The most captivating item in Michael Norton's office is a Star Wars The Force Trainer, a toy that allows would-be Jedi warriors to levitate a Ping-Pong ball within a tube using only the power of focused thinking. Norton, a marketing professor at Harvard Business School, plans to study whether inducing people into believing they can expertly control the ball will affect the way they perceive themselves as business influencers.
In fact, Norton spends most of his time thinking about thinking. So it's somewhat ironic that his latest line of research explores the idea of thinking too much.
“If you've done something the same way for 10 years, it might be time to reconsider.”
"Academics traditionally have taken two different approaches to decision-making," says Norton, who teaches in the Marketing Unit. "One view is that people often make decisions too hastily; they use shortcuts and heuristics, and therefore they're susceptible to biases and mistakes. The implication is that if maybe they thought more, they'd do better.
"And then there's this whole stream of research about ways in which you should think more carefully in more logical ways—creating decision trees that map out 'if you want to do this, then you should do this and not that,' making lists of the pros and cons and making a decision based on which list is longer, and so on."
However, there has been little research that considers the notion that overthinking a decision might actually lead to the wrong outcome. Nor have researchers come up with a model that explores how to determine when we're overthinking a decision—even though logic tells us that there certainly is such a thing.
"We all know that when we make lists, we often end up crumpling them and throwing them away because they're not really helping us make decisions," Norton says. "Bill Clinton was famous for becoming so involved with the intricacies of each policy that no decisions were made. Having a leader who considers every detail sounds great in theory, but it can be suboptimal for moving forward with a decision. There's a paralysis that can come with thinking too much."
Norton explores this idea in From Thinking Too Little to Thinking Too Much: A Continuum of Decision Making, an article he co-wrote with Duke University's Dan Ariely for Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science.
"We set out not to tell people whether they're thinking the right way, but just to get them thinking, 'I'm supposed to be making a decision right now—am I thinking too little about this, or am I thinking too much?' " Norton says. "Both of those could lead to mistakes."
“We set out not to tell people whether they're thinking the right way, but just to get them thinking, 'I'm supposed to be making a decision right now-am I thinking too little about this, or am I thinking too much?' Both of those could lead to mistakes.”
For example, in choosing laptop computers for a sales team, an IT executive might get caught up in comparing the graphics capabilities and audio quality of various options, when in fact the only factors of importance to users are the size, weight, and security features. Worse yet, even if they narrow down the list of attributes under consideration, executives can still be stymied if they try to consider every single laptop on the market. (In the article, Norton and Ariely cite a study by social psychologists Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper, who showed that grocery store shoppers who were offered free samples of 24 jam flavors were less likely to buy any jam at all than those shoppers who sampled only 6 flavors; considering too many options made it too hard to choose one.)
The Underthinker
The problem is that time-crunched managers often swing too far to the other end of the decision-making thinking spectrum—that is, they don't think at all.
"Very often managers find that there's not enough time to think through every single scenario or customer segment, which can take months," Norton says. "But too often the correction to 'We don't have time to do that' is an over-correction to one hundred percent 'We should go with our gut.' "
While all good managers should be able to make snap decisions in high-pressure situations, they may miss out on good opportunities—and fall into ruts—when they make quick decisions strictly out of habit. Too often, "We always do it that way" is the main reason for a decision.
For instance, a manager might hire or disqualify job candidates based on whether they make good eye contact during an interview, just because past candidates who made good eye contact ended up performing well at the company.
"So they just decide to use that criterion forever because it's worked out in the past," Norton explains. "But they don't think about what if they had hired people who don't make eye contact. Maybe they would have been better than the people who do. And so that's the idea we want people to consider. Sometimes when you make habitual decisions, things work out fine. But that doesn't mean they're the best decisions. And if you've done something the same way for 10 years, it might be time to reconsider—to think a little more."
Stale Popcorn
More detrimentally, people may make downright bad decisions based on force of habit. In the article, Norton and Ariely describe a study in which several participants watched a movie while eating popcorn. Some received fresh popcorn, while others were given week-old, stale popcorn. The researchers found that those participants who always ate popcorn at the movies were just as likely to gobble down the stale popcorn as they were the fresh popcorn, strictly out of habit.
Lately, Norton has been studying the brain chemistry of decision makers, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in order to determine the neural signatures of decisions based on habits and those based on thoughtful analysis. He gives the example of choosing a favorite hangout because of the quality of the coffee and the ambience at a particular coffeehouse, as opposed to stumbling into a café on a very cold day when any hot drink would seem delicious—yet coming to believe in both cases that the establishment truly offers the best coffee in the whole world. "Ask yourself: Do I like this coffee because I really like this coffee, or do I like it because it was cold out?" Norton says.
Still, there's a long way to go before science offers a clear-cut method for thinking through decisions perfectly.
"We are hopeful that people will continue to conduct research in this area," Norton says. "What we know now is that people sometimes think too much, and sometimes they think too little. But we still don't know the right amount to think for any given decision, which is a fascinating decision yet to be solved."
We may well do better not to think through some situations, but I perceive that the situations where this is true are greatly increased in most of us by the relatively low level of clear thinking resources we have developed because we rely too much on education, intelligence, and technical expertise to do the job, and they generally don't ensure it at all.
"Should I think?" is usually the wrong question to ask. The high-level meta-decision that exceptional problem solvers are making is very often "what should I be focusing on right now?" The answer is never "nothing." Often the answer is "something other than what's capturing my attention right now" and every now and then, even, "something unrelated to this problem, for the time being." But the decision to switch focus has its own thinking behind it. Until people realize that good thinking is much bigger than just the obvious skillsets and natural abilities we rely on most of the time, and that the tradition of "thinking vs. non-thinking" is based a false dicohotomy that doesn't exist in practice in real-time problem solving, we are going to keep asking the wrong questions to get to the really interesting details of how problem solving and decision making work at their best.
A key factor not mentioned is experience. Someone who has dealt with similar decisions and has seen the outcome of choosing one alternative over another may be better able to avoid overthinking or underthinking. As shown in Cognitive Resource Theory, stressful situations make experience more important than intelligence.
I imagine decision making will remain as much art as science no matter how much research is done.
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little, or too much."
Alexander Pope, from "An Essay On Man" (1733 - 1734) Epistle II
alone. But balanced application of intuition and brain can be helpful in avoiding taking snap decision.
However, there are situations where you may not have sufficient informations or time to think too much. And there could be situations, where you have all informations but unable to take decision. Reasons could be many, fear of failure, fear of being criticized, fear of losing position, expectations from top managements etc.. So, even you have informations, times, resources and even gut too, but external environment is not favorable or you don't have freedom to take decision, it will lead you to take decision based on demand rather than your own judgment. You can take decision that is based on logic, trends, analysis and your own sills and experiences etc.Therefore, I think, we need to take balanced amount of thinking connecting our emotions and intelligence to take better decisions. However, we have to have courage and mental unbiased to take decision that is right and less error prone.
One way to deal with "too much info" is to set an appropriate time frame for finding and analyzing new input....3 hours, two days, Thursday......
It's hard to make a case for business decisions based on gut rather than due diligence/competitive intelligence (unless you're dealing with people issues.) Gut reflects the past (combination of experience and facts) and may no longer be true, even though it appears to be so.
Better tapping crowd-sourced criteria might help alleviate both analysis paralysis and gut-jumping; especially in business situations.
Http://cfour.fishbowlsolutions.com
- men/women
- younger/older
- taller/shorter
- intravert/extravert
- deep voice/high voice
- unknown/well known
- senior/junior
- unattractive/attractive
- dominant/submissive
Your experience will tell you that, often one or several of these pairs seems to influence the decisions that are made. Yet a moment's thought will reveal that none of these characteristics has a necessary relationship with wisdom.
There are sound evolutionary reasons why humans are hard-wired to be unconsciously influenced by these characteristics, even when they are no longer relevant.
Imagine if we could construct our decision-making processes so that these unconscious arrational influences were removed, leaving only wisdom.
Yes, there are simple and effective processes for doing this.
There are strategic decisions, tactical decisions, and many in between. Hiring someone should look to what is needed in the position.
In my my experience, tacticians gain the advantage and get over their heads when it comes to strategy. The strategic thinkers see the bigger picture, but are not effective in promoting themselves to the point that they achieve the leadership position.
1. There is just too much information available these days, making it difficult to sift the wheat from the chaff.
2. Organizations do not train their employees on "how to think" frameworks; thinking is looked as IQ related attribute rather than a competency that acquired through training.
3. Employees lack "self-awareness" (an important attribute of Emotional Intelligence)and are not trained or encouraged by their organisations to develop their EQ as well as their
latent creative, lateral thinking abilities( the author's points about stale popcorn and coffee are referring to the fact that some people have low EQ)
4. Our business thinking is overly "jargon-ised", limiting the mind space for "common-sense" thinking.
Thinking styles vary. How we think and make decisions is largely a function of our overall personality dynamics. All of us have a "native" style of thinking and making decisions and if we remain oblivious of this natural predilection and its unique strengths and blind spots, we will continue to make the same mistakes over and over again.So, some people think too much before making decisions resulting in "paralysis by analysis"
which , then, may lead to sub-optimal, ineffective decisions. While many others think too less and make decisions by the seat of their pants, again falling short of what could be termed as effective decision making.To improve one's thinking and decision making abilities, one should make the effort
to learn about one's native thinking and decision making style . This can be done by taking personality tests
like MBTI, Enneagram etc, the resutant insights would then enable one to address the blind spots that inhibit one from becoming a "optimal thinker-for-best-results".
In business and management,the trick is to think in compartments so that all aspects of the issues in consideration can be addressed in the final conclusions. This is what thinking tools like Six Thinking Hats, SWOT, Balanced Scorecard etc aid in doing. Also, by identifying all the stakeholders in the decision at the beginning of the thinking process and taking their perspectives on the issue at hand makes the thinking multi-faceted , resulting in more effective decisions.
Pankaj Sahai
Author : Smooth Ride To Venture Capital
. But if they are oblivious of either but keep thinking like the teen age and underage kids that " I can do whatever i want as i have the power and authority to make the decsion", then there is absence of THINKING at all - not just a little or too much - just plain old NONE/ Emptiness that surrounds - it is or analysts and others to make anything out of this like getting to Zen training without a MASTER.
I could think of following factors, and sure there are many more:
1. Outcome expected from the decision
2. Environmental (Physical/mental preparedness, location setting (your office/my office)
For example, how does the outcome impact my position? If the stakes are very high (Job promotion, Bonus), I am sure we tend to over think or over plan. If the stakes are very low, we might want to get over it quickly.
In the stale popcorn example... Participants are watching movie in a theater. If you give the same people stale popcorn in the lunch, they will notice and complain.
So much more than just teaching someone how to make a decision. I think the real issue in the study of cognition vs. intuition is in the evolution of culture.
A little boy is in school working on his arithmetic. The teacher says, "Imagine there are 5 black birds sitting on a fence. You pick up your BB gun and shoot one. How many blackbirds are left?"
The little boy thinks for a moment and says, "NONE!" The teacher replies, "None, how do you figure that?" The little boy says, if I shoot one, all the other birds will fly away scared, leaving none on the fence." The teacher replies, "Hmm, not exactly, but I do like the way you think!"
....
There are a number of explorable issues that trend along with the subject of thought. For instance, as we increase in intellect, age, and experience, do we out think ourselves? (i.e., President Clinton and policy example above)
Or, do we have so much information (as in the IT and Jam samples also above) that we tend to not analyze but rather analyze a decision into despair?
Professor Norton's sub-premise of changing the way we think, is also worthy of further exploration. The subject of thinking, or not, is critical to developing business mind in the manner to that we process daily decision-making.
of the very plays. This practice enables them to move from sensing what is happening to acting with minimal intervening thought -- because the practice has permitted the thought to take place when real time response was not called for. All analogies are suspect, but some are useful. I hope this is useful.
There is a fair amount of evidence that even in systems designed to be objective (such as tender evaluations) people bend information and decisions towards that which they think their leaders (those in power) want. This happens even when the leader wants an objective decision.
The human brain is not a unitary structure. Different parts of the brain are processing all the time. The human mind includes, for example, a reptilian brain and a hormone system.
When discussing situational leadership, I'd suggest at least two models - that of a command and control framework. and consensus based decision-making
Decision Mapping is proportional to the risk with each decision. Low Risk Decisions are automatic , spontaneous and reflexive. High Risk Decision are cluttered , mostly evolve out of latent voting of the team , gut feeling, escape routes, safety belts, cover up etc etc.
If only all blind spots could be seen by human interface, probably Robots would do a better job as managers. Test of Manager is only and only at the time of decisions which are taken without available clear and concise data, rules or precedence.
Market forces generally do not allow underthinkers or overthinkers to galvanize into a stable entity. Hence speed is essence of any business.
Optimal Decisions are rather forceful decisions. Where boundary conditions are defined by the prevailing situation and the best exploitation of resources with sensible risk. After that a failure is still a success.
One cannot forget that beyond all circumstances, it is always the unseen hand, which makes and breaks the situation.
The decision maker should make the right decision based on available information, not the perfect decision.
Care should be taken that the additional costs (time, money, other resources) to make a perfect decision might exceed the potential additional benefits, if any.
It depends to a degree on both how we think and the kind of thinking we base our decisions on - and I do see these as different.
There is increasing evidence that many of our decisions are made unconsciously, and our conscious mind then rationalises and creates a narrative that "explains" our decision. A common sequence would seem to be 1. an emotional reaction and engagement with the issue; 2. the emotional response triggers a feeling; 3 we begin to think and reason about the issue; 4. we articulate our reasoning as a narrative or story or explanation of our decision. Sometimes the decision can be unconsciously determined before we are aware that we have "made up our mind". This probably also accounts for some of what we call "intuition" - which is basically knowing something without being conscious of why we know it. Intuition was often given a bad name and held in dubious regard - but is now regaining ground and being placed on a scientific footing. Or at least I think it is!
The subjects of the decision (who what when where is affected) is accounted through the neurosis (the power play) of the decision maker.
Now think that you are an elementary school teacher with a group of preschoolers going on an excursion in a public plaza in Tokyo, today. You are enjoying the Sun and the cool breeze. You are thinking of how long to stay outside. How long will you think?
Whether we need to think too little or too much depends on what we are thinking about. In a research based activity, too little thinking would not do. You have to go into all aspects in depth. Also, while framing legal documents and similar others. However, if we start too much thinking on day to day normal activities/chores which are decided though experience and gut, we may lose precious time and this is not a
prudent course of action.
I think that in some situations you need a different approach to understand and solve a problem.
Here in Brazil, we have a very fast "rain" of problems an new situations every day. So, it?s better to do a quick and intelligent decision than take a lateness course of action.
Of course, putting the problem in real perspective is in the core of a good decision, but if it takes a delayed action, I would prefer to perceive not just my rational thinking, and try to "sense" and "fell" the broad spectrum related to the problem and the possible solution.
Are we thinking too little or too much depends on situation. Very often we are compelled for a quick decision - giving an answer during a recruitment interview- at times we have all the time to think in order to submit a thesis.
Anyhow it's a very interesting article which has make all of us think!
Regards from Mauritius
I am about to finish an excellent book: Designing with the Mind in Mind, by Jeff Johnson, which, among other topics, presents a very understandable description about how our conscious and subconscious minds work. My take-away, relative to this dialog, is that the mind needs to be cleared - consciously cleared with sleep, meditation, floating in a hot tub (my favorite), where there is no conscious input...which allows your subconscious mind to process prior input, organize that input with prior learning experiences, and present insights and understanding relative to current challenges. We all can benefit by giving ourselves more time to "hear ourselves think," before making critical decisions.
I find myself usually fall in to the pitfall of thinking too much, when I think about things I really can not influence or try to forsee how other people react. In most of these cases I only can do my best and have a good story to go with the decision. This too-much-thinking is human as I don´t like to make the wrong decision.
I usually think too little when something is "a done deal", "makes sense and cents", all thinking actually re-inforces my already thought solution.
The balance of thinking, is to make sure it follows with enough actions which can support my thoughts.
Good luck moving the Ping-Pong ball!