Emotions and Decisions

Emotions with decision-making

Emotions play a significant role in decision-making and it wasn’t until recently that I fully understand how this worked. Emotions make us human, as they provide us stimuli for our existence. They also make us confident when making decisions, or in some cases, overconfident. For instance, take for example the situation I found myself in recently with a critical decision to drive 1100 miles around Lake Michigan to attend my cousin’s high school graduation party for one hour. Without emotion, I would have viewed this very black and white in that traveling such a long distance for such a short period of time would be a poor choice. But when the emotion of seeing people from my family that I haven’t seen in a very long time; the decision became easier for me. In an emotional-laden situation, a manager may make such a trade-off implicitly, rather than explicitly (Snowden & Boone, 2007, p. 20). For me, the trade-off of spending 20 hours in my car in a 50-hour period was that I was able to make my family smile and that alone was worth the investment. I was confident in this decision, mainly since I had support from my wife. Weighting the decision carefully, I realized what it would take to make this happen and I grew more and more confident as time went by. Not only would this trip give me the pleasure of seeing family, but I would also use it as a chance to see two of my friends that I had also not seen in a long time. It ended up being a fantastic decision.

In similar fashion, there was a situation in which I was not so confident. Here I am, simply trying to make my wife happy by parking our camper exactly where she wants it. I asked her and confirmed with her that this was where she wanted the camper parked and she said yes. I knew it was a terrible place to park the camper, as the ground was uneven and was too close to the neighboring campsite. But I just wanted to make her happy and decided I would park it where she wanted, even though I knew it was a bad choice. I wasn’t nearly as confident in my decision to allow her to have the decision, but I went with my heart over my head. Ultimately, I had to move the camper three more times before she was satisfied. The role emotion played in this decision was that my wife’s happiness meant more to me than my own. It is important that my wife is happy and putting her spirits ahead of mine isn’t always so easy, but it is necessary.

My experience

In both situations, emotions played a huge role in how I arrived at my decision-tree. I wanted my family and my friends to be happy, but of course, I wanted to feel that way, too. It makes me happy to see others happy and feeding off that emotion gives me the energy and drive to continue this process. My confidence is higher, and I will stand by my convictions regarding my decision-making.

In many ways, emotion is all we have. After all, we’re human!

References:

Snowden, D. J., & Boone, M. E. (2007). A Leader’s Framework for Decision Making. Harvard Business Review.