A manager is faced with a decision about downsizing the workforce. Two staff positions need to be cut from a pool of ten employees. The ten employees have different lengths of tenure in the organization, different levels of performance, different pay, and different family situations. The employee with the poorest performance, for example, is also one of the longest-term employees and is a single mother with three children. While the manager may not explicitly consider this family situation in making the decision, the negative emotion of firing the single mother may affect the decision outcome.25 Emotions affect how we make trade-offs in our decisions.
Unless you're Dr. Spock from Star Trek, you can't avoid bringing emotions to the table when you're making a decision. The trick is to understand the impact of emotions and manage this impact in making decisions. Emotions tend to make us work harder on a decision, but not necessarily smarter, according to researchers Mary Frances Luce, John W. Payne, and James R. Bettman. Decision makers put more effort into the decision but don't necessarily consider more alternatives and make a better decision. In fact, they may ignore alternatives or avoid making explicit trade-offs to cope with the negative emotions.
Emotions affect how we make trade-offs in our decisions.
We need to recognize the impact of emotions on our decisions. Once we recognize the potential for negative emotions, we might approach the decision in a way that shields us from the impact of those emotions. We might consider the downsizing decision by making the overall health of the company paramount above the impact on an individual employee. We also might develop a plan for support and transition for employees who are let go, decreasing the perceived personal impact of the decision.
On the other hand, we don't always want to set our emotions aside in making decisions. We sometimes need to find a balance between heart and head. Sometimes emotions can lead us to a decision that we might not have considered otherwise. It might be argued that we won't make a good decision if we don't include emotion. We just need to be aware of emotions, particularly negative ones, and avoid letting them cloud our judgment in making a decision. When we're approaching a decision, we need to look for potentially negative emotions that might be involved. Then we need to develop strategies for addressing them. We also need to be vigilant for decisions that are designed to help avoid confronting these difficult emotions.
Avoid letting them cloud our judgment in making a decision.