigue at work and to increase the quality of decisions made is to protect your decision making capacity; protect your mental, emotional and physical energy when it comes to decision making. A very simple thing you can do is ask yourself one question:

“Is this decision mine to make; or does it belong to someone else?”

It only takes one moment to do so. If the answer is that it is your decision to make, then you carry on as you were. If the answer is that the decision belongs to someone else, then you’ve saved yourself energy, time, effort, etc. by not even entering into the decision making process in the first place.

Everybody starts with, and has, good intentions; however sometimes it’s not so obvious within our organisations where the decision making authority lies, or who the best people to make certain types of decisions are.

Where decision making authority is unclear and decisions are slow to be made, the people who are most invested in the outcome are likely to step in to move things forward - even if they are not the ultimate decision makers - leading to potential inefficiencies, ineffectiveness and wasted investments of energy. This is no one’s fault. Often this is a natural problem that organically emerges as a consequence of the speed at which organisations move (e.g. in fast growth and scale up start-ups where you’re onboarding people and changing your organisational structures and dynamics on an almost daily basis), or as a consequence of having complicated legacy decision making processes that become unclear over time or become unsuitable as the context and complexity inside and outside of the organisation changes (e.g. government or large multi-national companies).

NOT MY DECISION TO MAKE.

So you’ve decided that the decision in front of you is not yours to make. Now what? The below guide has been designed to help you take that next step forward and protect your decision making capacity.

It’s not my decision to make; but I have critical information and the outcome of the decision has a high impact to me.
Share the critical information you have with the decision maker and state your case; but let the decision maker make the decision.

It’s not my decision to make; I have no critical information but the outcome of the decision has a high impact to me.
Stay informed and be involved in co-creation when invited by the decision maker; but let the decision maker make the decision.

It’s not my decision to make; but I have critical information and the outcome of the decision has a low impact to me.
Share the critical information you have with the decision maker; then walk away and forget about it.

It’s not my decision to make; I have no critical information and the outcome of the decision has a low impact to me.
Walk away - run if you must - and forget about it.

I WANT TO MAKE BETTER QUALITY DECISIONS.

If you’ve found this useful and would like help exploring how you &/or your team can make better quality decisions through 1:1 &/or group coaching, get in touch and start the conversation today.