Share Podcast
Making Great Decisions
How to work around double standards when we’re making decisions and communicating them to our team.
- Subscribe:
- Apple Podcasts
- Spotify
- RSS
Download the discussion guide for this episode
There’s a lot that goes into making a good decision at work: figuring out priorities, coming up with options, analyzing those — and several steps later, planning for what to do if you’re wrong. If you’re a woman, you are also factoring in how your colleagues expect you to ask for their opinions so you can create consensus. And if you do, they’re still likely to see you as indecisive and lacking vision.
We talk with Therese Huston, author of the book How Women Decide, about our strengths as decision makers and how to work around double standards when we’re making decisions and communicating them to our team.
Guest:
Therese Huston is the author of How Women Decide: What’s True, What’s Not, and What Strategies Spark the Best Choices.
Resources:
- “Research: We Are Way Harder on Female Leaders Who Make Bad Calls,” by Therese Huston
- “Women and the Vision Thing,” by Herminia Ibarra and Otilia Obodaru
- “Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders?” by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic
- “Get Excited: Reappraising Pre-Performance Anxiety as Excitement,” by Alison Wood Brooks
Email us here: womenatwork@hbr.org
Our theme music is Matt Hill’s “City In Motion,” provided by Audio Network.
AMY BERNSTEIN: We make a lot of decisions at work.
NICOLE TORRES: Some are easy, and they go over well.
SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Others, not so much.
AMY BERNSTEIN: And when we’re struggling to make a decision, or someone pushes back on what we’ve decided, we might wonder, is this because I’m a woman?
WOMAN1: I think it’s pretty much a daily concern of mine. Am I making the right decision, and is the fact that I’m a woman affecting the decision I’m making right now.
NICOLE TORRES: Maybe. Because decision making is not gender neutral. Research shows that women are less likely than men to be overconfident. This is the good news. The bad news is research also shows that when women make a mistake, our colleagues are harder on us than they would be on men.
WOMAN2: I’m going to take responsibility, like ultimate responsibility, for any problems that may come up, but I’m not being given the authority to make calls.
SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Sometimes the issue not having enough access, even if you’re in senior management.
WOMAN3: And you’re always assured you have a seat at the table. Then they forget to tell you that there’s more than one table.
[MUSIC]
NICOLE TORRES: You’re listening to Women at Work, from Harvard Business Review. I’m Nicole Torres.
AMY BERNSTEIN: I’m Amy Bernstein,
SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: And I’m Sarah Green Carmichael. This episode, we’re talking about women as decision makers.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Therese Huston is a psychologist who basically wrote the book on all of this. It’s called How Women Decide: What’s True, What’s Not, and What Strategies Spark the Best Choices. Therese, why do you think women in particular need to understand decision making?
THERESE HUSTON: You know, it’s funny. People like to say that men are from Mars and women are from Venus. But I find that when it comes to decision making, it’s much more like, men are from Mars, and women are from a less respected part of Mars. [LAUGHTER] Because decision making is challenging for all of us, men and women alike. But when a man faces a hard decision, he only has to think and focus on making a judgment. But when a woman faces a similar hard decision, she, especially in business, has to think about both making a judgment, and she also has to navigate being judge. And that puts a lot more pressure on her and the whole decision-making process.
NICOLE TORRES: What’s an example of advice about decision making that tends to work well for men, but not so well for women?
THERESE HUSTON: You know, there are two pieces of advice that I think can backfire for women, even though they work really well for men. One piece of advice that you’ll see in a lot of decision-making books is to take the time to consider a wider array of options. It makes perfect sense. When a man takes the time to consider a wider array of options, he’s considered strategic, and he’s considered very contemplative. When a woman takes the time to consider a wider range of options, she’s typically seen as indecisive, and as someone who’s dithering. Another piece of advice that you’ll see in a lot of decision-making books is try to find a solution that meets everyone’s needs. Again, if a male leader were to do that he would be seen as very inclusive. If a woman were to do that, she would probably been seen as someone who lacks vision. That she needs to lean on other people to make a decision and so, there are pieces of advice that if women were to follow them to the letter or to up the way that they’re approaching a decision, it can really be challenging for her because she’s being judged so under so much more scrutiny.
SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Since we’re talking about women making choices, I feel like we have to talk about the stereotype of women’s intuition. What’s really going on here? You’ve said there’s two sides to it.
THERESE HUSTON: Often when we talk about intuition, people mean a gut feeling, being guided from the inside; it feels like knowing without any effort. There’s another kind of intuition and that would be what social scientist would call social sensitivity and that kind of women’s intuition would be you are being really attuned to the verbal and nonverbal cues of the people around you. So, let’s say you walk into a meeting later on this afternoon, and before anyone says anything, you look over and they’re like oh, Carl’s in a really bad mood. Oh, this is going to be a long meeting. And that would be, some people would also call that women’s intuition. And the first kind, the first part, where this notion of going with your gut, the research actually shows men do that more than women, that we should be calling that men’s intuition because women don’t tend to go with their gut; women tend to do a lot more analysis and double check their data before they go with the decision. The second kind, the kind of social sensitivity, the reading nonverbal cues, that kind women do, do more effectively. Women do pay more attention to nonverbal cues.
SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Yeah, I’m curious to know where that comes from. Because earlier you were saying men and women were both from parts of Mars. So, where does that come from?
THERESE HUSTON: Well, so there are really two things to understand. One is around expectations. So, if you tell people that you’re testing them on social sensitivity, women are going to outperform men. But if you tell people you’re testing their intelligence or their cognitive abilities, and you give them the same test of reading nonverbal cues, suddenly men perform as well as women. So, part of it is am I supposed to be good at this? Does it matter to what I think men or women should be good at? The other part has to do with power. So, there’s been fascinating research studies where people are assigned either the role of the leader or subordinate and they’re discussing an issue. And what they find is that the subordinate is much more sensitive to the nonverbal cues of whoever is the leader. And it doesn’t matter if you’re a male or a female; if you’re in the subordinate role, you notice the nonverbal cues of whoever’s in charge. Vice versa, whoever’s the leader doesn’t tend to notice the nonverbal cues of the subordinate. And so, some people instead of calling this women’s intuition, call this subordinates intuition. And all too often unfortunately, women are in a subordinate role.
AMY BERNSTEIN: How do you take this intuition and use it as the basis for a well-informed decision?
THERESE HUSTON: Well, intuition is really reliable in certain circumstances. So, intuition is really good if you’re making a what decision. So, if you’re trying to decide on colors for your office — and that’s a what decision where it’s about your taste and your preferences — it’s actually best to go with your first strong gut feeling. Research shows that you tend to actually like that decision better in the long run. The place where it’s really problematic to go with intuition for men and women alike is on who decisions. We might get a gut feeling about someone, like, oh there’s something, there’s just something I really like about him; he shows a lot of potential. And there’s something about her that’s just doesn’t sit right with me. There’s a good chance that’s unconscious bias.
SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: You’ve said that society expects us to make decisions like mother ducks. What do you mean by that?
THERESE HUSTON: In general, I’m not saying this is true, but we tend to expect women to make decisions that are focused on other people, that are about maintaining relationships, that are about thinking about our communities. And making other people comfortable. And social psychologists would call that, we expect women to be communal. And where I see that is it’s kind of like a mother trying to get her brood across the street. That mother duck is going to make sure that everyone makes it across. If I need to back up to make sure there’s a straggler that’s going to make it, I’m going to do that. But you certainly don’t expect to see a mother duck just proceed ahead of the entire group regardless of what’s happening behind her because the idea is that would be a bad mother duck. And likewise, women are often penalized for making a decision where they’re not taking everyone else’s needs into account. A classic piece of advice for women when they’re negotiating for a raise or a promotion is to point to the needs of their team. It’s not enough to say, I need this; but instead, here’s how this would be good for my team. And that’s a very mother duck piece of advice.
AMY BERNSTEIN: So, what price do we pay for all this communal decision making, for getting input and consensus?
THERESE HUSTON: I think there are two prices that women pay by being more collaborative. So, one price is that they’re often seen as less decisive. Unfortunately people think that collaborative and decisive don’t mix. And if you’re making a decision and bringing other people in, is it because you can’t make that decision by yourself? That’s often how women can be viewed when they bring in other people. I had a female manager that I interviewed, and she said in her organization, there was this problem of a last person who touched it. She said if there was a decision to be made and a female manager had to make it, there’d be a line of people outside of her door on the day that decision had to be made. And she said basically people viewed it as, I want to make sure I’m the last person who has any say in this because that will be the person that she listens to. And I asked —
NICOLE TORRES: Wow.
THERESE HUSTON: Yes, right? And I asked what happens for the male managers, and she said no lines outside of their door because when he makes his decision, you’ll find out about it. And she found this very frustrating as a female manager because on the day that you need a decision to be made, if anything, there might be people you want to seek out, but perhaps you want your door closed and to be left alone. So, it’s very different views of how men and women are making decisions. And a pretty insulting view of how women make decisions, if you ask me. The second price I think women pay for being collaborative is that they’re seen as less visionary. There’s a fascinating HBR article about the fact that the one leadership quality that women are seen as lacking is vision. And I think part of that is because their often bringing a lot of people in on decisions, and unfortunately that’s then seen as that person, that woman leader, doesn’t have some essence of vision that perhaps Steve Jobs or some other great male leader has.
NICOLE TORRES: Therese, is there a way we can act decisively and collaborate in a way that works to our advantage?
THERESE HUSTON: I think there are some strategies that I’ve heard women leaders use really successfully. So, I’m going to offer you some of the language that I’ve heard them use. So, you want to focus on action. You want to express, I’m still interested in your concerns, but I want to focus on action. So, what that language might look like is, OK, you’ve read the report that I sent around. I need to move ahead with this decision because management wants the decision yesterday, of course. Are there any objections to our doing this? This action that I’ve proposed. Does anyone see a reason why this isn’t a good fit for us? And that’s really nice language because it’s focused on, we’re going to act, I’m going to make this decision, but I want to make sure before I make the decision that I’ve included your brilliant input. And I think that’s really nice because it’s combining both the collaborative and the decisive components. Another important strategy is to clarify the kind of input that you want. So, you can specify, I’m seeking input from marketing and engineering or I really need input from sales, to let people know this is the group that needs to weigh in, and then that way it doesn’t feel like everyone in the world has a say in the decision if that’s a concern in your organization. One other one that I heard from someone in the C-suite is the way she presents when she’s leaning towards a decision and she’s already 80 percent of the way there. She comes to her team, her leadership team, and says OK, I’m leaning towards saying yes and going ahead with plan X. I want five pieces of data on this by Friday. It can be data for or against. And so that’s very nice because she’s already let them know, here’s the direction I’m going unless I hear otherwise; so, give me data that either to back this up or to challenge it. And I think that’s really nice because again, it’s collaborative, but it’s showing your decisiveness.
SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: One of the concerns that we’ve been hearing from some of our listeners is that financial decisions at work can be especially tricky, and they sometimes trouble owning their right to make those calls. So, I want to play a little bit tape for you now, and we’ll just hear from one of our listeners.
WOMAN4: I’ve often felt with financial decisions that though I need an entire department that I’m unable to actually make those decisions on my own. That I still need permission to spend money that I’ve already been given, that it’s already in my budget that I still want either a group consensus or I still want my boss to approve it. I have felt like maybe I’m not qualified enough to be able to make this decision, or I don’t have enough business acumen to make this decision, or I haven’t led this department long enough to make this decision. I’m lucky that I have a very supportive CEO who tells me, you know this best, so if you think it’s worth the money, we should do it. But it has been a struggle through my whole career to say that I have enough information or enough experience to be able to make small or large financial decisions on my own.
SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: What stands out to you, Therese, in hearing that?
THERESE HUSTON: It’s not surprising that she’s struggling with this. So, the decision to spend money on X and to not spend money on Y, especially when it’s large amounts, can feel really risky. And men are much more socialized in our culture to take risks than women are. One of the key findings is that women are especially uncomfortable taking risks that are new, and I’m guessing for that listener that part of her anxiety comes up when there’s some new possible expense, not with an expense that they’ve done in the past. In terms of what I think that listener needs to do, I have advice that kind of goes into two different directions. So, I think she first of all needs to decide, does she want to wean herself off of the boss’s input, or does she want to accept that this is how she makes financial decisions? And I think either of those would be fine. She just needs to move forward on one of them. If she decides that she wants to wean herself off of her boss’s input, I’d recommend — I love spreadsheets or some way of tracking the impact of her financial decisions. All too often we don’t keep track. We remember the anxiety of a decision, but we don’t pay attention to what were the actual consequences. And so, if she could track what’s the actual impact of a financial decision, she might see that oh, I’ve got lots of good ones in my track record. If she decides she really wants to accept this is how she makes financial decisions, she should be reassured that it’s smart to get buy-in; when women leaders make autocratic decisions, there’s more of a penalty for them than there is for men who are making autocratic decisions. So, getting buy-in can be really wise protection for her if there are big ramifications for that financial decision.
SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: One of the other patterns that came up that we heard from listeners is this struggle around, when do you have enough information. Is there a kind of tip or rule of thumb that you’ve heard that has helped you cut off debate and kind say, we have enough; we don’t need to fill out more spreadsheets, you know, we have enough info, let’s just make a call.
THERESE HUSTON: You know, it’s hard to set what that threshold or tipping point should be. I think the thing that’s really helpful, what the research shows, is that people make better decisions when they have at least two, preferably three concrete options on the table. Now, by that two concrete options, it doesn’t mean, should we build the parking lot, or no? That’s really only one option and you’re trying to decide yes or no. A second concrete option would be, let’s give everyone a bus pass. That’s a really different option, and it could also solve that problem. Or, the third option, very different, would be, let’s give everyone one day a week to work from home. That could also solve the problem, if the problem is employee parking. So, what I’m trying to point out is that if you’re having trouble making a decision, a really productive direction to go in is, do we have more than one option, or are we just debating back and forth on the yes or no? Should we go with the one option? Research shows people make worse decisions when they only have one option. And the other, I love this piece of advice I got from a woman in the C-suite. When she’s mentoring women, what she says to them is OK, you need to ask yourself two questions. Question number one, do I know more than most people on my team about the factors that are affecting this important decision. And usually the answer is yes. She said, OK, now you need to ask yourself a second question, do I know everything there is to know? No. OK, let’s circle back to question number one. And I really like that because chances are you do know more. Do you know everything? No, not possible.
SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: The other thing that often comes up in this same neighborhood is risk taking. And I have seen sort of arguments on both sides, one that women are less comfortable taking risks so therefore they don’t make as good leaders. I have also seen some on the other side saying, well, you want a risk-averse leader because they make more intelligent decisions. But are women more risk averse; and if they are, how does it show up in their decision making?
THERESE HUSTON: So, on the issue of risk taking, there’s a lot of mixed data on this. Of all the topics we’ve discussed, this is where there’s the most controversy, at least for researchers. So, there are certain areas where men definitely take more risks. Leisure activities. You also see more men taking risks when something is novel. And I think that’s concerning in the workplace because if there’s a new project, and nobody knows exactly what the outcome’s going to look like, or how to get that project done, men are more likely to be the ones raising their hand and eager to do it than women are.
SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: I would love to get into more of some of the advice that you would give about handling some of these decisions. So, when it comes to something like making a risky decision, do you have a strategy for determining if it’s worth taking?
THERESE HUSTON: One that I really like is called the 10-10-10 strategy. This comes from Suzy Welch. She’s a journalist. So, the notion is this: What are the consequences of this decision in 10 minutes? What are the consequences in 10 months? And what are the consequences in 10 years? All too often we’re only focused on one of those timeframes, and often it’s just the 10 minutes, right? How am I going to feel? Or, it might be 10 months. Should we move or not, and you’re thinking about wow, my life will be different 10 months from now. But it’s really helpful to think about all three because it can often put into perspective, like, 10 years from now it’s not going to matter. Or, 10 years from now, I am going to be set up for a much better position within the company, if you’re thinking about asking for a raise or a promotion. And so, even though it might make my life unpleasant for the next 10 minutes, it’s worth it in the long run. So, 10-10-10, that’s a really helpful one. Oh, also like even if you’re in a meeting, and you’re trying to decide should I make this point or not, it’s not going to matter probably 10 months from now, although maybe it will because you’ll be seen as someone who’s an innovative thinker.
NICOLE TORRES: That’s powerful.
AMY BERNSTEIN: So, let’s talk about risk taking and decision making when you’re working with a team, when you’re making collaborative decisions. How does risk taking factor into that?
THERESE HUSTON: What’s interesting there is, particularly if you’re a female leader of a team, there’s an expectation that you’ll collaborate and take other people’s views into account, particularly if it’s going to be a risky decision that might fail. And women tend to pay a higher penalty for making decisions autocratically and then, if those decisions fail, she pays a much higher penalty than a guy who makes a decision autocratically and then that decision fails. If a woman brings other people into the decision and it fails, she’s much more easily forgiven for that than if she made that decision on her own. And so, I think that particularly for risky decisions, there’s a lot of wisdom in bringing in other people into the decision, because if it turns out that it doesn’t work, you’ve padded yourself.
AMY BERSTEIN: That’s interesting.
THERESE HUSTON: It’s frustrating, but it’s interesting.
AMY BERNSTEIN: So, what if taking a risk when you’re making a decision kind of freaks you out? What do you do to calm down and focus?
THERESE HUSTON: Alison Wood Brooks out of Harvard talks about reframing anxiety and I find this very useful. The notion being when you’re getting anxious about taking a risk, or just anxious in general to, instead of saying, oh my goodness I’m nervous, this is going to hurt my performance; instead thinking, hey, this isn’t anxiety this is excitement, I’m excited to do this. So, that’s one way, that’s how Alison Wood Brooks talks about it. What I find even more helpful in my own head, or the way that my husband and I egg one another on, is to say, this is how my body prepares for something that really matters to me. I’m going to do a better job because of how I feel right now. Because anxiety and excitement are very similar things in terms of your body’s physiological response. But what’s fascinating is if you reframe it as, this is going to help me, this isn’t going to hurt me, research shows you actually do make better decisions. You’re more astute at assessing risk. You have better reasoning abilities. So, you’re not clamping down on your body’s response; you’re harnessing it and actually freed up cognitively to do better work.
NICOLE TORRES: And hasn’t research also shown that women perform particularly well under stress?
THERESE HUSTON: So, yes they do. This is one of my favorite findings that’s out there. It’s not the case that you want to stress women out so they can make better decisions. That’s not the, that shouldn’t be the takeaway from this. But there is this very, probably the most popular international belief about men and women is that women are more emotional than men. You can find that in just about any culture, that people believe women are more emotional than men. And people especially believe that women are going to fall apart under stress. That their emotions will get the best of them, that they’ll have trouble thinking rationally. And what the data actually shows is that emotions affect both men and women under stress, but they affect them differently. So, what happens when women are under a lot of stress is that women decide differently than when they’re calm. And they tend to go to the guaranteed wins. They tend to go to the thing that’s safe, the known solution. Let’s just do the thing that we know works. Men under stress, they go for the risky option. They go for the big rewards, whether you want to think about that as they go for the home run, even though that might be a ball that’s caught. But they under stress, men tend to go for really risky options, even if there’s a very, very small chance that it will work out. And so, where I think the advice comes is that we need both men and women in the room when high-stress decisions are being made. And all too often, at the top level of an organization, you only have men in the room, which would suggest they’re going to lean towards risky decisions and not even be checked on it.
NICOLE TORRES: So, what is stereotype threat?
THERESE HUSTON: So, stereotype threat I think is one of the most powerful concepts in this whole arena. It’s the anxiety that you’re about to live up to someone’s negative expectation of a group to which you belong. And this happens in the workplace for women. A number of researchers are looking at the ways that when we become concerned about other people’s stereotypes, even if we completely disagree with them, we don’t believe in them, we become preoccupied. It becomes important to prove them wrong. We need to show that is not a problem for women and that’s not true for me. And as a result, that takes away some of our cognitive resources to actually do the task at hand. So, this has been shown to affect decision making, particularly for women in math and science and engineering roles. If you’re the only women in the room, that’s one of the cues that triggers stereotype threat where you become preoccupied because, why am I the only women in the room? It changes participation in meetings. It changes your willingness to lead. There are lots of ways in which this preoccupation with someone else’s stereotype hinders performance.
SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: So, is there a way to shield ourselves from that?
THERESE HUSTON: Thankfully yes. Thankfully yes. So, first of all, it’s simply knowing about stereotype threat, reduces it for people. Because it’s all within, it’s your own, you don’t have to worry about whether they believe it or not, it’s your own internal wrestling with the stereotype. Two other things that help, first of all, is to tell yourself that the anxiety I’m feeling right now, because stereotype threat tends to happen on really hard tasks. If it’s an easy task, it doesn’t happen. But if you’re in a really judgmental meeting with really smart people, this is where stereotype threats is likely to happen. So, telling yourself, anyone would find it hard to get a word in edgewise in this meeting. The anxiety I’m feeling is about the fact that this is hard. And the other one is to do a little work. If you’re going into a situation where you know you’re going to be the only female or you know it’s going to be a really hard task and high pressure, to do what’s known as a values affirmation, and that means to sit down and write for 10 minutes — you can get out your iPhone and do it on your phone or you can do it on a piece of paper — where you write about something that’s really important to you. It could be your health. It could be your family. It doesn’t have to do anything with the task you’re about to perform. But writing for 10 minutes about something that really matters to you and times that having that value has made a difference, research shows that inoculates you from stereotype threat. Because now you’re more than just that person at work. You’re more than the person who is the only woman in the room. And you’ve expanded your identity, and that now protects you so that you’re less likely to get preoccupied.
AMY BERNSTEIN: When you think about confidence, you’ve described it as a dial. So, you can sort of dial up your confidence; you can dial down your confidence. How does that work?
THERESE HUSTON: One of the women that I interviewed for my book gave me this idea, and I love it. So, all too often, both men and women see confidence as a hammer and every problem as a nail. That we just need more confidence, particularly women. More confidence, more confidence. And that will solve the problem. And the research shows that confidence interferes with decision making. You make better decisions if your confidence is turned down. And I much prefer to think of confidence as a dial or like a volume knob. And the idea is you want to keep your confidence turned down when you’re making a decision. And you want to turn it up once you’ve made your decision and you need to communicate it, or you need to convince other people.
NICOLE TORRES: I love that. I think that piece of advice, just be more confident in all the decisions you make, that has always frustrated me because over confidence is not a good thing. But related to communicating their ideas, what should women know when communicating the decisions that they’ve made?
THERESE HUSTON: There’s been some great advice from, I love your podcast. I’ve been listening to the episodes and there’s been some great advice from some of your other guests.
SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Thank you.
THERESE HUSTON: Oh sure. But the avoiding the tentative statements of, well, I’m thinking that we should do this instead saying, I strongly believe we should do this. Or, it sounds as though we’ve come to this decision. Or, based on everything we’ve said here today, this is going to be the plan. But to speak very strongly or, and you might even want to ask, is there anything that we haven’t heard yet before I make this decision? To make it clear that we’re now moving to action. All too often there can be a blurry line for people about the distinction between we’re gathering the input and we’re making the decision. Lower confidence and tentative during the decision making part and then a clear demarcation — here’s what we’re doing. I think that people respond well to that.
SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: If you figure out later on that you actually made a bad decision, as opposed to a decision that just didn’t work out, right, like, something was wrong with your decision-making process, and you made a mistake, how do you communicate that without sounding weak or undermining yourself?
THERESE HUSTON: This is such a tricky issue. First of all, identify what a possible remedy could be in terms of, is there a different decision that could be made or, a change, a way that we could pivot now to get to a better decision. I do think it’s important to do a post mortem where you talk with the group about, OK, so what information didn’t we have? I do think it’s important to have that conversation, male or female leader, because otherwise people can wonder, did you realize it was a bad decision? There can be that question of whether the leader has blinders on and is ignoring the fact that something had bad repercussions. I’m not sure I ascribe to this, but a think that I heard some leaders say is there are no good and bad decisions. There are just consequences. And I think that that can be helpful to take a group through, OK, what were the consequences, and what could we had anticipated, and what was unknowable? But it’s really hard to figure out should women tread differently in this space than men should.
NICOLE TORRES: But how can we look back at those decisions in a more productive way? How do we stop all the ruminating? How do we avoid beating ourselves up?
THERESE HUSTON: I think when it comes to avoiding ruminating, I haven’t seen research on this, but a thing I’ve done is I’ve given myself a window of OK, I’m going to think about it for this long. I’m going to make lists of here are the factors that were important that I didn’t consider. And then I’m going to stop. So, I’m going to ruminate on this until Tuesday. And then that’s it. And that can be helpful because you’re giving yourself permission to, I really want to understand what went wrong that I didn’t’ expect. Or, I want to bring my team in to reevaluate this. But to put an endpoint to it and to give yourself permission to stop. Because I think all too often, when a bad decision is made, we beat ourselves up for it, and that becomes unproductive.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Given all that we know about women and decision making and the unique pressures women face, how do we support each other in decision making?
THERESE HUSTON: It’s such a nice question. I recommend that women form networks, if they don’t already have them, of groups that they can get together with. I belong to one that’s particularly empowering, and we get together for lunch once a month. And we, after a little bit of chit chat, we go around the table and we each identify OK, here’s a challenge that I’m facing, and here’s the support that I need. It might sound very structured, but it’s incredibly helpful because you get to find out, for some women there’s some decision they need to make, and there might be someone else at the table who can help them make that decision. Or, it could be someone is needing to take a risk, and they just need encouragement from other people, or discouragement of, like, have you thought about this? So, I find that’s an incredibly empowering experience; and there’s research to show that when women have strong social support networks at work, they’re more likely to stay, and they’re more likely to move into higher leadership roles.
SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Therese, thank you so much for talking with us today.
THERESE HUSTON: Oh, you’re so welcome.
SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: This has been tremendously helpful. I feel like I will make many decisions this week with this all in mind. [LAUGHTER]
NICOLE TORRES: I just kept thinking about the double standard. It’s a little frustrating to find out how to avoid that double standard. I feel like the onus should be on organizations to be aware that that happens.
AMY BERSTEIN: But I don’t think you can avoid it. I think that was one of her points. So, for me, hearing the way she described it and the kind of the clean thinking about it, I found encouraging. I think knowing, knowing it’s out there, knowing you can’t do anything about it, helps you navigate those situations better.
NICOLE TORRES: Yeah. That 10-10-10 strategy she said, I thought that was great. And at first when she was saying that, I was like, will this lead to more analysis paralysis? Will you try to think about 10 minutes from now, 10 weeks from now, 10 years. But I think that’s actually something you can thing of fairly quickly once you realize, what is the impact this is going to have 10 years from now, you’ll know, it will be fairly small, and then you can move forward with your decision.
SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: I also liked her advice about turning up the dial of confidence after you’ve made the decision. Something I do that kind of, along the same lines, is sometimes I pretend I’ve made the decision. I basically make the decision, but then I don’t tell anyone about it, if it’s a really big decision. For like an hour, if I can wait an hour, or a day, if I can wait a day. And I just walk around and think, I’ve made this decision, this is what’s happening, and I sort of live into it for a while. If I start to feel, like, overwhelming anxiety, I’m like maybe this is the wrong call and I should make another decision. But if I start to feel sort of more and more confident naturally, then I’m like, oh, I think this was maybe the right call. Amy, I’m wondering do you have advice on how to make decisions stick if there’s people who keep trying to reopen them?
AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah, you know, sometimes you just have to say, you know what, this decision is made, and we’re moving forward. You don’t have to keep examining every additional factor. It might be that you hear something that moves you one way or the other, but there is a cost to the time you take to making the decision.
SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: 100%.
AMY BERNSTEIN: So, you have to ask yourself whether it’s worth taking the extra hour, the extra day, or the extra month. And many times it’s not. The consequences of a bad decision, most of the time, are pretty minor. As a veteran of many bad decisions [LAUGHTER], you know, it seems like what you don’t want to focus on is the bad decision. Own it. Figure out what made you make the bad decision. What information did you lack? What question did you neglect to ask? To me, the far more important thing is to figure out the better way forward. So, focusing so much, ruminating, is not helpful.
NICOLE TORRES: I’m curious if either of you two do this. Something I’ve found myself doing more now that I’m making more collaborative decisions is, I do seek input, but I will kind of limit or specify the type of input I’m looking for from particular people. Because I’ve been in a situation where I’m like, what do you guys think and I’m really looking for, advice on a final step of something. But then I get advice on the entire thing.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah. So, when she was talking, I kept thinking about the difference between decision making and leadership and the need for buy-in, which for me is different than the need for consensus. Because if you ran an organization as a democracy, you wouldn’t get anywhere, in most cases. You need a vision, you need someone who’s going to execute on the vision, who can get people aligned making decisions in alignment with the vision. But seeking consensus on every little thing is going to get you nowhere fast. You’re never going to get to a decision; and if you yield every time someone pushes back, you’ll never move forward.
SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: And I think to Nicole’s point about the kind of, what are your thoughts? I think it can be dangerous to ask such a broad question, and it’s actually sometimes infuriating as someone forwards you an email and it just says, your thoughts, question mark. That’s crazy making because it’s like, what do you want me to do — sort through this entire email string, try to figure out what it is that you need from me, and then respond. So, I think it’s a really good idea to ask the targeted question of what it is you actually want information on.
AMY BERNSTEIN: Absolutely. And when you get feedback on stuff that you’re not trying to work through, you can say, you know what? I kind of know where I am on that one.
NICOLE TORRES: That’s good.
AMY BERNSTEIN: And, but what I’m still struggling with is this point. So, I’d love to hear what you think about that.
NICOLE TORRES: That’s so helpful. Yeah.
AMY BERSTEIN: Yeah, just you use your own filters. You have to figure out what you can control and what you can’t control. You can control how you make a decision.
NICOLE TORRES: Yes.
AMY BERNSTEIN: You can’t control all the feedback you’re going to get, except to channel it a bit.
NICOLE TORRES: Right, you can channel it.
SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: And you can say, thank you so much for your input; this is the call I’m making.
NICOLE TORRES: And then up your confidence and move away.
SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: Yeah. Yeah!
NICOLE TORRES: That’s our show. I’m Nicole Torres.
AMY BERNSTEIN: I’m Amy Bernstein.
SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: And I’m Sarah Green Carmichael.
Our producer is Amanda Kersey. Our audio product manager is Adam Buchholz. Maureen Hoch is our supervising editor. We get production help from Rob Eckhardt and Isis Madrid.
NICOLE TORRES: We’ve already told you about the discussion guides we’ve made for each episode. Another new thing we’re doing this season is giving you a platform where you can talk to us, our guest experts, and other listeners about issues related to women and work. It’s an online community we’re calling the HBR Idea Lab.
AMY BERNSTEIN: We’ll post questions to get everyone talking, swap stories, and lead you through projects that’ll help you apply the practical advice you hear on the show. To sign up, check out our show notes.
SARAH GREEN CARMICHAEL: We hope you’ll join us. And thanks for listening.
[END]