Ask a Decision Engineer

So often in the midst of change or the unknown where our mind goes first is what are we going to do?

But what if the key to being able to navigate change and uncertainty was less about doing, but rather a way of being?

Today, I'm in conversation with April Rinne, a futurist, speaker, and author of the book, Flux: 8 Superpowers For Thriving In Constant Change, where she shares what she has found is the most effective way for navigating the current world of rapidly accelerating unexpected change.

We talk about the illusion that keeps us from seeing things as they are, why cultivating a flux mindset now is more important than ever before, and some of the superpowers that can empower you when responding to change and making decisions.

For full show notes and additional resources, visit askadecisionengineer.com

Whenever I teach about decision making, inevitably, the comment comes up, "These frameworks are great and all, but what do I do about the other people in the room?"

Decision making in groups definitely adds a layer of complexity. That's why I invited Katherine Rosback, an expert decision and risk analysis facilitator and a colleague of mine from the Society of Decision Professionals onto the show.

We'll be talking about the science behind asking questions, how to lay the groundwork for shifting someone's perspective, and strategies for facilitating more effective meetings.

For full show notes and additional resources, visit askadecisionengineer.com

In all my years of teaching about decision making, no topic generates more angst than the need to know. But how do you know what you know? How do you know when you know what you know? And how do you integrate this knowing into some of the most important decisions of your life?

In this episode, I invited Dave Evans onto the show to talk all about these topics of knowing and discernment. Dave is the co-author of Designing Your Life and Designing Your New Work Life. He co-founded the Stanford Life Design lab and holds the title of discernment lead for a social impact accelerator.

He shares a number of things he's learned from sitting with thousands of lives via the Designing Your Life programs, including how to go beyond cognitive knowing, the important distinction between certainty and faith, how to approach when things go wrong, and exercises for honing your discernment.

For full show notes and additional resources, visit askadecisionengineer.com

Risk. For some people, the very thought sends chills down their spines, yet for others, the topic prompts a sense of thrill. Why is that the case? And what does that mean for how we think about risk in decision making?

To answer those questions and more, I turned to Michele Wucker, author of the books, The Gray Rhino, and You Are What You Risk. We chat about how the way we define risk matters, the layers of factors that make up our risk fingerprint, and things to keep in mind about risk when making group decisions.

For full show notes and additional resources, visit askadecisionengineer.com

Confidence is a critical part of decision making and being an effective leader. Not enough confidence and you won't move a decision to the action or be able to cultivate the support needed to move it forward.

Too much confidence and you could make decisions that unnecessarily put you and others at risk. So how do you walk the line of having just the right amount of confidence?

Today, I speak with Don Moore: confidence expert, UC Berkeley Haas School of Business professor and author of the book, Perfectly Confident. We discuss the different types of overconfidence we should be aware of as well as ways that decision makers can better calibrate their confidence. He'll also share insights from his latest book Decision Leadership, which helps leaders think about how to empower people within their organizations to make better choices.

For full show notes and additional resources, visit askadecisionengineer.com

Decisions. They are the way we can steer our lives forward, yet how much thought do people give to how they are making them? And more importantly, what are the small things we can do to improve them?

In this episode, I go back to basics with global decision making expert, Ralph Keeney. Ralph is a Professor Emeritus of Business Administration at Duke University and a Professor Emeritus of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Southern California. He has written multiple books on decision making, including Value-Focused Thinking, Smart Choices, and Give Yourself A Nudge.

We talk about why it's worth putting thought into how you make decisions, the impact of shifting focus from decision problems, to decision opportunities, the importance of defining your values in a decision and some quick things you can do to improve your decision making.

For full show notes and additional resources, visit askadecisionengineer.com

Decision-making is not just a cognitive exercise; there are benefits to approaching it as a whole person.

To talk more about this, I invited Amy Day, decision educator and executive director of the nonprofit Clarity for Action, to my podcast. Amy likes to say that she grew up in a decision laboratory, surrounded by giants from the field of decision science. She's certified as a decision educator, coach and advisor through Stanford, continuing studies.

Over the past 20 years, she has combined her native background in decision quality, with insights, from social emotional learning, in order to teach emerging adults and parents to integrate whole person decision making into their lives in order to get clarity and take purposeful action.

Today, Amy explains how to check one's decision fitness with a simple acronym, the four components of whole person decision making, and what parents and adults can do to cultivate decision skills and the young people they support.

For full show notes and additional resources, visit askadecisionengineer.com

How can you know you've made a good decision, even before you know how things turn out? It’s all about understanding decision quality.

To talk about that, I invited award-winning decision quality expert, Carl Spetzler onto today's show. Carl is the co-founder and chairman of Strategic Decisions group, a leading strategy consulting firm, renowned for its expertise in strategic decision making for greater value creation. He also literally wrote the book on decision quality along with his colleagues, Hannah Winter and Jennifer Meyer.

Today, we talk about how the concept of decision quality has helped companies make better decisions when millions and billions of dollars are on the line, how you can employ the six links of decision quality to be confident you are making a good decision, as well as other tips for making better decisions.

For full show notes and additional resources, visit askadecisionengineer.com

Making decisions as an individual has its challenges, but having to make decisions as a group adds many other layers of complexity. To talk about that, I brought my friend, Alexis Gonzales-Black onto today's show.

Alexis is a Partner and the org design lead at August Public. Before August, she led the implementation of Holacracy at Zappos and helped shape an emerging org design practice for world-class clients at IDEO. She is an expert in organization design and is driven by a desire to make workplaces more inclusive, agile, and fun.

In this episode, we talk about what she's noticing about the future of work in a hybrid environment, why consensus is not the right approach 90% of the time, what truly inclusive decision processes look like, and a quick reframe that enables you to make group decisions faster.

For full show notes and additional resources, visit askadecisionengineer.com

When making a decision, we should seek out the "best" option, right? Turns out, seeking to maximize your outcomes is likely to leave you less happy and more stressed. On the show today I bring you one of my mentors, Barry Schwartz, who wrote the game-changing book The Paradox of Choice, Why More is Less.

Barry shares why maximizing is a bad goal, talks about the benefits of constraints, and shows how practical wisdom is what will enable us to succeed in the face of uncertainty and ambiguity.

For full show notes and additional resources, visit askadecisionengineer.com