One Minute Blog: Does Your Decision-Making Style Sucks Energy Out of You?

Sometime back I read about why Mark Zuckerberg wears the same t-shirt to work every day and the reason he gave has stayed with me. He does so to avoid something called as decision fatigue.

All of us have limited will-power during the day. An engrossing event like decision-making sucks up the will-power. And a routine event like deciding what to wear, often consumes the diminishing will-power. Not only Mark Z, but the likes of Barrack Obama, Satya Nadella and many successful personalities have such tactics in place to cut-the-decision making crap and focus their limited energies on the right areas.

As the fastcompany article revealed, Jeff Bezos is a big believer of streamlining the decision making. He has even instituted a 4 step process:

1. Decisions that are reversible, can use a light-weight process.
2. Don’t wait for 100% information before making decisions. 70% is just-about right. Waiting for 90% information to be available usually slows down decision-making.
3. Stakeholder alignment is important to achieve the results from the decisions. However alignment is also harder to achieve. In those cases, it’s helpful to say, "Look, I know we disagree on this but will you gamble with me on it? Disagree and commit?"
4. To avoid energy drain, escalate misalignment issues early, and immediately.

What is your decision making style? Does it return you energy or take energy out of you? While you ponder over this questions, do catch-up with this sketch-note.