Decision Tips
Your personality influences how you approach decision situations.
I’m not much, baby—but I’m all I’ve got.
—J. Lair
Holly and Chris have been married for five years. They argue frequently over almost everything. One of their “favorite” topics is how the other makes decisions. Holly is slow and deliberate. She doesn’t like to rush into anything without considering her options. Even for a decision as trivial as ordering a meal in a restaurant, Holly takes her time and carefully looks over the entire menu. Chris, on the other hand, seems to process information at breakneck speed. He rarely spends a lot of time on a decision. He quickly sizes up a situation, rapidly considers his options, and then makes his choice. When things don’t work out as he planned, he rarely complains. He neither obsesses on choices he has to make nor on his past mistakes.
Many of the differences in how Holly and Chris go about making judgments and choices can be explained by the differences in their personalities. Looking back on the tests in Chapters 4 through 11, some of the couple’s scores explain a lot. Chris, for instance, rated much higher than Holly on intuition. Chris is comfortable going with his “gut feelings,” while Holly prefers a more slow, deliberate, and rational approach. And clearly Holly is more of a maximizer while Chris is more of a satisficer. Chris also scored much higher on risk taking than Holly. He’s more willing to take chances and live with the consequences. And Chris also scored a lot lower than Holly on the procrastination test.
As illustrated with Holly and Chris, our personalities strongly affect the way we approach decisions. Although personalities are complex, with numerous components, the tests you took in Chapters 4 through 11 provide a fairly good profile of how you tend to approach decision situations.
Begin by looking at your locus of control score (Chapter 7). If you have a high external locus, you tend to see yourself as relatively powerless in shaping your future. As such, you’re not likely to have much confidence that learning better decision skills will improve your life. Hopefully the evidence, examples, and suggestions presented in upcoming chapters can help you to see otherwise. Your procrastination and impulsiveness scores (Chapters 8 and 9) indicate how you tend to react when you see a problem. These scores indicate whether you prefer to solve problems quickly, wait a bit, or try to avoid taking action. Although the goal of choosing a decision that is just “good enough” may seem like a cop-out or taking the easy road, it is likely to lead to greater outcome satisfaction. Always striving for a maximizing choice (Chapter 6) not only wears you out, it also increases the likelihood that you’ll regret one or more choices not taken.
Once you see a problem, do you try to solve it by using your brain or your gut? Do you rely on facts and logic or your personal values and intuition? Your decision style score (Chapter 4) can help answer that. And do you prefer safe options or are you willing to chance failing? Your risk-taking score (Chapter 5) provides you with insights. Finally, you’re more likely to make better decisions if you can control your emotions (Chapter 10) and limit tendencies toward overconfidence (Chapter 11).
You should treat this personality information as insight into your tendencies and avoid making judgments as to whether those tendencies are good or bad. All of us have some traits that bias our decision making. Additionally, don’t look at your test results in isolation. Personality traits are not rigid predictors. You have to look at each in the context of various situations. You may, for instance, exhibit strong procrastinating tendencies when it comes to scheduling appointments with your dentist for a checkup. On the other hand, your work projects may always be completed on time. Situational differences, therefore, can override your personality tendencies.
At this point, you need to remember that (1) your personality does impact the choices you make, (2) a personality characteristic that hinders you in one instance can be an asset in another, (3) situational factors can strengthen or weaken the influence of personality traits, and (4) awareness of your personality tendencies is the first step toward making adjustments that can limit the negative impact those tendencies might create.
Your personality influences how you approach decision situations.
You need to know your major personality tendencies.
A personality trait that hinders you in one instance can be an asset in another.