D.M.: Under Pressure

In my last post I gave 2 examples of decision making in a fast pace, under severe pressure and in slow motion, with lots of time.  Today I will give some information about our reactions when we decide under time pressure.  How does it affect the quality of our decision?

The LMU dept. of Behavioural Economics talked some facts in an interview.  In general:  lack of time will affect our decision making negatively, so the result of their study.  But deciding “on the fly” can have a positive influence on us, say, it might be quite an advantage!  Fact is, the more information we have, the faster we can compare our choices and go for the best alternative.  The “best” is the most attractive.  We will never regret THIS decision, even when made under pressure.  And this particular time pressure includes the call of urgency.   If you don´t take it now, it´s gone by tomorrow.  We all know what pressure is and why it´s made for us.  People tend to decide when time releases its pressure on us, mostly.

Our subjective assessment is what drives us to the best decision we can make.  We experience the degree of pressure personally.  It´s up to how resilient we are.  And that affects all our decisions individually.

Becoming risk averse is another factor which interfers our decision making under pressure and related to more complex situations.  Time pressure points out that we might face losses, a result which we have to respect, and therefore we tend to look backwards for examples.

The most interesting result from the LMU was that negotiations, held under time pressure, carry the result of  – almost no results.  Why?  Most negotiations are post-poned when time pressure shows up. What´s to study now is how deadlines might positively effect negotiations made with time pressure….

Decisions are mostly life changing – for the involved party.                                                                          Say, how long ago is it that you made your last life changing decision?  What was it about?  If you remember and you are willing to share it with us – please let us know!  There´s a space for your comment below.

BE A DECISION MAKER.  BECOME OUTSTANDING.

rita jaskolla – Leadership Architect –