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An article where I describe the two primary preferences leaders have for decision making and how to strengthen both.

My second son is in kindergarten. He’s learning how to read. I’m sure he’d been inspired by his older brother and night-time bed stories. But, in many ways, he’s self-taught. I’m impressed with how fluent he has become already.

He tends to sight-read. In other words, he’s learned to recognize many words by memory.

The upside is he is a fast reader.

The downside is that when he encounters a new word or a longer word, he skips over it. Or if there are many of those words, he stops reading altogether.

As a result, he sometimes misses the meaning or context of what he’s reading. Or he doesn’t finish at all. He hasn’t learned the skill of thoughtfully sounding out the word.

Reactive and Intentional Decision Making for Leaders

In many ways, this is similar to how people make decisions.

Reactive Decision Making: We learn to “sight read” circumstances and situations. We make quick decisions based on our already-formed understanding of how to best respond. It takes very little effort and time. It’s efficient.

Unless the decisions were the wrong ones. Or missed considering unintended outcomes or consequences.

Intentional Decision Making: This is the slow, plodding, sound-out-every-syllable form of decision making. It doesn’t miss any of the words. It’s complete and thorough. It also takes a lot of work. It’s tiring. It can suck the joy out of reading.

Psychologists call this the “dual-process” theory.  They have different names for the two different kinds of thinking: Associative & Reasoning or System I & System II thinking, for example. Some feel that one form of thinking is more intuitive and the other form is more rational.

But what they agree on is that the brain thinks in two different ways. One is fast, reactive, instinctual. The other is slow, methodical, calculating.

Most leaders never even consider how they make decisions. However, reflecting on the following questions begins to open the door to both more efficient and accurate decisions.

• “How do I think and decide?” “How should I?”
• “How do we think and decide?” “How should we?”

Both Methods of Thinking are Important

In working with leaders, I’ve found that most leaders tend to have a strong preference for how they approach decision making.

Some lean towards Reactionary decision making, with the emphasis on “action.”

Others lean toward Intentional decision making, with the emphasis on “accuracy.”

As with reading, both approaches have value.

As someone who both reads and writes extensively, I find it enormously helpful to be able to scan through documents or text. I rely on sight-reading and picking up on keywords and phrases to absorb the meaning of a large amount of text.

However, that approach doesn’t work as well if I’m reading something that has very new concepts, new words or terminology, or unfamiliar facts. In those cases, I need to slow my reading down and put more thought into what is being said.

When They Occur

Reactionary decision making usually occurs in these three scenarios:

• When there are intense emotions
• When there is a high level of repetition or habitual behavior
• When things are moving very fast

Intentional decision making usually occurs:

• When learning something new
• When the risk is perceived to be high
• When the issue is perceived to be complicated

The Limits of Both Kinds of Thinking

I work with some leaders whose decision-making process is best described as “shooting from the hip.” Some of them are excellent shots. But they inevitably miss a lot as well. Sometimes they shoot something they didn’t mean to hit.

I work with other leaders who are painstakingly intentional in their decision making. They are often successful and have made many good decisions. But they are inevitably so slow and plodding that by the time they make their decision, a key opportunity has passed them by. Or they are not prepared to face a clearly foreseen challenge.

Both approaches have value. But they both have limits as well.

Limits of Reactive Decision Making: I find that successful leaders who tend towards Reactive thinking are often very successful. They often seem to have an intuitive sense for opportunity and the ability to jump at the right time.

But they get stuck. Often in two areas:

• Growth: They often create bottlenecks for themselves in terms of growth. What comes naturally to them has generated meaningful success. But they hit a point where what is natural is not what will get them to the next level.
• Relationships: Many Reactive leaders are very personable and engaging. But they can sometimes miss it when it comes to relationships. Sometimes being very “out of sight, out of mind” when it comes to relationship maintenance. Sometimes sabotaging a relationship in a moment of intense emotion.

Limits of Intentional Decision Making: Leaders who are very intentional thinkers often lead very small or very large organizations. Or they inherit growing organizations and then preside over a plateau or a decline.

They often get stuck in these two areas:

• The “right” answer: Many intentional leaders make the mistake of viewing life as a math problem. They believe they should be able to proof check their answers before submitting their responses. But much of leadership will never allow that level of certainty. Particularly, anything to do with vision or growth. As a result, they limit the growth of their organizations.
• Speed: The second area is the speed. Both opportunities and challenges sometimes travel swiftly. You don’t always have the time to contemplate. Many opportunities slip by and challenges remain unaddressed by intentional decision-makers.

How to Grow in Both Types of Thinking

Growth doesn’t look like achieving balance. It looks like growth.

Fast-moving, reactive thinkers will always prefer figuring it out as they go. Intentional thinkers will always prefer time and sufficient data to make a considered decision.

But both can grow further and faster by learning to think like their counterparts. They don’t need to do it all the time. But they do need to recognize when they really need to slow down vs when they need to speed up.

If you tend to be Reactive:

• Focus: Identify one area that you are willing to slow down in and be more intentional. Commit to doing so. For the majority of leaders, strategy work is a good place to begin. But for some leaders, it will be something else:  client relationships, customer relationships, partner relationships, developing systems, etc.
• Tackle bigger challenges: Set a goal that is outside of your comfort zone in terms of size or complexity. The “bigness” of the challenge will force you to slow down, analyze your movements, and develop a plan.

• Be willing to listen to others: People are probably giving you cues. They may not be using the exact words (or words at all) but they are communicating: “You are moving too fast”, “I don’t know where you are doing”, “But I thought we just agreed we were going in a different direction”. Commit to taking their perspective seriously.

• Plan the big things: Be intentional with strategic and systematic thinking. Be responsive with smaller, every-day decisions, but stay in the larger strategic framework.

If you tend to be Intentional:

• Practice with smaller goals: Your large goals should be set intentionally. But your smaller goals don’t all need to be. Identify a smaller objective and practice making decisions from your gut.

• 80% good enough: The correct decision is largely illusory. In your next meeting, focus on good. Actually, just aim for 80% good enough. In most cases, anything beyond that is wasted effort. Read more about this here.

• Practice with fast people: Get people on your team who are Reactive thinkers. Let them help get you moving. View the inevitable tension that will emerge as valuable strength and skill-building for both of you.

What’s generally true for both:

• Experiment: Everyone’s situation is a little different. So, experiment. Try something for a while. Give it a fair shake. If it works, keep using it. If it doesn’t, try something else.

• Practice: It’s not easy to think differently. So, practice it. If you tend to decide fast, put yourself in dynamics where you need to slow down and engage in a more deliberative process. Observe how that helps your decision making. If you tend to decide slow, set limits on how long you will deliberate or research before you will decide. Practice moving faster.

• Get help: Look to your team or partners first. Be honest about your tendencies and how you want to grow. Work together and hold each other accountable. Hire a coach if you feel you need that extra clarity or accountability.

In Conclusion

My son will become an excellent reader when he is comfortable both sight-reading and sounding out words he’s never even heard of before. When he is able to read without thinking and when he is able to commit the energy and time needed to read and understand difficult texts.

Your decision making will also become excellent as you learn the right times to react and the right times to be intentional.

Take good care,

Christian

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