process, business-methodologyI’m looking for the equivalent of the Scientific Method or the Trouble Shooting Method. This would be something to fall back on during times of stress, exactly when the “smart” part of our brains (so called System 2) stops working. Exactly when you want a Process to fall back on.
Clarification: Simple answer is : Avoid making decisions under stress. Let’s assume we cannot defer the decision making (i.e., “The Titanic is sinking, what do we do?”)
BTW, so far
Other users gave very long answers. I think it is much simpler than that:
Go By General Common Sense: Under stress the brain functionality drops, so basically you can’t decide perfectly, and fear of regret stops you from doing what you should do which is go with a general common sense, not your sense of situation. For example, ship is sinking, then put a life jacket on and jump into the water; or servers are out for some reason, get a third party hosting service and put your homepage on it, till things are fixed.
I think the most important aspect of decision-making is not to let emotion get in the way, which can be very difficult at times. But the simple fact is that decisions made based on emotional state rarely turn out to be good ones, not well-considered. I don’t know that there’s a “method” that one can apply universally to decision-making, to be honest. Much of this is dependent upon the personality and demeanor of the individual. Regardless of the situation (even your “Titanic” scenario), little can be done without facts, so the first step has to be making an assessment of the situation. Once the facts are in hand, the next part would be to examine all options, leaving none unconsidered. Sometimes the least likely answer can have some merit that aids you in making your ultimate choice.
That being said, the best way to handle high-stress situations can often be to try anticipating them ahead of time and having a plan of action to address them, so that there’s less spur-of-the-moment thinking involved. If need be, and depending on the situation, you could keep it all in a “playbook” of sorts so that when something happens, all you have to do is find the right page and execute what’s there. This is similar to the “football” carried by the military officer who accompanies the President everywhere. Included in that book are all of the likely scenarios foreseen by military planners and responses to those scenarios. The advantage to having this kind of documented response plan for my own business is that there could be situations that occur where I’m not around (maybe I’m on vacation or somewhere that my cellphone doesn’t work), and so somebody else has to take action in my absence. I can take comfort in the knowledge that I understand how crisis situations will be dealt with even when I’m not necessarily the one making the calls. This type of planning also has the benefit of careful forethought at a time when stress is minimal and everyone can contribute ideas and input to the plan, so we’re able to be more thorough and thoughtful in our decisions.
I hope this helps.
Good luck!
Probably not as “scientific” as you’re hoping, but I’d put a few suggestions forward:
Anticipate issues and plan ahead. Dealing with stress is a lot simpler if the events were anticipated and if you’ve a pre-decided course of action ahead of time. (Note that it can be stressful to actually follow a pre-decided plan, so keep a mind open to changing it based on the situation if the latter diverges from what the plan being followed was actually for.)
Listen to your team. Teams are full of good ideas for whoever is willing to listen. Plus, it’s much simpler to get a team to embrace a decision if they had the opportunity to contribute to it (even if it was a mere impression).
When in doubt, trust and follow your guts. Oftentimes, you won’t always have the luxury of probing deeper before making a call. Even less so when you’re in a stressful situation. Gut feelings aren’t always right, but they’re better than indecisiveness.
Do your best to stay calm and constructive at all times. Accept that you’ll make mistakes along the way, and keep things constructive when you do. Avoid thinking “Oh shoot! Panic!” at all costs; think next step instead (“OK, that didn’t turn out as well as hoped, let’s try this instead.”).
Do not confuse sense of urgency with someone else’s overblown sense of ego. Driving an ambulance with someone dying in the back qualifies as urgent. Shipping something on time usually doesn’t; bring up major sources of problems early instead of stressing over arbitrary requirements and deadlines.
Along similar lines, keep cool about outcomes and don’t fuss too much about them. Almost in an Ancient Greek stoicism or Buddhist manner: accept that what depends on you depends on you, and that what doesn’t depend on you does not. Your own work output depends on you; another’s work output does not (even if you’re responsible for it). An extreme source of stress stems from feeling that another’s work output depends strictly on you. It doesn’t. You can be unhappy about it, and even constructively highlight that you’re unhappy about it and push towards the outcome you want, but at the end of the day it doesn’t depend on you unless you’re doing the work yourself.
I’d stress the above bit about indecisiveness a bit further, because it’s often missed and rather crucial. So much so, in fact, that the military view it as incompetence. Nothing is more morale shattering for a team than being led by an indecisive leader. Even if you don’t know what you’re doing - and you often won’t - making a decision to keep things in motion is better than just standing there in indecisiveness.
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