How to Make the Best Decision Under the Worst Circumstances

When making decisions under suboptimal conditions—situation is not in our favor, we have incomplete details or there’s an issue that requires urgent attention—most of us tend to screw up. 

We overreact, hurry and let our biases get in the way of good decision making. We assume given the conditions and constraints under which we are operating, this is the best we can do. 

However, our best most of the time is not good enough because we blame it on our circumstances and fail to learn from our mistakes instead of taking responsibility for our actions. 

This creates a vicious cycle of stress and anxiety every time we are faced with a difficult situation—negative emotions from past failures, fear of not meeting expectations again and not knowing how to make a better decision this time leads to bad choices with terrible results. 

The ability to make good decisions under stress is highly valued because it’s rare to see it in action. It’s a super skill that gets you attention, makes you stand out and builds credibility at work. 

Let us not become victims of a crippling reasoning pattern. If we want to improve our decision-making and critical thinking, we must recognize our mental biases and be willing to overcome them. Let us avoid creating arguments to confirm pre-existing beliefs at all costs and invest in a ‘sunk cost fallacy.’ 
— Erik Pevernagie, The Infinite Wisdom of Meditation

Use these five steps to make the best possible decision under difficult conditions:

Slow down

When you are running against time or the situation demands that you move fast, you may start panicking. That panic not only reflects in your tone of voice and body language, but even the way you think. 

Let’s decide fast.

We need to do it now.

We don’t have an entire day. 

Hurrying, especially when the circumstances are not in your favor or the situation appears out of control leads to poor choices and bad decisions. 

Slowing down may seem counterintuitive in such moments, but that’s exactly what you need to do. Pausing and taking a deep breath clears the mental fog required to make good decisions. It lowers stress and anxiety that clouds your thinking and compromises your judgment. 

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
— Viktor E. Frankl

Ask these questions when you feel the need to hurry into a decision:

1. What am I feeling right now? 
2. Is my decision driven by a rational thought process or am I reacting impulsively to strong emotions of fear, stress, or anxiety?
3. In what ways can external pressures be influencing my choice?
4. What would happen if I took more time to decide? 
5. Have I considered all possible alternatives? What might I be overlooking?
6. What are my priorities in this situation and how does my decision align with those priorities?

Don’t lead with the first thought that comes to mind. Slow down. Use the pause to reflect on choices, clarify your understanding and validate your assumptions. 

Ask questions 

The biggest mistake we make when making decisions under tough situations is assuming we need to have all the answers. Not knowing something hurts our ego. Coming up with the decision all by ourselves then becomes a matter of pride and self-esteem. 

We don’t ask questions, seek alternative perspectives or invite disagreements because doing so undermines our authority and judgment. 

But good decisions aren’t made in silos or by relying on knowledge and experience of one person. Utilizing the collective wisdom of the group helps us overcome our biases and explore options that we would otherwise not consider.

Questioning helps people gain perspective and understand the perspectives of others. As they see issues and problems from different points of view, they gain an appreciation for their complexity—and also expand the range of possible solutions.
— Michael J. Marquardt, Leading with Questions

Make more informed and thoughtful decision by asking the right questions:

1. How do others feel about different options?
2. What other alternatives have we not yet considered?
3. What potential risks do others see with each choice?
4. What could go wrong? What could go right? How likely are these outcomes? 
5. If others were to pick one option, which one would they choose and why?

The art of decision making requires the art of questioning. Make better decisions under the worst circumstances by finding the right answers, not trying to be right. 

Consider second-order effects 

While making decisions, how often do we optimize for long-term gain at the cost of short-term pain? A good process for making decisions requires second order thinking which unravels the implications of our decisions by thinking about its consequences in the future. 

It’s tempting to give in to good outcomes with small upside that are easily accessible and visible to us without weighing in on the potentially large downside of these decisions in the future. 

Our experiences and beliefs also limit our ability to go beyond the natural and seek hard truths by asking difficult questions, exploring unknown territories, and doubting what may seem like an obvious choice. 

Failing to consider second- and third-order consequences is the cause of a lot of painfully bad decisions, and it is especially deadly when the first inferior option confirms your own biases. Never seize on the first available option, no matter how good it seems, before you’ve asked questions and explored.
— Ray Dalio, Principles

Second order thinking as a mental model requires going out of our comfort zone and stepping into the unknown. It requires analyzing the potential impact of our decision into the future by asking these questions: 

• How can I make decisions with positive outcomes compounded in the future?
• Is this decision attractive only because it has an immediate effect (first-order consequence) positive?
• What can be the potential downside of this decision and its effect later?

Going beyond intuition and seeking unconventional solutions by applying second order thinking philosophy is what separates great thinkers from the ordinary who outperform others and achieve greater success.

Pay attention to biases 

The science of behavioral economics tells us that once we have made a decision, even an illogical one, we tend to cling to it. We believe a certain line of thinking is right, filter out dissenting information while seeking information that confirms our original point of view. Psychologists call this confirmation bias. 

This bias is so deeply seated in our unconscious thinking that even our illogical reasoning sounds entirely rational to us. We operate with a biased filtered worldview missing critical pieces of information and stamp it with “logic based reasoning.”

Another bias that impacts decision-making is relying solely on our instinct.

In his classic Thinking, Fast And Slow, Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist and economist notable for his work on the psychology of judgment and decision-making stresses on the fact that our gut instinct can fail us when we apply familiar patterns of experience to unrelated circumstances or situations. 

We make quick decisions based on our past experience which is a key source of noise and bias. He asks us to resist premature intuition and says “Intuition should not be banned, but it should be informed, disciplined and delayed.” 

To catch yourself, ask these questions:

• Am I relying solely on my intuition to make this decision? What data supports my thinking?
• How am I sure this data is not biased?
• What other dissenting pieces of information have I considered?
• What do others have to say about this decision?

Combine your intuitive reasoning with scientific knowledge and data. Ask others for disconfirming opinions and pieces of evidence to enable you to see both sides of the argument and not only the one that appeals to you. 

Apply the five whys technique 

Finally, you can’t improve your decision-making skills without implementing a feedback loop in your process. 

Despite your best effort, not all decisions will turn out right—unexpected situations, wrong assumptions, and lack of complete information may lead to undesired results with other negative consequences. 

The experience is nothing but emotionally draining and can leave you in a state of denial—attaching superficial causes for not getting the desired results or speeding through analysis without any significant conclusions. 

Don’t let that happen. 

Shift from obvious and superficial reasons to the underlying root cause. Dig in, draw connections, identify and learn from your past, ask questions and only accept an answer that clarifies what you did wrong and what action could have prevented the mistake from happening:

• What went wrong?
• Why did you make the mistake?
• Was the mistake avoidable or unavoidable?
• How can you fix it?
• What does this mistake teach you about yourself?

A powerful technique to go from superficial understanding of your mistake to the underlying root cause is to use the “five whys” technique designed by Sakichi Toyoda who used it within the Toyota Motor Corporation during the evolution of its manufacturing methodologies. 

Ask why the mistake occurred and use the answer as the premise for the next question repeating this whole process five times to dig deeper into the actual cause of the issue. By repeating “why” five times, the nature of the problem and its solution becomes clear. 

Example:

Q: Why did the fix we deployed ended up breaking a downstream system that was dependent on our data?
A: We changed an API contract and missed notifying the downstream system of the change. 

Q: How did we miss it?
A: We were not aware that their team was using this API contract. 

Q: Why were we not aware of them using our API?
A: We maintain a document listing all dependent downstream systems and contracts. This service was not listed in the document. 

Q: Why was this service not part of the document? 
A: This service recently went live and the document was not updated to include it. So, we missed notifying them. 

Q: Why was the document not updated?
A: We don’t have a process in place to ensure such changes are captured. Relying on manual processes is faulty.

This example clearly demonstrates that the actual problem is quite different from the answer to the first question. 

Without digging deeper, we might stop at the first answer that comes to our mind—hardly the answer we need to solve the problem and prevent it from occurring again. 

Five whys is a general guideline. You can stop at three or go all the way till seven whys, whatever gets you the answer you need to understand your mistake better. 

Five Whys is a powerful organizational technique. Coupled with working in small batches, it provides the foundation a company needs to respond quickly to problems as they appear, without overinvesting or overengineering.
— Eric Ries, The Lean Startup

Becoming a good decision maker requires turning every mistake into a learning lesson—show curiosity to understand what you’re doing wrong and what you can do to improve. 

Summary

1. Learning to make good decisions, especially when circumstances are not in your favor, is a skill that can help you get others’ attention and make you stand out at work. 
2. Speeding through a decision may appear right when faced with a time crunch, but hurrying only leads to decisions that you may regret in the long run. Slowing down and pausing, even for a brief moment, can create the space necessary to think clearly and make more objective decisions. 
3. When tasked with a decision, you may refuse to ask questions with the worry that not knowing something may hurt your reputation and damage your credibility. Not asking questions limits your perspective which makes you more prone to bad decisions. Good decision making involves finding the right answers, not knowing all the answers by yourself.
4. Instant gratification feels good which makes you more likely to choose an option with short term rewards without fully understanding the impact of your decision in the long run. Don’t make a decision without considering its future implications. The best decision is the one with positive results compounded in the future. 
5. Confirmation bias combined with faulty intuition is a deadly combination. It makes you reject evidence that contradicts your opinion and double down on the choice that matches your intuition. Intuition is valuable, but intuition without logical reasoning can lead to biased decisions.
6. Learning to make good decisions isn’t a one time process. It involves a lifetime of learning, experience and practice. When your decision doesn’t work out as expected, use the five-whys technique to dig deeper into the root cause and use the knowledge to prevent such mistakes from happening again. 

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