Susan Marshall’s Media

A lot of people struggle with decision-making as the same three pesky questions come up again and again.

1. What will happen if I do this or that?
2. What will others think of my decision (or more precisely, of me)?
3. What if I’m wrong?

Of course there’s anxiety surrounding these questions because the answers are impossible to know until some action is taken. Once the action is taken, these answers become clear, although not necessarily immediately. In the face of the unknown, fearful imaginations can create some dire outcomes!

There’s a better way to approach decision-making.

Imagine that you’re confronting a puzzle made up of three big pieces. The first is context. Context is the setting within which the decision rests. To get a handle on context, answer these questions: Where are you and what’s going on relative to the decision? What factors weigh on the decision? What freedoms do you have; what limitations exist? What is your role in the decision and what stake do you have in the outcome? How are others involved and how will they be affected?

Context is important because most people like to repeat what has worked for them in the past. When it fails in a different setting, they get confused and sometimes upset. They tend to blame circumstances or the people around them for the failure because they remember that it worked before. Had they taken time to consider the context of the decision, they might have made a different call.

Using salty language in a locker room to buck up a team at halftime makes sense. Using the same language and attitude in a church service would be unthinkable. Context informs behavior.

The second piece of the puzzle is feedback. Feedback measures behavior by providing evidence of a reaction. Whether it comes from people, systems, reports, or your body, feedback answers the question, “What will happen?”

A simple illustration that everyone has experienced involves dieting. Feedback comes in many forms when you eat. In the short-term bodily systems respond; in the longer term your clothes continue to fit well or not, you stay healthy or get sick, you feel happy or sad about your appearance.

Feedback is always available. Whether you notice it or learn from it is entirely up to you.

The third piece of the puzzle is behavior. In this case, the behavior is your decision. As mentioned, context informs behavior and feedback measures it. A locker room and a church are two very different contexts that generally evoke different behavior. Most people are conscious of the adjustments they make in these types of arenas. Then again, there is evidence to suggest that some behavior is becoming impervious to context. I’m thinking of cell phone usage.

Behavior also has the power to change context. Think of competitive moves in the marketplace and how the overall game or context can be altered. Breakthrough innovation and disruptive change are highly visible behaviors, but secret alliances can be powerful context changers as well. If you’re watching for feedback, you’ll catch on to these changes much more quickly. You can then choose to adjust your own behavior as quietly or publicly as you like.

Context, feedback and behavior are intertwined. What you see is not always what you get and perception may or may not be reality. When faced with important decisions, it pays to take time to understand the context, watch for feedback, and adjust your behavior to get the results you want.

It also pays to remember that with every decision you make, these elements will be repositioned and ready for your next choice.

Managing a workforce made up of four generations creates headaches for a lot of people. Differences in language, mannerisms, dress, and attitude are visible and sometimes volatile reminders of how things change.

That some people say, do, and wear things that are inappropriate at work is nothing new and no reason for alarm. That supervisors and co-workers do not correct such inappropriateness and offer guidance regarding what is appropriate is also not new, but it is a growing reason for concern.

Since the beginning of time, people have challenged the status quo with music, clothing, slang language, and behavior that others view as weird or outrageous. Acting out is a normal part of growing up, a testing of different identities on the way to developing one’s own unique personality.

Where this process is guided, it’s healthy. Where it is left to find its own way, it often becomes problematic not only for the person growing up, but for others, too. We all know some of “those people” who never quite completed the journey. In business this can create a real liability.

Wise guidance consists of knowing when to turn a deaf ear or blind eye and when to correct errant behavior for the sake of helping people grow. There are two primary aspects of good guidance: expectations and feedback.

Expectations are funny things. We all have them, but sometimes we keep them secret from others. Sometimes we assume that because people work in the same company, and maybe in the same department, they know what our expectations are. This assumption is often wrong and it almost always leads to unnecessary conflict and wasted energy in sorting things out.

Here’s an everyday example. A project manager issued a meeting notice to seven people, assuming that because they all worked together on a project, they would all attend the meeting. Three didn’t. The project manager was upset. He felt disrespected by his teammates and stymied by their lack of support. His expectation was unstated, but to him it was obvious: when you’re invited to a meeting you show up.

The three who didn’t attend the meeting were angry because the project manager had not checked their calendars before scheduling it. They felt disrespected and left out. Their expectation, also unstated, was that they would be consulted about a workable meeting time before it was scheduled.

This seems like a very petty reason to be upset, but where people are edgy anyway, all it takes is a few of these missed signals for people to start referring to each other as jerks. If they’re of different ages, it’s easy to blame “generational issues.”

Feedback is the second element of good guidance and it is distressingly rare. Rather, effective feedback is rare. Rude comments, rolling eyes, and shrugged shoulders are all forms of feedback, but they don’t convey any meaningful or actionable information.

I’ve talked to hundreds of people about feedback and when I ask why it is so difficult, most of the time I hear about the dangers of being “judgmental.” Nobody want to be charged with discrimination. Nobody wants to be sued. Nobody wants a subordinate with a bad attitude because he was corrected.

Of course not. But if knowledgeable people refuse to use their better judgment, be discriminating in their thinking, and correct inappropropriate behavior, how does anyone learn? How do organizations continue to grow? How do people develop pride in their work?

Helping people grow (up) is hard work. It’s often thankless. But it is a primary responsibility of those in leadership and management positions. If that’s you, please remember that any time you see something sub-standard and ignore it, you set a new standard.