Stress and Ambiguity in Making Decisions

I once saw a t-shirt that said, “Give me ambiguity or give me something else.” To this day I regret that I didn’t buy it. Ambiguity is the centerpiece of most knowledge work. Black and white, off and on, toggle switch decisions are easily programmed.

That leaves the decisions that require judgment to people, not machines. The inherent problem is that judgment calls get called differently based on the person who faces the decision and what that person brings to the table.

The outcome will be a result of the decision — without regard to the person who made it.

That fact is stressful. It means I am held to the same standard as folks who have much more knowledge and experience than I might ever have.

Leadership: Turning Ambiguity into Motivation

To be a leader, one can’t flinch at decisions. A leader has to look through the gray to evaluate a path. Effective leaders do that with confidence and success. Here are some ways they accomplish that.

• They understand the goals of the organization and test decisions against how outcomes might support those goals.
• They understand the priorities for their team and use them as decision-making tools.
• They frame gating questions that would make or break the decision, i.e. they look within a decision to find which parts are indeed black and white.
• They check history for data on similar decisions and their outcomes.
• They check their own experience — have they made this decision before? How did it turn out?
• They gather information from widely diverse sources in a limited amount of time, evaluate it, and use only what they need to make their decision.
• They continuously test the outcomes of the decisions they make so that any decision limited risk.

All of these actions, habits really, lower the stress of ambiguity in making decisions. When leaders use and model them, teams pick them up as standard procedures in problem solving. Flexibility in thinking and testing assumptions becomes the norm. The ambiguity becomes a positive motivator rather than a stress factor in the environment. Team members learn how to be leaders in the process.

Liz Strauss

Behind every Successful business is an Outstanding manager. –Perfect Virtual Manager.