Understanding How & Why We Make The Decisions We Do

Nick Fewings, Managing Director
Guaranteed to help
you better
understand your
decisions and
those of your
colleagues and
friends

No doubt, over the
course of your
working life and
personal life, you’ve
heard someone make
a decision and found
yourself saying to
yourself or them “I
wouldn’t have made
that decision”
Yes, we’ve all done it!
www.ngagementworks.com

In this slideshare, I
am going to give you
an understanding of
why, given the same
situation, different
people make
different decisions
and then explore the
affect of this when
you are working in a
team.

When we make decisions that only affect us, it’s usually fine, especially if it
doesn’t impact on any others, and we do make a lot of these on a daily basis;
What clothes are we going to wear today?What clothes are we going to wear today?
What are we going to have for our breakfast, lunch and dinner?What are we going to have for our breakfast, lunch and dinner?
What music to listen to?What music to listen to?
The list is endless.

The way in which we make decisions is based on our perception of situations
or people and also our behavioural preferences.
THAT’S WHY, ON OCCASIONS, WE DON’T UNDERSTAND THE DECISIONS
THAT OTHER PEOPLE MAKE
To better understand what’s going on, we need to explore perception and
behavioural preferences

Perception
Perception is our reality of the world around
us. It is based on many things that gets us to
our mountain top of perception from where
we view and judge people and situations to
inform the decisions that we make.
Your perception will, amongst other things,
be based on what your parents said, did and
told you, your education, your friends, your
life experiences, your religious beliefs and
your culture.

Image from Pinterest we see the world

Perception
What do you see, an old lady or a young
woman? Both are in the image however one
will appear easier to see than the other. Your
eyes will pick a psychological trigger point to
enable your brain to build the whole picture
for you.
It may be the dainty nose of the young
woman or the pointed chin of the old
woman. There is no right or wrong in what
you see first, just difference.
Share this with a friend or
colleague, what do they see first?

Perception
Our perception has an impact on our
decision-making process.
Take this situation with the spider, based
on your perception of spiders, you will
either get rid of the spider by picking it up
in your hands or a container.
You may move extremely rapidly from the
toilet and will not venture back in there
until someone who has a different
perception of spiders than you helps you
out and gets rid of it.

Psychological Preferences
Carl Jung, recognised as the Father of
modern day psychology, identified that
when we make decisions, some of us will
have a preference for, what he termed
‘Thinking’, decisions based on the task and
logic.
Others will have a preference for making
decisions based on relationships and
emotions and he called this preference
Feeling.

Psychological Preferences
Each of us will have a preference for making decisions as a ‘Thinker’
or as a ‘Feeler’
We can do both however just like writing with
either our left or right hand, one will be more
natural to you.

Measuring Our Psychological Preferences
There are many models and profiles
that measure our behavioural
preferences. The model I have been
using successfully with individuals and
teams for 20 years is produced by
Insights.
It uses the work of Carl Jung and
overlays colours onto the
psychological preferences he
identified to make it easy to
understand and importantly use on a
day to day basis.

Measuring Our Psychological Preferences
Each person on my team workshops receives their own unique Insights Discovery profile which is
an incredibly powerful and highly-regarded personal development tool.
Included within the profile are graphs that measure your personal psychological preferences.

So How Does This Affect Team Decisions?
This was the team profile of an
operational team I was working
with.
An almost equal balance of
‘Thinking’, those in the top half of
the wheel and ‘Feeling’, the lower
half of the wheel.
So what was the situation they
faced and what did they decide?

The Situation
The workshop was being held in a
hotel. I was advised prior to the team
arriving that there had been a case of
the Novavirus, the sickness and
vomiting bug.
The hotel had been closed and
fumigated over the weekend.
The team had 2 options:
1.Stay at the hotel or
2.Drive 6 miles to a sister hotel where
there was a training room set aside.

Their Decision
They sat down in a small huddle
(Earth Green) and allowed each
person to share their thoughts
without interruption (Earth Green).
Once everyone had been heard (Earth
Green), they advised me of their
decision.

Their Decision
They said that there may still be a chance that one of their colleagues might fall ill and that they
couldn’t live with this possibility, no matter how small it may be (Earth Green).
They were using their group dominant Earth Green behavioural preference.
As such, they had decided to move to the sister hotel…now this is where it became interesting.

Their Decision
They then began to gather data (Cool Blue)
and plan out (Cool Blue) how to get to the
sister hotel. This was their group secondary
colour behavioural preference.

Their Decision
1. Who knows where the other hotel is?

Their
Decision
2. Has everyone
got transport to
get there?

Their Decision
3. Do we know the
postcode of the other
hotel?

Their Decision
4. For those that
don’t know where it
is, do they have sat
nav?

5. How should we order the
convoy of cars?
Their Decision

We make decisions based on a combination of our perceptions
and behavioural preferences
Based on Jungian psychology, we all have a preference for
Thinking (Task) or Feeling (Relationships)
One of the above will kick in instinctively before the other
however we can do both
When we work in groups of like-minded people, decisions may
be influenced by the dominant preferences in play
When working in a team, it is important that we take into
account both Thinking and Feeling preferences to ensure we
have covered all basis before agreeing a way foreward.
Conclusion

I hope that you have found this
Slideshare of value
If you have, please do keep in touch
@NgageingNick
nick@ngagementworks.com
http://ngagementworks.wordpress.com/

Understanding How & Why We Make The Decisions We Do

Empfohlen

Empfohlen

Weitere ähnliche Inhalte

Andere mochten auch

Andere mochten auch (18)

Mehr von Ngagementworks

Mehr von Ngagementworks (6)

Kürzlich hochgeladen

Kürzlich hochgeladen (20)

Understanding How & Why We Make The Decisions We Do