Posted on by hildaweisburg

Making Decisions – Emotions vs. Logic

How do you make your decisions? Do you make them logically or trust your gut and go with your emotions? Most would say they decide logically. But more than 80% of the time, this is not the case.

While we may be logical when doing grocery shopping and choosing between one brand or another (cookie aisle not withstanding), it is rarely true when making any significant decisions. What we typically do is make our decision emotionally and then substantiate it logically. Understanding the power of emotions, and how they are impacting you and those around you, will improve your communication and help you achieve your goals.

In his article “The Power of Emotions,” Kell Delaney explains, “Humans are fundamentally emotional beings, and our emotions often drive our narratives and decision-making processes.” Because of this, we identify our feelings as being accurate. The problems occur when interacting with administrators, teachers, parents, and students who have different emotional responses to the same situation. The result is miscommunication along with worsening the situation.

How can you arrive at something logical when emotions are in control?

Delaney says we need to advocate for our core values and create stories and visions that others can engage with and help shape. He adds that bringing in your vision and actively listening to others’ perspectives develops a collaborative narrative for mutual understanding and action. That’s a big promise.  How do we achieve it? My recommendation is to consider your audience – and bring it back to the students.

With Administrators – Whether it’s a budget request, a plan for a new library service, or anything that requires administrative approval, I lead with the students. How will this affect them positively? Do I have any student work to share that connects to my request? By giving them an emotional reason for what I want, I am far more likely to get a positive response.

With Teachers – While some teachers like working with you, others are resistant. Find a time to talk with them, complimenting them on an aspect of their teaching you’ve experienced, particularly their connection with students. Add that you would like to contribute to their success and offer, if you can, to handle any additional work that is involved. Listen carefully to their response and continue the conversation accordingly.

With Parents – While it has become a far larger issue recently, dealing with parental objections to what books their child has access to has always been part of being a school librarian. When a parent comes to you directly, acknowledge them for being an aware and involved parent. Let them know you will see to it that their child no longer has access to those types of books. If they want to have the books removed, share the values of school librarians according to AASL standards.  When the charge comes at a Board of Education meeting, draw on parent advocates you have been building.

With Students – From “This is stupid!” to “Why do we have to learn this?” there are always students who resist doing what is required. Ask them what they would rather learn. That will pause the narrative. Many will be surprised by the question. Recognize their desire to learn (hopefully) along with their concerns with this lesson, then ask them to participate and see if the lesson provided an answer to their question or an interesting experience.

We are all under stress. Be ready for what is apt to be a contentious school year by readying yourself with how to deal with this paradox between logic and emotion. Knowing how to harness emotions, and not avoid them, to reach a reasonable way of dealing with an issue is key to creating a better work environment.  You will be a more effective leader and school librarian as a result.

Posted on by hildaweisburg

Analysis Paralysis

Leaders are decision-makers, which means they are risk-takers. Risk implies the possibility of failure. And therein lies the fear that stops many from taking action.

When you leave your comfort zone, you are faced with potential positive and negative results. The fear of failure can have you focusing on all the negative possibilities and not taking action. And the longer you wait to get started, the more ways you will come up with as to why it won’t work or you’ll find things to do to delay putting your idea into operation until you get more information. You are not alone in this. Business leaders form focus group after focus group trying to get confirmation that a decision would be totally correct or totally wrong.

The late General Colin Powell referred to this continuous waiting on sufficient information as “Analysis Paralysis.” He said,

“Don’t take action if you have only enough information to give you less than a 40 percent chance of being right, but don’t wait until you have enough facts to be 100 percent sure, because by then it is almost always too late. Today, excessive delays in the name of information-gathering breeds “analysis paralysis.” Procrastination in the name of reducing risk actually increases risk.” (Lesson 15 https://ung.edu/institute-leadership-strategic-studies/_uploads/files/colin-powell-leadership.pdf )

His 40/70 rule makes sense when you are involved in a war, but is probably too conservative in our work world. A more realistic rule for us is 50/80. If it’s under a 50% chance of success, don’t do it. If there’s at least an 80% chance of success, go with your gut.

Lison Mage in Why Overthinking Costs Us Our Best Decisions? is writing for the business world, but, as usual, his advice is applicable to us as well. Using the analogy of basketball, Mage asks us to imagine playing the game with a teammate who froze every time you passed them the ball. There they are on the court unable to decide whether they should shoot, dribble to get closer to the basket, or pass the ball to someone else.

Too often, we are like that basketball player. Mage says, overthinking comes from a learned trait dating back to the days when we were searching for cues that would lead us to water, food, and shelter while avoiding predators. The skill worked for us then as it helped us survive. Keeping the habit in a world with information overload works against us.

Even skilled researchers that we are, we cannot gather every bit of data on every decision we are considering. Mage says when we can’t be sure we have all the information, we become anxious and have a paralyzing fear of not knowing what we should do. In our world we need to recognize “More Is Not Better. More Will Not Make It Perfect.”

Back to the basketball analogy, Mage asks, “What is best? Attempting a shot and missing it, or not shooting and handing the ball over to the adversary after the 23-second shot clock has elapsed? He quotes the French national lottery slogan, “100% of the winners did buy a ticket.”

According to Mage, the problem lies in focusing on clear success as the only favorable outcome. The focus needs to be on the process, looking at the success in achieving the small steps to getting the job done. No matter the outcome, there are things to be gained whether that’s from the collaborations you created, the learning that occurred, and maybe discovering that something doesn’t work.

One more quote from Colin Powell, “Leadership is the art of accomplishing more than the science of management says is possible.” Overthinking may ensure that you won’t experience failure. It also guarantees you and your program won’t grow. You will never have a 100% success rate, no one does. We learn from failure. It’s part of life, and part of being a leader. Take the shot. It’s worth it.

Posted on by hildaweisburg

Instincts + Facts = Strong Decisions

If you are an NCIS fan, you know that Special Agent Jethro Gibbs, played by Mark Hamon, always trusts his instincts. But should you trust yours? And if so when?

For me, and I assume for many of us, the answer is sometimes. My instinct is an accumulation of life experiences, good and bad. It’s faster than data analysis in telling me about any given situation. I can rely on it for taking on speaking engagements, agreeing to a new project, or choosing to join a committee or board. But it can steer me in the wrong direction, especially when I’ve been influenced by incorrect information, such as the language and biases I was raised with.

How can you know when your “gut” is drawing you to the right choice? In the last part of her blog post, Efficient Decision—Making with EQ Skills in Business, Dr, Anna Rostomyan offers these five steps to guide you. She concludes by noting the importance of the additional information intuition and gut instincts lend to the decision-making process. These are her steps with my comments:

  • Delay the decision – Akin to counting to ten, a pause prevents you from going too fast and not seeing all aspects of the situation. It also keeps you from drawing on the implicit bias that has built up over the years. It helps you to notice if you’re responding out of learned emotion, the facts that have been presented, or a combination of both.
  • Recognize your emotions, and the emotions in those with whom you interact – We all have triggers that can set us off. Is your reaction based on one of yours? Have you accidentally set off someone else’s trigger? Can you stop and see why certain emotions have come up for you or the person you’re talking to? We sometimes use phrases where we don’t realize the potential for harm and need to stop and reflect if we don’t get the reaction we’re expecting. As an example, look up the history of the phrase “grandfathering in” to see where racial inequality has influenced our language.
  • Identify the emotional side of the decision – Identifying emotions allows us to take a step back from experiencing them. This is one of the key reasons for the first step of delaying the decision. There’s nothing wrong with having a strong reaction to information, news, or change, but it is important to not act on that first response and instead notice how we’re feeling.
  • Reappraise the feelings which are hindering your rational decision-making – Rostomyan says this will let you analyze whether the emotions are helping or interfering with the process and allow you to see the facts more clearly. In my blog last week, I talked about leaving a position after 22 years. As relevant as they were, I had to remove the emotional components (my dislike of the principal and my dismay at the approaching retirement of the supportive Superintendent) from the rational aspect of the situation. The facts were the principals track record of restricting the library program and his known aspirations to becoming Superintendent. Big decisions are usually connected to deeply held feelings, not always easy to identify. When you can separate your emotional reaction from the facts that led to that reaction you can see whether you have truth to back up your response and then make your decision accordingly. Taking the time to explore them will help you make the best choice.
  • Look for substitute or alternative decisions – Have a Plan B. If the decision is important, you need to know what you will do if your first solution doesn’t work. Here Rostomyan says to be careful of “FOBO” (fear of a better option). To avoid this, she advises… getting back to your gut.

Your gut or intuition can be a reliable guide, but despite Jethro Gibbs, it is wise to check in with your emotions and the facts surrounding your response to make certain your gut is leading you in the right direction.