Obsessing About A Decision

Being decisive involves accepting some risk. This means reconciling yourself with the fact that you may have to make undesirable decisions from time to time, or be able to accept certain outcomes.

ere you ever been afraid of making the wrong decision? This fear can prevent you from thinking clearly and inhibit your judgment. While it's important to use care when making important decisions, you need to avoid becoming paralyzed by fear.

Being decisive involves accepting some risk. This means reconciling yourself with the fact that you may have to make undesirable decisions from time to time, or be able to accept certain outcomes. Doing so can help you let go of any fears you may have about making a decision. However, you first need to understand how fear can affect your decision making. Two manifestations of this fear are a tendency to obsess about decisions and a crippling fear of making bad decisions.

Obsessing about a decision causes your thoughts to become fixed on a single issue and is an obstacle to decisiveness.

Obsessive thinking is characterized by circular thinking. By continually returning to the starting point or initial question, obsessing can also provoke anxiety. This is because each potential course of action seems inappropriate or impossible, and so the circle starts again.

Counter the tendency to obsess by thinking clearly. Calmly and carefully evaluate a situation or set of options to reach a logical conclusion or plan of action.

Consider George, a manager with a construction company. George is responsible for sourcing construction materials for a large project. He recently discovered a lumber supplier that's 30% cheaper than the one he chose two months ago. He's trying to decide whether to cancel the current contract so he can purchase the rest of the lumber at the lower price. Consider the difference when he obsesses and when he thinks clearly about this decision.

OBSESSES

At first, George is afraid his bosses will discover that he's paying too much for building materials. As such, he wants to cancel his current order and buy the rest of the lumber at a discount. However, doing so will result in long delays since he'll need to determine how much of the lumber has been used, how much can be returned, and how much more is required to finish the work. There may also be a charge for canceling the order.

On the other hand, if the new supplier isn't as reliable as the current one and George cancels the order, he may have to deal with an inferior product and service, which would raise costs even further. George worries each option will result in problems that could get him into trouble with his superiors.

THINKS CLEARLY

Having considered the problem for a while, George decides to clearly set out his two options: stay with his current supplier, or choose the new, cheaper supplier. Next he compares the potential results of each choice. Staying with the current supplier would mean spending 30% more, but he wouldn't have to interrupt the building schedule or worry about returning unused materials. On the other hand, 30% off of the total cost represents a significant savings that would please his superiors.

George ultimately decides that these savings aren't worth the setback the project would likely face, nor can he be sure of the quality of the new supplier's product or service. By thinking clearly, George reaches a solution that he feels confident justifying to his superiors.

George's initial obsessing about the question is unproductive. He becomes stuck between thinking his bosses will be angry if he pays a higher price, and fearing that a switch in suppliers may create other problems.

By thinking clearly about his options and assessing them, George is able to make a decision that he feels is justified.

Clear thinking helps evade the anxiety that obsession and circular thinking can provoke.

QUESTION

Ugo has been frustrated by the behavior of one of his colleagues lately. He's decided that something needs to be done, but he can't decide whether to approach the colleague directly or speak to his boss about it.

Which examples show Ugo obsessing about this decision?

1. He keeps coming back to the worries that if he tells his boss, she'll think he can't solve his own problems, but if he confronts his colleague, she'll lash out at him
2. He thinks it's impossible to make the right decision but grows more anxious each day that he doesn't make a decision
3. He decides to tell his boss because at least he can get some advice on how to broach the topic with his colleague
4. He reasons that he can simply tell his colleague that he's concerned about how they're working together, instead of accusing her of anything

Obsessing about decisions involves using circular thinking. Here, the focus never moves beyond the two rigid options.

Obsessing about a decision often causes anxiety because progress is halted. In this case, Ugo can't make a decision and is made anxious by his inability to do so.

Obsessing about a decision isn't productive. In this case, by thinking clearly, Ugo makes a decision and finds a positive aspect to it.

Ugo demonstrates clear thinking rather than obsessing here, using reason to make an informed judgment about the available options.

I have been teaching and training agents, team leaders, supervisors, managers and admins of call centers and other businesses in BPO related fields. This series, comes as a result of that experience. I have more than 4,000 modules that I plan on sharing here. This is # 005-07

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