The heart has such an influence over the understanding that it is worthwhile to engage it in our interest. | ||
| --Lord Chesterfield[1] | ||
Emotions present a major difficulty in decision-making, which is complicated by the fact that limited information is available about how to deal with them in this context. However, even acknowledging the fact that emotions play a major part in decision-making is taboo in our macho business culture. We picture a great leader as a person who can “stay cool,” reason under pressure, and make brilliant decisions that turn out great no matter what.
Two false beliefs govern our typical perspective on emotions in decision-making:
False Belief 1: You can separate from your emotions and stay “cool” when considering a decision or exercising a judgment.
It is also common to think that if emotions are present in decision-making, bad things happen. Most people believe that when we make bad decisions, they are based on emotion, but when we arrive at good decisions, they are based solely on reason[2].
False Belief 2: Emotions have a negative influence on decisions.
As a result, in the rare situation where emotions are present in decisions, our culture's picture-perfect business leader knows how to deal with them and does it perfectly every time.
But, in fact, what do we really know about the link between emotions and reason? Do emotions drive reason? And, if so, does this mean that we should separate from emotions before making a decision (a popular belief)? Or, does reason drive emotions? Or are they interdependent?
It is part of our pedagogy to teach the operation of thinking, feeling and willing so that they may be made conscious. For if we do not know the difference between an emotion and a thought, we will know very little… We need to understand the components [of emotions] at work… in order to free their hold. | ||
| --Mary Caroline Richards[3] | ||
Neuroscientists have traced and documented the interdependencies between cognitive and emotional processes[4], [5] and believe that these processes are tightly interrelated: “Emotions and cognition are best thought of as separate but interacting mental functions mediated by separate but interacting brain systems[4].” In addition, “…there is no way to separate them [emotions and reason][5].”
In common terms, emotions are present in everything we do[6]. Observations of the structure of the human brain show us that emotions are present in every decision we make. This finding flies in the face of the common belief (False Belief 1) in the advantage of “cool” over impassioned reasoning.
Key Point
Emotions are present in every decision we make; we cannot '“separate” from them. We have to learn to deal with emotions and take them into account in our actions.
It is interesting to note that only 30 percent of the decision makers I interviewed admitted having emotions involved in their decisions. Such a low percentage might be the effect of False Belief 1—a good executive uses reasoning and not emotions to arrive at decisions—or just insensitivity to the present emotions. It is also interesting to note that virtually all decision makers discovered an emotion associated with the decision when they contemplated their decision in the Clarity State and were asked to do it. The emotion is always there, of course; we usually just do not pay attention to it.
Even though the interdependence between reason and emotion has been established, the question of cause and effect between emotion and reason has not yet been settled by science. Does cognition drive emotions, or do emotions drive cognition? There are theories supporting both.
One group of neuroscientists argues that cognition comes before the emotion. A person “appraises” the situation, and emotions follow. The authors of Passion and Reason: Making Sense of Our Emotions2 state: “Our position is that emotion depends on reason, and that there is no way to separate them. To do so fails to recognize the role of reason in the arousal of emotions.”
Neuroscientist Josef LeDoux[4] belongs to a group with an opposite opinion. He argues that emotional arousal dominates and controls thinking. It happens because, in his judgment, the center responsible for emotional responses (amygdala) has a greater influence on the center responsible for logic and reasoning (cortex) than the cortex has on the amygdala.
Now, what about whether the impact of emotions on decisions is good or bad? What about the common opinion that when we make bad decisions, they are based on emotions, and that when we make good decisions, they are based on reason, as represented by False Belief 2?
Scientists have studied the impact of positive and negative emotions on decision-making and have discovered interesting trends. In one study[7], decision makers in a positive mood, compared to the negative-mood participants, were more likely to interpret the strategic issue as an opportunity and displayed lower levels of risk-taking. The second study[7] replicated and extended the results of the first. Namely, if the issue was presented to participants in a framed form (as a threat or an opportunity), decision makers in a positive mood (called positive-effect participants) were more likely to disregard the frame and reframe the issue to their liking than were the decision makers in the negative mood (called negative-effect participants).
Another study[8] investigated the influence of positive-effect on clinical reasoning among practicing physicians using a simulated patient protocol. Physicians were asked to diagnose a case. Physicians in a good mood (in whom positive-effect had been induced) integrated information 19 percent earlier than control groups. They considered the diagnosis of liver disease, which was the correct diagnosis, and demonstrated less anchoring—distortion or inflexibility in thinking. Physicians' reasoning was examined for flawed processing, such as jumping to conclusions without sufficient evidence, and no abnormalities were detected.
These studies suggest that being in a positive mood while making a decision can have a positive impact on the decision itself.
Key Point
A decision maker in a positive mood is more likely to consider the problem as an opportunity, be able to overcome the limitations of a frame, find additional options, and arrive at a decision faster. Positive emotions have a positive impact on decisions.
Clarity State takes this finding into account—it is a highly positive emotional state. The results confirm the finding, as the following example demonstrates.
Her comment: “When you were explaining the Clarity State with its premise of being in a positive state of mind, I saw a bird in the window take off. Later, as I was contemplating my decision, I noticed that I feel bored and frustrated as I think about proven services. You asked me to find a positive point of view. I suddenly decided to ask myself, 'What are the things that will make me soar, like that bird in the window?' And the decision became absolutely clear at that point! It was unmistakable—I got this feeling of 'Let's go!', very excited and ready to execute.”
In summary, our culture-based beliefs about emotions in decision-making turn out to be wrong according to recent scientific findings.
And yet, as a culture, we are profoundly under their spell, in operating companies and in educating business managers of the future. Obviously, it will take time before these new findings percolate into the culture and these beliefs start changing.
The principle that emerges is that we should acknowledge that our emotions are part of our intuitive apparatus and treat them as data. It means listening to our emotions, getting in touch with them, being aware of what we are feeling—because those feelings provide information that must be taken into account, even when they are vague and we are not completely certain what we are feeling. | ||
| --Robin Hogarth[9] | ||
Emotions are there in every situation for a reason—they are trying to tell us something. The harder the situation, the more intense the emotions become. If we do not listen, we miss important, sometimes critical input that can help us resolve the situation.
The approach presented here uses emotions as tools to get to clarity in tough situations. It is based on several observations and lessons learned from working with executives on their current decisions.
The emotion may be subtle and vague, and it may take time to discover it. However, when decision makers do find and acknowledge the overriding emotion associated with the decision and work with it, in all cases this recognition served as a critical stepping-stone to making a clear decision.
As we've mentioned before, Clarity State is instrumental in finding subtle emotions. It is interesting to note that discovering an emotion was a surprise to many decision makers, as you can see from the following example.
TIM—PERSONNEL DECISION
Tim runs a $100 million medical services company that he founded along with another partner, Jon. Just a couple of months ago, Jon had a heart attack, and Tim had to take on all of his operational responsibilities in addition to his own. Tim is getting more and more uncomfortable with Richard, the company's COO/CFO, who previously reported to Jon. Tim sees that “things are falling through the cracks” when Richard manages them. The company is at a stage of new growth, expanding and opening operations in other states, and needs to raise expansion money. Richard, of course, can be very instrumental in leading the money-raising effort. Tim's decision question is “What to do about Richard?”
One of Tim's difficulties is that Jon has a better relationship with Richard and may object to any negative action related to him. The other problem is that if Tim removes Richard, the money-raising activity will be time-lagged. Tim's decision map appears in Figure 8-1.
Tim decides to make Richard the CFO (Option 2).
Tim commented: “When you asked me to find an emotion associated with the decision, I was surprised to find out that it was a threat! Threat!—I thought incredulously. How can it be a threat? It took me awhile to actually understand this, and I will have to think about it some more. But discovering this emotion was extremely instructive. I realized that this situation needs to be resolved urgently, and that if I do not do it properly, my company, my income, and the work that I love are on the line.”
Acknowledging an emotion and then working with it can lead to a decision very quickly, as you can see from the following example.
What happened? As Gene says, “The decision was obvious, but all these emotions were standing in the way, and I was unable to move forward because of them. This was the first time when I acknowledged the emotions; you showed me how to deal with them, look them in the face. You also asked me to look at the worst consequences of each outcome, and I realized the damage that I was doing by not making a decision. It is far worse than the worst consequences of buying Neil out.”
In making his decision, Gene traversed the whole path, from finding various emotions related to the decision and acknowledging them, to facing them by looking at the worst and then realizing the damage of inaction.
Lesson #1 | When you are faced with a difficult decision, make sure you take the time to “discover” an emotion or emotions associated with the situation related to the decision and acknowledge them. |
One of the ways to do this is to ask yourself this question in the Clarity State: “What overriding emotion am I feeling associated with this decision?” Recollect people involved in the situation, their opinions about the decision, the state of the business, and the risk associated with some options. Think about the impact that this decision would make on employees and on you personally. What about your family? In most cases, you are sure to find one or several emotions. Acknowledge them.
Negative emotions are self-limiting. A clear understanding of negative emotions dismisses them. | ||
| --Chinese proverb | ||
After you know what the emotion is, you can use it as a tool. It's associated with a concern that you have not necessarily recognized before. By naming the emotion, you usually find the concern. The best way to start dealing with it is to define it as a constraint and add it to a decision map. In case of emotions, such conversion might present a challenge, as the following example demonstrates.
In Carl's case, the anxiety is caused partly by his concern about a significant revenue drop as a result of the product introduction. This specific concern was already addressed in his decision definition by the constraint “Minimize negative revenue impact.”
Carl shared with me that there is another concern behind the revenue drop, and it is personal. He is afraid that he will make the wrong call. His incentive program is based on the company's performance. The targets that the board and he selected are high and almost necessitate an acquisition. If the acquisition does not happen in time, the company will not do as well as he and the board would have liked. He feels that his position might be on the line with this decision.
According to the process of clarifying constraints, he needs to convert this personal concern into an objective to overcome this concern using an action verb. This objective can take many forms. He contemplates this conversion in the Clarity State and decides on “Be prepared to have no increase in salary and no bonus.”
Concern: | Constraint: |
Making a wrong call | Be prepared to have no increase in salary and no bonus |
This is how this conversion happened in his words: “I realized that my career is not really at stake. The reality is that we have to introduce this product soon or we start losing customers. I am not taking the company 'out on a limb' by this decision. The worst that can happen to me personally is negative financial impact. But I think that it would not even come to that.”
Stated the new way, the emotion becomes productive. Carl's thinking shifts from being in the grip of a negative emotion to a constructive focus of developing strategies to find the right solution. He reaches for data that was put together by the product team that includes projected cannibalization. He immediately sees several ways that the introduction can be managed without the severity of the impact he feared.
Sometimes we become paralyzed at the thought of a difficulty. Instead, we must look for an opportunity in every difficulty. When we do, a creative solution appears. Emotions are effective tools to show us the way.
It is not a surprise that Carl was unable to reach the Clarity State on the first try. Inability to cope with anxiety is cited as one of the main reasons for athletes' failure to reach the peak performance state. Anxiety is divided into five categories:
Fear of failure
Loss of control
Feeling of inadequacy
Guilt
Somatic complaints that are physiological indicators of anxiety, such as sweating, muscle tension, or an upset stomach
It is similar with executives. Anxiety or any other negative emotion can stop you on your way to clarity[10]. Therefore, it is critically important to acknowledge emotions and learn to deal with them constructively.
Lesson #2 | Converting unrecognized concern associated with the emotion into a constraint provides a constructive path of benefiting from the emotion. |
Every emotion has an associated physical sensation in our bodies. Because this statement might seem unusual and “out there,” let me explain where it came from. Early on in the research project, one CEO, Bill, told me a story.
This story inspired me to do some research on the topic of a connection between emotions and physical pain. I discovered that even though the medical profession does not fully embrace this trend, a number of doctors have accumulated example after example of cases similar to Bill's. They treat these cases by making patients realize that the pain is caused by the emotion and then asking patients to find and address the root causes that are creating that emotion in their lives[11],[12].
This story was the impetus for starting to ask decision makers not only to find the overriding emotion associated with their decisions but also to find a physical sensation associated with it.
Key Point
All executives who found an emotion associated with the decision also found a physical sensation related to the emotion in their bodies.
In many cases, finding a strong physical sensation associated with an emotion was a major surprise. One person found strong, unpleasant sensations around his heart. He did not know that he had them. They were so intense that he had to stop the meeting and take a break. In the meantime, I started worrying whether he was about to have a heart attack. It took just a couple of brief moments for him to get into the Clarity State and to discover that the outstanding decision had such a severe impact on his body. It is amazing that we often miss such intense signals!
I decided to take it a step further and use sensations related to an emotion, which I now realized that people could find, to help decision makers actually deal with these emotions.
My hypothesis was based on a suggestion that a neuroscientist, LeDeoux, made in his writings[4]: “The increased connectivity between the amygdala and the cortex involves fibers going from the cortex to the amygdala as well as from the amygdala to the cortex. If these nerve pathways strike a balance, it is possible that the struggle between thought and emotion may ultimately be resolved not by the dominance of emotional centers by cortical cognitions, but by a more harmonious integration (italics added) of reason and passion.”
My hypothesis was that, because we cannot totally separate from an emotion, it might be possible to strike this balance or a point of harmonious integration—when emotion is present but to a degree that makes it constructive to the reasoning mechanisms, rather than blocking.
As a result, I asked decision makers to do various visualization exercises and to watch the physical sensation that they found as they were doing the exercises. In all cases (100 percent!), executives reported that the sensation lessened or went away altogether when the right visualization was found! A number of people remarked that the lessening of the sensation allowed them to relax more deeply and contemplate the decision more easily and freely than before.
In Claire's case, the physical sensation went away altogether when she found the right visualization.
The end of the story is positive. Claire confronted the partner's principal, and they negotiated an amicable termination of the contract. You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look a negative emotion in the face. The danger lies in refusing to face the emotion, in not daring to come to grips with it. When you dare, you find a way to deal with the emotion and convert it into a positive tool in your decision-making. Push yourself to succeed every time, and find a way to do what you think you cannot do.
In other words, this is how physical indications (sensations) can be used to deal with emotions. Because we know that we cannot fully separate from an emotion, we should focus on striking a balance between emotion and reason.
What does this mean—striking a balance between emotion and reason? Actually, we all know the answer, because all of us have experienced this balance in our decision-making, but let me try to state it.
At one end of the spectrum is the point when the emotion is totally blocking you from making a decision (as in the case of Gene's decision). On the other end of the spectrum is the point when you really do not care at all. The balance is found in the middle, when you are feeling that you care, you are involved, but you can review the situation without giving in to the emotion and instead are taking it into account.
Lesson #3 | When you are faced with a difficult decision, make sure that you not only find an emotion associated with the situation related to the decision and acknowledge it, but also find a physical sensation associated with this emotion. Work with visualization exercises, and select the one that lessens the physical sensation. Use it as an instrument to find the right level of emotion for balanced decision contemplation. |
In some sense, this is nothing new—we all know the old dictum of “detach” when you are faced with a strong emotion related to a decision. But how? If you are emotionally involved in the situation, how do you detach? As LeDoux says: “Although thoughts can easily trigger emotions (by activating the amygdala), we are not very effective at willfully turning off emotions (by deactivating the amygdala). Telling yourself that you should not be anxious or depressed does not help very much[4].”
The described method provides a “handle,” or an instrument that can help you achieve the right level of detachment from emotions. By using this instrument, the method provides a way for us to observe how our actions change our emotional state.
| --Pascal[13] | ||
Attachment is the greatest fabricator of illusion. Reality can be attained only by someone who is detached. You can get detached by working with your emotions. Every emotion is a thought transformed into feeling. Change the thought that creates this emotion, and you can look at a situation in a more detached manner.
The following are several effective visualization exercises for finding a balance point between emotion and reason. They incorporate ideas from CEOs running large companies who have learned ways to strike this balance when they are contemplating difficult decisions.
As you are working with these visualizations, monitor the sensation in your body that you associated with this situation. Is the feeling gone, or is it less intense? If so, you have found the right visualization. Continue to work with it until you feel that you can look at the situation from the “outside in” perspective.
You might want to assign a symbol to the situation related to the decision. The first thing that comes to mind is probably the right symbol. You can use this symbol as you do these visualizations.
Put the situation related to your decision far away from you (for example, imagine that you are standing on the beach and this situation is on the horizon somewhere), and then bring it close; do this a couple of times. The effect you want to achieve is that your emotional connection to this situation is getting weaker and weaker and you feel strong, independent of whatever happens with the situation.
There are a number of ways to do this. It's limited by your imagination. Be creative—find the way that works for you.
A: Put the decision in a box, and lose the key to the box. Imagine a funny scene as you are looking for the key.
B: Put the decision in a balloon, and let it fly away. See yourself standing in a beautiful field with the balloon slowly flying away from you, carrying your decision away.
C: Imagine that you and the decision are connected by many lines. Imagine that you are cutting all these lines with scissors.
D: Imagine that you are writing the decision on a blackboard and then wiping it clean.
Imagine that you are consulting someone else on this issue. It is not your issue any more; it's this person's. After you finish the discussion, imagine that you stand up and walk out of the room, leaving the other person with this problem.
Simply state to yourself: “I now let go of this situation and all the burden that it has been for me.” And simply let go.
The following process of effectively dealing with emotions summarizes observations and lessons learned here and will help you constructively work with strong emotions that might be related to your decision.
Find an emotion or emotions associated with the situation related to the decision. Acknowledge them.
Shift the emotion into a constructive, positive statement by formulating the concern that is causing the emotion as a constraint in your decision definition. The process for clarifying decision constraints will necessitate that the concern related to the emotion is converted into a subobjective to overcome the concern.
Find a physical sensation associated with the emotion.
Use the physical sensation as an instrument to find the emotional balance point. Work with visualization exercises, and select the one that lessens the physical sensation.
Emotions are part of us and are present in our decisions, like it or not. Unfortunately, business schools do not teach us how to deal with them in the decision-making process, and literature on the subject is sparse. We all have to spend a large part of our careers developing our own techniques of working with emotions. The simple yet powerful techniques offered in this chapter can help you in decision situations when you are under the spell of a negative emotion that is tough to deal with.