The Chief Psychology Officer

Ep79 The Neuroscience Behind Decision Mastery

• Dr Amanda Potter CPsychol • Season 4 • Episode 79

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What happens in your brain when faced with complex choices? The average person makes 35,000 decisions daily, from trivial selections to career-defining judgments – yet a shocking 99.5% of leaders have never received formal training in decision-making.

Leadership coach Jon Bircher joins Dr. Amanda Potter to unpack the psychology and neuroscience behind effective decision-making at the executive level. With decades of leadership experience across industries, Bircher has developed a systematic approach that transforms how leaders approach choices under pressure.

Their conversation explores how our brains actually process decisions – revealing the interplay between our rational prefrontal cortex (the "CEO of the brain") and our emotional limbic system. You'll discover why decision fatigue leads to poor choices and learn to recognize when your brain needs rest before making important judgments.

Bircher introduces a powerful six-step decision framework beginning with "deciding how to decide" – a meta-decision that clarifies governance, stakeholders, and process before diving into solution-finding. This crucial first step is frequently overlooked, causing implementation failures and wasted resources. You'll also learn practical tools like Gary Klein's "pre-mortem" technique for anticipating potential pitfalls and the DAII model for involving implementers early in the decision process.

The conversation delves into how different decision styles impact leadership effectiveness, with Bircher explaining: "Decision-making shines a light on who we are as leaders – it holds together our rational thinking, emotions, values, beliefs, and character." Understanding your natural preferences allows you to flex your approach based on each decision's importance and complexity.

Whether you're leading a team, building a business, or navigating personal crossroads, this episode provides concrete strategies for making better, more confident decisions that align with your values and goals. As Bircher concludes, "The person that we become, the leader that we are, and the life we ultimately lead is made up of our choices. So treat decision-making seriously."

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Angela Malik:

Angela Malik. The average person makes about 35,000 decisions every day, from what to wear in the morning to high stakes career moves. But what happens in our brains when we decide? How can leaders harness this understanding to make better choices under pressure? Welcome to the Chief Psychology Officer podcast with Dr Amanda Potter, chartered Psychologist and CEO of Zircon. I'm Angela Malik and today we're diving into the psychology and neuroscience of decision making with our guest, John Bircher, an expert in decision making at executive level. Hi Amanda and John, hi Angela.

John Bircher:

Hey Angela, how are you doing?

Angela Malik:

I'm wonderful, John. How about you introduce yourself?

John Bircher:

Yeah, sure, my name is John and I am a leadership coach. I focus a lot on decision making. My career really has been in various different leadership roles over the last 30 years in and around the pharmaceutical sector, but most recently working across all sorts of industries and sectors as a leadership coach. As I said, working across all sorts of industries and sectors as a leadership coach. As I said, my previous role before doing this was the CEO of a consulting practice working in and around the pharmaceutical industry.

Angela Malik:

Amanda, why did you want to have John with us today?

Dr Amanda Potter:

Well, firstly, because I respect him enormously as someone who takes a topic or a subject and researches the heck out of it, and the area he's done that with is decision-making, particularly at a leadership or executive level.

Dr Amanda Potter:

John got trained in our Be Talent Decision Styles questionnaire a couple of years ago and he saw the opportunity for this product and for the whole concept of decision making, because we know that decisiveness at a senior level is one of the most important characteristics we need from our senior leaders. My perception of what I've seen John do over the last couple of years is he's really focused his attention, his research and his thinking around that concept of decisiveness to enable leaders to be more effective. So, as a result, I actually see John as being more of an expert about the application of this approach, of this model, within industry than I've got, and I've been researching it for 20 years. So I thought it'd be really great to, rather than have my very academic perspective of decisiveness, to actually talk to John about the real practical application of a model of decision making, how it can be used and the benefits it can bring to organizations if they focus on that area.

Angela Malik:

Well, before we dive too much into the practicalities, there is a bit of research that you raised. I think it was what two years ago on the podcast, when we talked about seven characteristics of a CEO and decisiveness was one of the most important characteristics.

Dr Amanda Potter:

It was and it was Harvard. Harvard did some research and identified that decisiveness had the greatest important and we also know from the psychological safety research that we've done that leaders who are prone to procrastination or other biases around decisiveness. It could be cognitive dissonance, it could be sunk cost bias. Each of those biases have a negative impact on the environment and the experience of working and it has a negative impact on accountability, on people taking responsibility and, of course, the preparedness to take calculated risks and drive growth.

Angela Malik:

So, john, I understand that in your coaching and facilitation and development practice with your business partner, mark, you focus on decision efficacy and how we can help leaders to make decisions more effectively. Why did decision making become your focus?

John Bircher:

Yeah, it's a good question. I kind of feel in some ways that I stumbled into it. So, as I moved away from that more strategic consulting background and started researching where I was going next and what I wanted to do next big decision, that's where Amanda and I first met and I got involved and what I wanted to do next Big decision that's where Amanda and I first met and I got involved in some of the B Talent suite. But as I started to coach different leaders in different contexts, I realized that many people come to a coach because they've got tricky decisions that they need to make. So that then got me thinking and I started researching around it and landing on articles and research, as Amanda has, and realized that there's this huge demand for decisiveness in leaders and actually even our definition which we should unpick a little bit later of what we mean by decisiveness is understood in different ways by different people.

John Bircher:

But actually I started to realize that my previous world and this world were colliding and coming together, because strategy, at its core, is about making choice, and actually the word decide, if you go back to its root, means to cut off. It means to cut off alternatives, to make a choice right and decide the things not only that you're going to do, but you're not going to do. So I realized I've been spending my life helping organizations to make strategic decisions without really getting under the skin of the science and the art of decision making itself. So I started talking to people, senior executives, starting with the pharmaceutical sector, but then looking across sectors, and I started realizing two things. One, people, as they got more senior in organizations, realized that decision-making was becoming trickier.

John Bircher:

I think it was Barack Obama who said the more senior you get, the trickier the decisions, because you're getting all the decisions that nobody else either can make or wants to make. But on the other side of the coin, I asked people well, when was the last time you had any training or development around decision making? And 99.5% of the time people said never. So people are getting trained in strategy. They're getting trained in good leadership. They're getting trained in people management, in culture, in all these other areas, but they're not getting trained in how does decision making work and what are the best practices for making better decisions.

Angela Malik:

Is that what you've seen, Amanda, in your practice?

Dr Amanda Potter:

I haven't actually asked the question, but what's so interesting is that we are rarely asked to come in and provide the service around decision making. It's usually a conversation I initiate because I will be talking to them about high performance culture and creating efficiencies and driving success, and I will then bring up the topic of decision making and how important it is. So it's rare that an organization will come to me and the point that John's made that one in 200 would actually focus on this, given your statistics, just then, I'm just not asked for it. But actually, once they realise the importance of it and once they go through the experience of understanding how to make better decisions, then that's a bit of a game changer.

John Bircher:

Maybe just to jump in, we might notice it more if we called other things decisions. So the amount of leadership team meetings or workshops or team events that you go to and they're working on a brand strategy, an organizational strategy, they're looking at their priorities as a team. All of that stuff is decision making. You know, they are making choices about how to position a brand or what tactics to invest in, what new talent to bring into the organization or what their priorities are as a leadership team from a culture perspective. So we often hear people say, as an organization, we've got to get better at prioritization or as an organization, we're just overloaded and we've got to focus. All of that is saying yes to some things and no to other things, which, in my book, is about being bold and making decisions. So I wonder whether part of this is just people haven't put a name to it, a label on it.

Dr Amanda Potter:

I love that because you mentioned earlier it's about cutting off alternatives, and I agree.

Dr Amanda Potter:

As we get more senior, the decisions we need to make are more complex, and often the alternatives increase as well. The options are even more varied, if you like. Sarah sent me a little video of Simon Sinek and he had a video about choices, and so he was talking about a story about a 1950s shop clerk who was a really high performer selling shoes, and what he found was that a female customer would come to him and would want to compare two sets of shoes, and so she would try both, and then she'd say could I also see a third? And he would say which pair would you like me to return? Because he found that if the customer had three options they wouldn't buy any, but if they had two they would buy one of them. So the more complex the decision making, the more likely we are to step away from the discomfort of the decision made. If it appears more simple, if we reduce the alternatives down, we're more likely to commit and proceed with a decision, and I think that's just really interesting.

John Bircher:

There's so many places you could go with that, right?

John Bircher:

I mean, there are risks big risks associated with that sort of reductionism as well, if it's okay. Just what that triggered in me is, as leaders also, what is made visible in our decision is who we are and what our focus and priorities are. What I think is really interesting about decision making is it holds together so many different things. It holds together the way we rationally think and our objectivity, but it also requires us to tap into our emotions, be aware of our feelings and what's around us, to know what our previous experiences are, where our intuition is, and then it holds all this other stuff together. You know, like our values and our beliefs and who we are, our character, our morals and the culture we're in. I mean, there's so many different aspects that as you make a decision, all of that stuff is playing out. So I think, as leaders, if we realized that decision making shines a light on who we are as leaders, then maybe we might focus a little bit more on it in terms of our overall development and focus.

Angela Malik:

So right at the start we talked about how we make 35,000 decisions a day, and now we're bringing in the complexity and the risk of reductionism, et cetera. How can we make sure that the decisions we make are the right ones?

John Bircher:

I started reacting badly to the word right one, I think, because that is what gets in the way, in particular, of those that overthink and procrastinate, because I believe they're looking for the right decision.

John Bircher:

If you go all the way back into decision making and strategy, you're making a choice about something that is going to happen in the future and none of us can predict the future. So there has to be a level of trepidation as we make happen in the future and none of us can predict the future. So there has to be a level of trepidation as we make decisions about the future and therefore we can't really get it right. There isn't a right answer. There's possibly better answers and there's probably better decision making process. But the challenge of decision making is it's not just about the way and how we decide. It's not even about the way we roll out our decision. There is this massive player which is chance or luck, involved in the process, because we're chucking our decisions out into an uncertain and future world. I think a better language is how do we make better decisions?

Dr Amanda Potter:

I think it's a good point that we can't control the external forces that are going to impact the overall outcome of that decision. I think that's a very good point. But bias is a really interesting one as well. You've kind of referred to it when you were talking about emotions and values and beliefs and culture and morals and so on, but bias has a significant impact on our ability to make decisions and also our preference. But of course, that's the whole point of the Be Talent questionnaire. It's understanding our propensity to make decisions in certain ways.

Dr Amanda Potter:

For example, it's not secret to anyone who listens to this podcast that I'm a risk averse planner. I'd like to know the outcome, actually, if I can, and so I'm not a procrastinator. I'm also very fast. But I'm a completely different type of decision maker to my co-director, who is more courageous than me, so she therefore challenges me to think bigger and to go further with my decisions. So in your mind, john, what are the kind of the main biases that you might see that would impact a person's ability to make those better decisions?

John Bircher:

So I think it's challenging to answer what are the ones? I see most, because there are so many different cognitive biases at play and they're there to help us. You've already mentioned 35,000 or whatever. The number is 30,000. It's a lot. You know, we can't consciously think about and process in a rigorous way every single one of those decisions every single day, otherwise we would be broken. So these biases are there to help us, right? They're shortcuts, they're heuristics, they're based on the way we've experienced life before. They're looking after us, they're keeping us safe, all that good stuff.

John Bircher:

But when we've got these, maybe let's call them higher stakes decisions, where we just need to pause or slow down and make visible the decision that's in front of us. And I think we often are at risk of things like confirmation bias, where we'll look for evidence, we'll look for people that confirm a view that we want to take. You know, maybe is that one pair of shoes, because that makes our job a lot easier. But this, to me, is highlighted in Chip and Dan Heath's book around decision making, where they talk about this sort of narrow focus, this either, or this black or white spotlighting of decisions, and I think we just need to recognize that and when we've got high stakes decisions that we're making, take a step back and intentionally look to widen our options and alternatives. We don't have to spend forever on that, but actually it's good to explore options.

John Bircher:

An either or binary decision is a bit of a red flag to say maybe I'm a bit narrow minded and I need to explore other options and alternatives, that then, on the back of that, there are other common biases that might play out. You know, we might anchor to particular data or evidence or intelligence that supports our favoured perspective. Or we might see the result of our previous decisions, of being our great skill, rather than the fact that we just got lucky. Or we might just go along with the person in the room who's got the biggest job title and we key into their authority bias. So to me, these biases support this need for making decision making easier, as Amanda talked about earlier.

Dr Amanda Potter:

I love that you've completely challenged the shoe shop story, because that story was very much about. I'm going to make it simpler to enable you to make a decision. But buying shoes unless it's all the money you've got in the world, it's not a high stakes decision. Yeah, it's not that complex. We're talking a very simplistic decision there. So I suppose that's the point as well. That we're making here is there are situations where you need to just simplify and make a quick decision buying a pair of shoes but there are other decisions that need to be made at a senior level within an organization. That has incredible consequences for people, for the profit, for the success of the organization, and that's when I completely agree with you, John. We need to, rather than trying to reduce down the alternatives, we need to really explore and understand.

Angela Malik:

But then there is this risk, then, of falling into a spiral of indecisiveness, right? So how do you draw the limit or where's the boundary for being open enough to welcome new perspectives and yet not being so open that you end up just not making a decision at all?

John Bircher:

I think it comes back to Amanda's point, which is we just need to take stock of what is the decision in front of us, and many authors have written about looking at things like the relative consequence and the relative reversibility of the decisions that we have. Some decisions they're pretty reversible I could take the shoes back and they're not highly consequential, as you say, unless I'm spending my whole salary on that pair. So most decisions we can probably make them relatively quickly and on the spot and not overburden ourselves with indecisiveness. But if a decision is an area where it has significant consequence on me, my life, the people around me, my organization, and or it's hard in terms of reversibility like you may be able to get out of it but it's going to cost you or you're going to experience some significant pain then maybe we either have to slow down and dig a little bit more deeply and be a bit more careful in our decision making, or we might need to design some experiments or pilots that help us step slowly towards a decision without rushing ahead.

Dr Amanda Potter:

And if we think about the prefrontal cortex, which is the CEO of the brain, which helps us with this decision making. We're preparing a workshop for a client at the moment who are going through major change and transformation because they've just two large companies have just merged and I'm looking at the impact of change fatigue and one of them is prefrontal cortex fatigue that we get exhausted having to make all of these fatigue. And one of them is prefrontal cortex fatigue that we get exhausted having to make all of these decisions. And I think that is a really interesting point around procrastination as well, because what happens is we get tired, we start to move away from having to make decisions and we become almost avoidant. So that's a really interesting point too.

John Bircher:

You know what that makes me think, and I don't know whether this will take us, and you're the expert on the psychology and the neuroscience and all of that but it makes me think of something. I think it was Annie Duke, the author that wrote Thinking in Bets. I think it was her that quoted this. What we're attempting to do is we're using our deliberative mind, that slower, more thoughtful, logical brain, the bit that's governed by the CEO, as you called it. We're using that sort of deliberative mind to train our reflexive mind to work on our deliberative mind's best intentions, so that we don't need to get fatigued because we've designed certain heuristics or we've built up a certain level of experience that allows us to act more intuitively on some of those larger decisions.

John Bircher:

It's not a one size fits all solution, but we do need to take a step back. And maybe we're getting into decision process here, but we do need to take a deliberate step back and say what is this decision that's in front of me and what is the best way of tackling it? Because choosing a pair of shoes, deciding what to wear tomorrow or actually a firefighter making some critical decisions in the middle of putting out a fire, requires us to use our reflexive mind. We can't just sit there and start looking at options when a house is on fire, so we've got to do things in a way that help us to make those more deliberative decisions but at the same time, train our reflexive minds to act on its best intention.

Dr Amanda Potter:

I love that.

Dr Amanda Potter:

The language we would use and have referred to on the podcast is the difference between the default mode network, which is the network we activate when we are walking or doing something and in the back of our minds we're thinking about something, versus the executive control function, which is when we're writing lists or we are thinking through a problem and actively planning, if you like, actively thinking about how am I going to solve this problem.

Dr Amanda Potter:

The default mode network I use a lot. Actually, if I've got a decision that I've got to make or a problem I'm trying to solve and it's not clear, I'll sit on it, even though I'm a very quick decision maker, I will take it away and I'll let it percolate in the back of my mind when I'm on walks, when I'm doing something else, and then when I come back to it, when I activate the executive control function, which is what I think you've been talking about, john then I've already done a lot of thinking before I get there. And, it's true, I think you need both in order to make good decisions. If you jump in with the executive control function without having sorted through your thoughts before that time, you're just literally going to be pulling out of empty buckets, if you like.

John Bircher:

I may, if it's okay, just nudge that one step further, which is to say the risk. So let's imagine somebody has done one of your be talent decision styles profiles. If you know you're extremely intuitive, that's your natural preference to decision making and you tend to move at pace. You tend to be quite rapid in terms of paciness. There's a potential risk in what you've just described, that all I'm doing is percolate on stuff that confirms what I want to do deep down really, and when I get to executively making the decision, I've just confirmed all my biases anyway, so I think the challenge there is to say, if I know I'm more intuitive and can take risk and can be pacey, what am I going to do to disconfirm my confirmation or my biases?

John Bircher:

What assumptions am I making that I could challenge, or what way could I frame this in a different way that might yield new options and new alternatives to tackling the challenge? So I think maybe there's also a trigger here to highlight some visibility in ourselves to say actually, yes, I could percolate it, have a shower and make the decision, or I could bring some people in or some evidence or intelligence in that would help me make an even better decision.

Dr Amanda Potter:

I naturally do that because often I find Sarah says the opposite.

Angela Malik:

So you know what, though, I'm quite interested as well in sort of sphere of control, right? So how do we balance circumstances and privileges that we have or we don't have they're out of our control against things that are within our control when we make decisions?

John Bircher:

My mind goes straight to. There's an amazing book called Winning Decisions by a couple of guys, russo and Schumacher. In there they essentially talk about those three aspects we've touched on, which is what's in our control. Well, what's in our control is the decision we make, and what's in our control is how we activate or act or implement that decision. What's not in our control is the choice or the luck or the providence, or whatever you might call it, that also has an influence on the decision outcome. And so what they say is, in that world of uncertainty, the one thing we can control, the one thing that we can get better at, is decision process.

John Bircher:

Well, they would probably say decision process, wouldn't they Angela? So, probably, and I think that's where we can focus in, and it comes back to training ourselves in decision making. So what is a great process that we can take? Not that we have to spend hours or days or weeks or months on it, but let's understand the different steps in the decision making process, because at least I can get to the end of it and say I can't control the outcome, but what I can control is the way we've gone about making this decision.

Dr Amanda Potter:

Listening to you, then, makes me think about the concept of locus of control, and it's one of the scales in the Be Talent Decision Styles questionnaire, and from our research, we've identified that some people have more of a belief around internal locus of control, in other words, that they can influence outcomes through their decision making, and others have an external, which means that they don't believe that their decision is going to impact the external environment and that the external environment has more influence and control on outcomes. Well, I wonder what you think about that.

John Bircher:

Yeah, I mean, I think you're right. That's why process is helpful, but I also think it's one of those ones where we kind of need to hold that intention, because both of those aspects are true and both of those aspects are important. That might sound like a bit of a contradiction, but maybe as an example. So I have strong Christian beliefs. That therefore means for me I ultimately think there is a sort of providential God's perspective on outcome and ultimately the way things roll out. But at the same time, I believe in the day to day of having agency and control and input on my decisions. But I can hold those two perfectly in tension and that works for me.

John Bircher:

So I think there is something there about how not always being wholly one way or the other on your scale is ideal. Each of these things have their consequences and it's more about do we understand where are we in terms of our own preferences and styles? Do we understand what assumptions we often move towards? Do we understand some of the biases that we are inclined towards? And knowing that information, and then looking at the decision that's in front of me, how do I make a better decision knowing that information? So it's not to say that intuitive as an example we've used before. It's not to say intuitive is a bad thing. It's absolutely a great thing. But actually if you want to make a slower, more objective decision and gather enough intelligence because it's a high stake, irreversible decision then you're going to have to change the way you approach your decision making.

Dr Amanda Potter:

You just talked about cognitive dissonance there, about having two competing thoughts on the basis of your Christianity, but also recognizing that you are someone who is able to influence outcomes. So interesting isn't it that you can hold two competing thoughts and beliefs at the same time, which actually can inhibit decision making at times. I know I said I wanted us to talk through your steps, so I'm distracting us.

John Bircher:

But also you're just you're getting into, I guess, a bit of neuroscience and all of that as well, but also you're getting into, I guess, a bit of neuroscience and all of that as well, right, which is that you've talked a bit about our executive function, the prefrontal cortex, and that cortex is connected to the sort of more reptilian side of our brain and through the limbic system. So you've got these connection points. Dissidence is built into the way we're wired. It's not true, right, that we make a decision purely rationally and objectively On data. No, you know our emotions, the way we're feeling, the way that we're wired and our experiences all influence that stuff. So we're constantly holding those tensions all the time, even if we think we're polarised more one way than the other.

Angela Malik:

Thank you more about the B-Talent suite of psychometrics. I'd love to talk you through how we are constantly improving our norm groups, collecting data from all across the world to ensure our reporting is valid and reliable. We ensure our products are accessible for all users. Contact me on LinkedIn. That's Andala Malik M-A-L-I-K. So what are the steps, john? What steps do you take when making a decision?

John Bircher:

I mean, the first thing to say is, if you Google decision-making process, you will find hundreds, absolutely Some widely rolled out within organizations from the army and the police forces, through to institutions, through to school systems and businesses.

John Bircher:

What we've tried to do is gather the best bits from various places and put them in an order which we feel makes sense. But we also recognize that it's not linear as a process and often you end up going back and forth through some of these stages, as each phase or stage influences the other. So this is our experience of what we think are the best practice steps that happen in decision making. Sometimes we move through those steps rapidly, sometimes we have to put emphasis on certain steps in the process, sometimes we have to take a long time going through that, but this is what we've found to work. It's also what we've found to be successful when we've trained it in with many clients now all over the world. So step one, which is probably the step that most people forget to take, is deciding how to decide. So before we jump into decision making, let's just take a step back, pause and ask ourselves the questions that might orientate us to the decision that's in front of us. Some might call this the meta decision. So decide how to decide. Once we've sort of done the work to decide how to decide and that might be on your own or that might be with a group of people. Our view is a little bit like a good scientist building a hypothesis is we should widen our options. Let's look at what options immediately do we see in front of us to address this decision. Now, we might not have much experience in that area, we may not have made a decision like this ever before, and so we're quite limited perhaps in what we think our options are, or we're not very confident in those as being good steps forward.

John Bircher:

So the third step that we talk about is are we gathering the right intelligence? And what we mean by intelligence is whether that be information that we get from data, whether that be our own experiences and those around us, whether it's people who've been through similar situations, or even just what are our emotions telling us in this context. But we're gathering intelligence from multiple sources, and it's intelligence because we're using it for something. So when we gather intelligence in this step three, we're thinking two things.

John Bircher:

Are we at that more divergent phase, ie are we still widening options and therefore we're looking for data to help us generate options and alternatives, so it's that sort of more expansive use of data or am I now at that convergent step? Am I now looking for data that will help me evaluate the different options that I've come up with to make a really good, robust decision. And that leads us to our next step in the process, which is then making the decision. And just a side note here, the amount of people we work with. Where you're getting in a room, it's the middle of a meeting and suddenly you realise a decision is being made and all those three steps haven't even been referenced. People are jumping straight into. We need to make a decision on X.

Dr Amanda Potter:

But that's because the discomfort it creates to have a decision unmade. I certainly know that in myself. I find it very uncomfortable to have a decision unmade. I don't enjoy sitting with it. So there are a proportion of us who really find that uncomfortable, hence the jumping in. Let's just make it, let's move on, let's get it done.

John Bircher:

More than that, I'd agree. But I would also say that often we don't realize we're making a decision, like it sounds obvious, but we don't. We're jumping in and we're doing stuff that we do because we're in a leadership team, and this is the kind of thing we do. What we don't think about is actually we're making an active decision here. Here is an opportunity for us to shine a light on our leadership, not just in the decision we make, for us to shine a light on our leadership not just in the decision we make, but how we make it. So you've got this fourth step, which is make the decision. Then what we do is we spend a little bit of time thinking about how we're going to implement that decision, because often we don't put as much emphasis on thinking about the pull through, whether that be communication, engaging people, the change management piece, or whether it just be simply, are we clear on the objectives, the initiatives and what results we're going to measure?

John Bircher:

The final two steps really link together, but we get the outcome and, in a way, the outcome is the outcome. Right, because we've made the decision, we've implemented it, we've thrown it out into the world and the outcome is the outcome. But what we've got an opportunity to do at that step is to create some learning loop. Now, it doesn't mean we can't learn all the way through the process, but what it does mean is we say, actually, for these high stake decisions, these tough decisions that are important, let's commit to keeping a log or writing a journal. That will help us not only remember why we decided what we decided, but will also help us track the outcome and what we can learn from that. So that's broadly it Decide how to decide, widen options, gather intelligence, make the decision, implement or think about the implementation of decision, and then, after we get that outcome, let's build a learning loop to learn more about who we are as decision makers.

Angela Malik:

So maybe I misunderstood that. How to implement step, john, but you mentioned about thinking about impact and some of those things. I would have thought that was before you make the decision. You're already thinking about impact and before you make the decision you do kind of have to think about feasibility and what implementation looks like. I'm surprised to see it after the decision making part.

John Bircher:

I think it comes back to how you logically think something through and how you then articulate or graphically represent that.

John Bircher:

That assumes that the decision is finally made and then now you're just implementing and this stuff you have to move back and forth. So it may be in that implementation step, as you're thinking about implementation, that it changes and you need to go back and shift what the actual decision is, what sits underneath the decision that you're thinking about implementation, that it changes and you need to go back and shift what the actual decision is, what sits underneath the decision that you're making, or the meat on the bone. So it's not that it's linear and that you just jump through every stage and it's a tick and you can't go backwards. Of course you can go backwards, but the reason we placed it where we placed it is you're going to have a series of options that you've generated that then need to be evaluated and you almost need to decide which of those options you're leaning towards before you can really get under the skin of what implementation of that option would look like, and that's why we've characterized it where we've characterized it.

Dr Amanda Potter:

Do you know what I really like it? Well, you know I really like it because I came to your workshop with all of your clients to sit in so I could learn all about your process and understand how you're deploying the model and deploying our tool, which is an absolute joy, and I would seriously recommend it because I learned a lot. But the one thing that I realized I don't do enough of is deciding how to decide. I think about it with just a few things. Do I bring someone in to help me with that decision? It's usually a typical one or two people. Could you help me understand that one a bit more, John? So how could I expand my thinking when I'm deciding how to decide if I had a really tricky decision to make in the future?

John Bircher:

I think actually it's the most impactful part of the process and many people would agree with you that that's the bit that they probably don't spend enough time on.

John Bircher:

But also in many ways it's the easiest because we can ask ourselves some simple questions that really help us make sure that we're clear especially if we're doing this as a team, by the way that there's absolute clarity about the decision that's in front of us. So there might be some simple questions at the beginning which, by the way, they sound simple, but they can lead to some very interesting conversation, like what is the decision that you are making and what is the goal, or what is the core of the issue, like those are basic questions in a way, but it's interesting when you know I said, like how many workshops you're in with leadership teams or board meetings that you're in with leaders, and I sort of slyly put my hand up and I go it sounds like you're making a decision, is that the case? And they'll go oh yeah, you're right. So I would say so what is it, what's the decision that you're making, or what's the core of the issue, and you could end up with an hour or two conversation just on that. But what I've noticed is the specificity of where they get to helps them make, ultimately, a better decision. That's one example. The other example, which is again quite practical, is that many organizations will have some kind of governance around decision making. Often it's not memorialized in any way, it's just kind of like trickled by osmosis. But being clear on who's going to have the final decision and how you'll involve people in the decision making process.

John Bircher:

So we use a model that's not ours, but we've augmented an existing model. So there's a model which is DAI who's the decision maker? Who holds that D? Who's the advisor or advisors Whose expert opinion could you bring in to help you make the decision? You've then got the I, the informed, who needs to be informed, managed, communicated with along the way in order to make sure that this decision gets rolled out successfully. Now we felt what was missing was a second I. So we call it the DAI I model, very creative because we've added in the implementers, and the reason for that is that many of the people who end up implementing decisions, especially in large corporate organizations, aren't the people who are involved in the decision process.

John Bircher:

So essentially, what happens is all this hard work can go into making decisions, then it gets chucked over the fence and people are expected to figure out how to make it happen. It also means that in that implementation step in our process not all the things have been thought through that will help a decision to be implemented well. So our question underneath that is who is actually going to implement this decision, and where in the process do they need to be brought in to have the greatest impact? Those are simple things. We have other things that you can ask. Some of them may be a bit broader and wider than we would ask normally, like what is the ripple effect of this decision? You know, how far and wide does it reach, or what values do you want to uphold as you make this decision. But it's those stepping back points that help us think about the decision before we jump in to the process.

Dr Amanda Potter:

I really like that point about the implementers getting their view and feedback before you make this ivory tower decision without actually considering the people who are going to implement it and the feasibility of that implementation.

Angela Malik:

It's such a common thing, isn't it? It doesn't feel like such a big deal, the implementation bit, but when you add it as a step, you're giving it the respect and the importance that it needs in order to make sure that that decision actually is followed through and it builds on.

John Bircher:

You know, one of the most successful tools that has been rolled out and is talked about in various media around decision making is Gary Klein's tool on the premortem. Do you want to explain that? Yeah, so this idea that why wait for a decision to be rolled out and fall apart? Actually, you can do a pre-mortem.

John Bircher:

You can look at a decision and its implementation and identify all the different ways that it might go wrong, whether that be the way you've communicated it, the way you've engaged people in the process. It could be thinking through some of the organizational weaknesses that you know you have when you roll out big decisions. It could be some cultural stuff, but what you basically ask people to do is to think about all the ways that it could go wrong, as if the decision has actually already been rolled out, and in doing that, it helps us to then go back as we make the decision and make a decision with those things in mind. So how do we now make that decision better so that we don't fall foul to the things that we know are the risks in implementation? So I'm not sure I did justice to Gary Klein there.

John Bircher:

Premortem is a really powerful tool. It's a very simple thing to do, but you usually catch one or two really big things and those can then be wrapped into then the decision making and the plans around it.

Dr Amanda Potter:

So, as a trained, accredited user of Decision Styles, could you just share with us and our listeners how you integrate the tool? How does it help?

John Bircher:

So there's a few things we run. As you mentioned, ananda, we run a decision masterclass. We have a sort of luxury venue that we like to go to and try to bring people together from all different walks of leadership life and mix it up to try again, create that sort of diversity of people together learning about decision-making. So before that course, what we do is as part of the package is we sign people up to do their decision styles profile and that information then we sit down with and we have a conversation with them about their own preferences and how that might show up, how they recognize what resonates, what doesn't resonate for them about their own decision making. And then we will come back to that in particular around the deciding how to decide step. Because in deciding how to decide, being aware of some of your style preferences, some of your nuances, will help you to think about where might I need to apply more or less effort in the decision making process to help me make a better decision. So for someone like Amanda maybe, who tends to go more with her gut, who tends to move at pace, maybe slowing down in the gathering, intelligence having intelligence that challenges her perspective or assumptions, having some different people Okay, great, having Sarah in the mix, but who else could she bring into the mix? It's really challenging and come up with something completely different that could be a better decision. So we ask people those questions upfront.

John Bircher:

We also do work in-house with organizations.

John Bircher:

So we'll go in and do more tailored decision-making training or decision coaching with people in a company and in that context we might have quite a light touch on your decision styles.

John Bircher:

And in that way a bit like constellations or systemic coaching we might set up parts of the room and say, okay, when we're looking at facts, if you're more likely to be intuitive and go with your instinct, go to that part of the room. If you're more likely to sort of hold it in tension and be quite rational over that side, or if you need all the data, all the facts and complete objectivity before you'll make a decision, go to that side of the room. And we'll get people in a team to move to different places in a room and then observe where their teammates are and then think about decisions. And, okay, if we've got this sort of decision ahead of us, whose superpower should we dial up? Who do we need to bring to the fore Because they'll help us make that decision more quickly and not overthink it, and we could do the same with pace, or we could do the same with risk or any of the other 10 elements that we look at in that decision style.

Angela Malik:

I did want to ask you something a little bit practical, John, because I know you use the B Talent Decision Styles Report quite a lot and one of the questions that we often hear about the report is what happens if a profile is sort of right down the middle of the scales. How do you approach that? I wonder if you've got any advice for coaches out there who are thinking about our product or currently using it.

John Bircher:

Yeah, it's a good question because I think there's something in us as humans we don't want to be vanilla, do we? We don't want to be just down the middle. So people who get the profile where it's almost straight down the middle feel slightly disappointed. They go okay. So what am I supposed to do with this? I think that's a real challenge. I think it's a little bit like we just talked about okay.

John Bircher:

So let's look at some of the decisions that you've got ahead of you or, if they haven't got any, let's just look back at some of the decisions you've made and, knowing that your tendency is to be down the middle, where might you need to dial up or dial down certain elements? It might be because they're down the middle and quite rational that they maybe are over sweating the shoes that they buy or the clothes that they wear or the food that they take for lunch, and actually could they make some of those decisions a little bit quicker. Equally, maybe they feel they're quite rational in thinking through an important decision for their business or for their brand, but perhaps they could go a step further in finding more disconfirming evidence or challenging more deeply some of their biases or assumptions or the metaphors that they're using as a business. So I think it's about taking people and saying OK, if you look at these and the sorts of decisions you've got coming up. So what happens if that person is quite steady because they're in the middle of the sort of pace preference? What happens if they're quite steady but their organization is going through some significant and pacey change? How are they going to get more comfortable with the decisions in the organization that are going to happen more rapidly and how are they going to lean into that or not, depending on how they want to approach those decisions within that organization?

John Bircher:

So for me it's contextual. So you might have a profile that's down the middle. That's great because that means you're really flexible. What are you going to dial up and dial down, depending on the sorts of decision that the organization is demanding of you? And I just want to make one final point. I don't think it is just about the quality of the decision itself. It's also the way the decision is made, the journey that you take people on. That can be as impactful and can shine a bigger light on who you are as a leader than the fact that you can make a decision. And it might be, and I'll use the word you used earlier and it's the right one. So it's not just the decisions we make, it's the way we go about taking people on the journey and engaging them and the robustness that we put around them. And therefore thinking about where we flex in that context is critically important.

Dr Amanda Potter:

So, john, I think we're drawing towards the end of the podcast. So if someone was interested in coming on your workshop, how could they contact you and how could they book?

John Bircher:

I suppose the quickest way would be send me an email, john at saltlightcoachingcom that's the easiest way or find me on LinkedIn. It's john, without an H-J-O-N Bircher. Find me on LinkedIn and just drop me a DM on there. We've got two courses coming up. It's a great day, real mix of people. If you don't think you're right, just drop me a message. Let's have a chat, because the value that we're hearing from people not just in terms of the content and the great food and the venue, but actually just networking with people who are outside of your normal circles of learning training development has been amazing. The buzz has been terrific.

Angela Malik:

It was great. I guess. My final question as we wrap up this episode is if there's one key takeaway for our listeners today, what would you say that is? And this is for both of you, amanda and John.

John Bircher:

I think it's about the importance of decision-making. You know where we end up. The person that we become, the leader that we are and the life we ultimately lead is made up of our choices. So treat decision-making seriously. There's some very simple things you can do to become a better decision maker.

Dr Amanda Potter:

That was beautiful and succinct. I was actually reflecting, as you've been talking today, that indeed I'm in my 50s and I am a product of all the decisions I've made. And I've made some amazing decisions, but I've made some shockers too, and when I've made the shocking decisions, I've had to pick myself up and learn from them. But I'm still a product of all those decisions. So I agree, we need to invest more time in it and understanding our preference, how we approach those decisions and what we can learn from applying a methodology like yours, so that we can make our decision making a little bit more objective or robust or whatever words we were going to use, but a little bit more thoughtful, I think, is a better word actually, for it.

John Bircher:

You made me think. Sorry, I know I'm not supposed to jump in, but you made me think that there's a question that we can ask after a decision has been made, which is how is this decision influencing the person? I'm becoming like? Like what a great reflection point to do it. You know each and every one of these big decisions obviously not the 35,000, but what a great decision to ask ourselves from a reflective or journaling perspective.

Dr Amanda Potter:

I'm writing it down. How is this decision influencing the person? I'm becoming Wonderful.

Angela Malik:

Thank you both for sharing such great insights. John, in particular, thank you for your expertise today and for our listeners. If this episode has helped you, please consider sharing it with a friend. And, of course, if you're interested in exploring your own decision-making processes in more detail, get in touch with John at Salt and Light Coaching to see how he and his team can help. The contact information will be in the show notes and on LinkedIn.

Dr Amanda Potter:

Thank you Angela, thank you John and thank you everyone for listening. I hope you all have a wonderful and successful day.

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