Decision Making Emotion is part of the equation: Why good decisions rely on examining your emotions LIZ: Four years ago, I was offered the position of executive editor at RapGenius (now Genius), an early-stage (at the time) music-media company. After my initial "Someone wants me!" euphoria wore off, I plunged into a confused depression. Accepting the position meant I would have to move to New York in less than two weeks. At the time, I lived in a rent-controlled apartment in San Francisco, my crush had finally asked me out, and I was reasonably content at my existing job. With only three days to consider the offer, I anxiously discussed my options with friends, mentors, Uber drivers, and anyone else who would listen. In true economics-major form, I also tried to model out various scenarios and rampantly abused the phrase "opportunity cost." My exhaustive analysis led me to conclude exactly nothing. Based on the metrics I had chosen, there was no clearly superior option. But I still had to make a decision. So, though it went against every fiber of my hyper rational background and education, I turned to my feelings. I first envisioned my life on the West Coast continuing uninterrupted. I felt a slight twinge of regret. Then I imagined what would happen if I took the job: the details of my first day, how I would get along with my coworkers, the New York abuse I would undoubtedly receive for eating a giant street pretzel. My heart beat faster--I felt excited and nervous and thrilled. I decided to accept the offer. Over the next two years, Genius went through drastic changes, reorganizations, and an identity crisis. It was hard. Our team worked hard (often in its own way). We slept at the office, exchanged three-thousand-plus-word emails philosophizing about how our website mirrored samurai Japan, chose the best marketing copy via a competition called "Pitch Idol" (trophies included), and responded to GIF-and emoji-filled texts from users at all hours of the day. Through it all, I never regretted my decision. Though basing such a life-changing decision on my feelings seemed wildly irrational, scientific research (and my own experience!) indicates that it wasn't such an idiotic strategy after all. As we discuss in this chapter, a range of studies show that the best judgment and problem solving incorporates emotion. In fact, if emotion is entirely ignored in the decision-making equation, the results can be surprisingly harmful. A FORK IN THE ROAD There's a science to listening to your gut. When making decisions, we tend to think of rational analysis as straight-forward and gut feelings as disingenuous. But the reason emotions get a bad reputation is that we don't know how to decode them. That's where the third new rule of emotion at work comes in: Emotion is part of the equation. You might eventually decide to ignore a feeling, but you should acknowledge it exists. In a lab experiment, people who reported feeling the strongest emotions (good or bad) at the moment of decision made the best investment choices--even if they didn't always follow their gut. Instead, they considered their emotions, thought hard about which ones might be informative, and then regulated the rest. Put differently, paying attention to all your feelings allows you to control them instead of the other way around. When people talk about decision-making, they tend to assume that feeling something and doing something with those feelings are the same thing: that once we open the floodgates, we'll be bowled over by the crush of our emotions. But emotions aren't mystical signals; they're based on expertise, experience, and rapid information processing (the psychologist William James described gut feelings as "felt knowledge"). Ever felt something in your bones that you couldn't otherwise explain to yourself? These feelings can help you narrow down and prioritize your options. Say you're applying to new jobs. If the thought of becoming a marketing associate fills you with dread, you might want to cross that off your list of potential positions. And if you feel a thrill imagining yourself as a data scientist, that's an equally important sign about what openings you should go after. The other reason to consult your emotions when making decisions is because, well, you already are. It's impossible to make a purely logical choice. Even something as simple as choosing to put on a seat belt relies on emotional parts of the brain. It's easy to assume, "I put on a seat belt because I want to be safe," but that choice also stems from a reasonable fear of dying in an accident. In this chapter, we'll talk about how to analyze your feelings, walk through the differences between useful and useless emotions, look at one important decision you should not let emotion influence, and discuss how to make the best decision based on your individual emotional tendencies. WHAT TO KEEP AND WHAT TO TOSS Not all feelings should be weighted equally. Trusting everything your brain throws at you without holding it up to a light is dangerous. Some feelings are important and some are irrelevant. Psychologists differentiate between relevant emotions and irrelevant emotions. * Relevant emotions are directly tied to the choice you're facing. For example, if you're trying to decide whether or not to ask for a promotion and the idea of not asking fills you with regret, that feeling is a relevant emotion. These emotions can be useful guides for picking one option over another. * Irrelevant emotions are unrelated to the decision at hand, but they like to stick their tentacles into your reasoning. Say Liz stubs her toe or gets a speeding ticket. She'll get upset and might suddenly decide her colleagues ideas are all bad. A good rule of thumb: keep relevant emotions, toss irrelevant emotions. When you're making a decision, ask yourself, "How do I feel?" Label your emotions and then categorize each as relevant or irrelevant. If you feel anxious, think carefully about whether the decision is making you anxious or if your nerves stem, for example, from a big presentation you have to give later in the day. The ability to separate between these two buckets sets you up for decision-making success. MOLLIE: There are so many times when I make decisions based on how I'm feeling in the moment (tired, hungry) rather than how I think I'll feel in the future depending on what decision I make. For example, I Often have a hard time motivating myself to go out to after-work drinks with my colleagues. When I get the invitation for drinks, I always want to go. But by the time 6:00 p.m. rolls around, I am usually tired and hungry.These irrelevant emotions make me want to head home to (1) eat dinner (I like to eat dinner at the grandmotherly time of 6:30) and (2) get some introvert catnip (aka alone time). But I know that if I do go out,I will feel happier and more connected to my colleagues. I have to remember to let my relevant emotions (feeling happier in the future) not fall prey to my irrelevant emotions.Relevant emotions Think of relevant emotions as your internal navigation system. When you imagine what would happen if you picked one option over another, that image is marked with a positive or negative feeling. For example, Liz felt a thrill when she thought about moving to New York. This emotional signal indicated it might be a good choice. Relevant emotions are a common currency that let us compare apples and oranges. Sometimes you'll have to pick between options that can't be neatly compared (e.g. should I go to law school or become a yoga instructor?). In these situations, how each choice makes you feel can help when your pros-and-cons list falls short.Relevant emotions also tend to last longer than irrelevant emotions, so if you still feel the same thing a few hours or days later, that's a good indication it's an relevant emotion. Here are some common relevant emotions and how to think through them (some emotions can be both relevant and irrelevant,but the ones we're listing here are most commonly one or the other): Anticipation What it's trying to tell you: If one option makes you feel particularly energized and excited, that might be a signal you should more heavily consider it.That said, start tracking whether or not your anticipation is a good indicator. Psychologist Daniel Kahneman recommends keeping a decision journal: when you're faced with a choice, write down exactly what you expect to happen and why that scenario makes you feel eager. This will help you evaluate if your anticipation was accurate--and give you feedback on how to treat your emotions when you make future decisions. Anxiety What it's trying to tell you: There's good news about anxiety: you'll be most anxious about a decision when you're trying to pick between good choices. Psychologists call this the win-win paradox (neuroscientists refer to it as"neural correlates of First World problems"). We're not trying to cheapen your stress--a difficult choice is a difficult choice--but hopefully this helps you look on the bright side. In order to harness anxiety in a helpful way, you have to understand where it's coming from. "Anxiety is the fear of more fear. It is rooted in the need to control the things around us to keep our reality known and safe," explains executive coach Justin Milano. One good way to tell the difference between fear and anxiety: fear is momentary, whereas anxiety often lasts for days or months.The first step is to identify what you're trying to control. Milano suggests asking yourself, "What expectation, idea, or outcome are you attached to? Specific investor? A specific client? A certain type of product working?" Once we've uncovered our attachments, we can use our anxieties in a more productive way. "The healthy thing to do is acknowledge the attachment to a certain outcome, soften your grip on it, and use your creativity to design a new path based on reality," says Milano. For example, Mollie used to feel anxious about making her clients happy, but she has learned that the desire driving this anxiety is to feel useful. She now proactively asks her clients, "What can I do to be more helpful?" Milano developed a five-question exercise to help you discover what your anxieties are telling you and learn how to make them productive. 1. What's the anxiety? 2. Where do you feel it in your body? 3. What is the desire being mirrored? What is the desire underneath that anxiety? 4. Once you discover the desire, do you choose to act on it? 5. If so, what are the creative action steps? This exercise will help you move from reacting based on fear to reacting based on problem solving and creativity. Regret What it's trying to tell you: Try picking the option you think will minimize regret. Psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky found that of all emotions, people try hardest to avoid regret. "When people asked Amos how he made the big decisions in his life, he often told them that his strategy was to imagine what he would come to regret, after he had chosen some option,and to choose the option that would make him feel the least regret," writes Michael Lewis in the book The Undoing Project. "Danny, for his part, personified regret. Danny would resist a change to his airline reservations, even when the change made his life a lot easier, because he imagined the regret he would feel if the change led to some disaster." MOLLIE: I often use this tactic to make decisions. Before I went to grad school, I asked myself, "In ten years, will I feel more regret if I Haven't gone to grad school or if I have gone?" It also helps with relationships. I've asked friends, "Will you feel more regret in a year if you're still with this guy or if you've broken up with him?" This works because it forces us to try to picture where we'd like to be in the future, and in our visualization, look to see: Will I be using my grad degree?Will this guy keep making me happy?Though we tend to be drawn to the status quo, research shows change might make us happier. In an experiment, Freakonomics author Steven Levitt invited people who were on the fence about a major life decision (like quitting a job or ending a relationship) to let a coin toss determine their fate. Heads meant make a change. Tails meant stick with the status quo. Six months after the coin toss, people who got heads--who made a change--were happier. "People may be excessively cautious when facing life-changing choices," writes Levitt. Envy What it's trying to tell you: "When you envy someone,you learn that he or she has something you wish you had," Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project , told us. "When I was considering switching from law to writing, I noticed that when I read about alumni in my school's magazine who had great law careers, I felt a mild interest; when I read about people who had great writing careers, I became sick with envy. "Envy reveals your values--if you're honest with yourself. Most of us are ashamed when we're envious, often because it implies the other person is better at something than we are. As researcher Tanya Menon points out, it takes courage to say, "I'm envious of Jane because I'm completely inadequate relative to her at this job." Next time you covet what someone else has, don't perform all kinds of mental gymnastics to convince yourself you feel nothing. Admitting your envy might be a sign that you need to improve or make a change. Excerpted from No Hard Feelings: Emotions at Work (and How They Help Us Succeed) by Liz Fosslien, Mollie West Duffy All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
