I have a confession to make: I am kind of a stalker.

This is to say that I have a mild obsession with watching people in the act of deciding. Some people call this sort of thing “research.” But the truth is that I collect decisions like John Hinckley collected Jodi Foster photos. I even set up a company called Decision Pulse in order to formalize my voyeuristic pursuits. At Decision Pulse, we collect big decisions and little decisions. We collect decisions made by clients ranging from corporate executives, middle managers, and entrepreneurs as well as decisions made by famous people, such as rock stars, celebrity chefs, and sports figures. We even collect decisions from almost perfect strangers who graciously offer up their choices on our website in exchange for helpful feedback about their natural decision styles. This last group consists of people like college students, teachers, stay-at-home moms and dads, and people like your reclusive neighbor down the block who seems strangely fascinated with taxidermy.

In the past few years, we've compiled roughly 143,000 decisions in our not-so-cleverly named “Decision Database.” We keep them in a database because our surveys show that people think a database is substantially less creepy than plastering the decisions of perfect strangers on my bedroom wall. My wife agrees.

Whether you choose to call what we do “stalking,” “research,” or “Google's business model,” the fact is that I have spent a disturbing number of hours every day for the past decade swimming around in a big, steaming pile of other people's decisions. As a result, we've learned quite a bit about how people make decisions and why some decisions impact people in ways that other decisions don't. We've also learned quite a lot about the people who make those decisions. One of the most startling conclusions we've reached is this:

People. Are. Different.

Who knew, right?

This means that the way you make decisions might be very different from the way some of the people on your team make decisions, while others you're very similar to and still others are somewhere in between. When you're trying to inspire this collection of individuals to follow you and continue following you all the way through the change, it's helpful to have some idea about how each of these individual persons tend to drive.

I think of this as the Ron versus Rod Distinction. For example, when I have my father, Ron Tasler, following me on the road, I know I have to drive very differently from how I have to drive if I have my father-in-law, Rod Lieske, following me on the road. Ron Tasler's driving style is shaped by unspoken guidelines such as yellow lights are cues to speed up; turn signals are totally optional; and tailgating is just how you establish an intimate personal connection with your fellow drivers.

Rod Lieske, a former driver's education instructor, has a style shaped by a very different set of guidelines. He will always be precisely two-and-a-half car lengths behind you; he never goes a single digit higher than the speed limit; and yellow lights are treated as an opportunity to slow down and collect your thoughts.

So when I come to a stoplight with Ron Tasler in tow, I know that yellow means not just “go,” but “go fast”…or I'm likely to get rear-ended. I know that he too wants to make it through the yellow light, and I also know that his vehicle will never be more than six inches behind my rear bumper the entire trip. (In fairness to my dad—as he is always quick to remind me—he hasn't had so much as a fender bender in over 40 years. Touché, Dad. Touché.)

When I come to an intersection with Rod Lieske following me, even if I'm approaching a green light I know that I'd better slow down a little just in case the green light turns yellow, because yellow means “stop” if I want to arrive at our destination with the full caravan intact.

As a student of psychology, what I find most fascinating about the Ron versus Rod phenomenon is that these two men were born within a year of each other. Both have primarily German ancestry. Both were raised in the same era in middle-class households in rural farming communities in the upper Midwest region of the United States. And yet, their approaches to driving (not to mention investing, working, parenting, and living) could hardly be further apart.

What's the point, you ask?

People. Are. Different.

That means that simple demographic breakdowns (also known as stereotypes)—age, gender, marital status, ethnicity, sexual preference, education—within your team or your organization aren't going to tell you nearly enough of what you need to know about how different team members are likely to make change decisions. Overly simplistic distinctions won't tell you how some of your team members' approaches to change decisions will differ in relation to yours and to their other teammates.

However, at the risk of sounding like a self-serving hypocrite (I've been called much worse) we can still make meaningful distinctions between people in terms of the way they approach decisions. But instead of using demographics, we can still classify individuals by their behavior patterns or “decision styles.” The reason why decision styles make sense where demographic distinctions don't is because these decision styles describe our conscious choices. We can't choose our ancestry. We can't choose when we were born. We can't choose where we were born. We can't choose how we were raised, or who our parents were. All of these historical variables certainly play a role in shaping our decision styles, but they say nothing about how each of us has chosen to respond to our demographic origins. More specifically, these generalizations tell us almost nothing about how your people will likely view the kinds of situations your plan is going to put them into. Which variables in each decision situation will they pay the most attention to, and which pieces of the puzzle are they likely to ignore?

For instance, most people—between 69 percent and 75 percent—tend to be more cautious and risk averse.¹ When given a choice between two options, they are two to three times more likely to prefer the guaranteed, no-risk, bird-in-the-hand option rather than chase the more uncertain prospect of two birds in the bush. That's because, on average, these people pay almost three times more attention to what they might lose in a potential change situation than what they might gain from that exact same situation.

But that's not the whole story. A solid minority of people (25 to 30 percent) is drawn more to potential opportunity than they are to possible risks. When given the choice between accepting a guarantee of earning $1,000 or a fifty-fifty chance of winning $2,000, they will typically select the gamble. That's because they focus more on the size of the reward than they do the probability of actually obtaining that award.

The differences between those two groups is magnified during times of proposed change when emotions run high and logic runs…uh, let's just say “less high.” The better you understand the styles of the people you're working with, the simpler it will be to inspire the right people to make the right changes.

That was the epiphany that led to Fabrizio Freda's turnaround of Estee Lauder a few years ago.² In 2008, Freda became the first person outside of the Lauder family bloodline to take the helm of Estee Lauder. His top priority was getting the company's brand managers to give up their obsession with growing sales, and instead to focus on increasing profits. Just as conventional wisdom tells us, the managers were none too happy with the proposed change. After all, every corporate veteran knows that “increase profits” is just politically correct shorthand for “slash your spending a.s.a.p.” And what could be less fun than cutting spending?

Lauder's brand managers—most of whom cut their teeth in sales and marketing—had conditioned themselves to think like reward seekers, rather than cost managers. For them, growing sales was interesting and exciting work. But trying to expand profit margins? Not so much. In their eyes that was boring, bean-counter work. Best to leave that for the accountants. Freda recognized that distinction and used it to his advantage.

Jane Lauder, the ranking family member at Estee Lauder, explained that Freda's real stroke of genius—why he succeeded where his predecessors had failed—was in getting the brand managers to focus on the gain rather than the loss. “Your eyes glaze over,” Lauder told Fortune magazine, “when you hear about return on equity…but you have a real appreciation if you can spend those savings on things that really drive sales.”

Freda recognized that his brand managers were not part of that cautious majority. This group wouldn't be motivated by propaganda about how this new plan would mitigate future risk or help stabilize their earnings. They wanted growth, not stability. That's why the “burning platform” shtick—which can be quite effective with many people—just doesn't do a whole lot for reward seekers.

“[Brand managers] were afraid they wouldn't grow,” Freda explained. “I showed that they could keep growing and make a lot more money if they cut expenses and plowed the money back into what was profitable, not just growing.” He got the attention of his reward-seeking brand managers by deciding to suspend the focus on growth. Yes, ultimately he wanted growth too. But he knew that growth might have to be temporarily sacrificed on the altar of their future success, in order to get the organization refocused on profit. He explained how this new focus on profit would actually increase their ability to grow sales and to stake their claim on even more rewards.

And he was right. In the first four years of the plan, sales grew by 40 percent, while costs had increased by only 8 percent.

After all that, I bet you're dying to know what your decision style is, aren't you? To find out, go to www.decisionpulse.com. When you're finished meet me at the start of the next chapter.