Decision making foundations

Our lives and the world are full of decisions and choices. It is present in every moment of every situation, whether we like it or not. From time to time, we come up against difficult choices, where we have to stop and think things through.

Decisions can be made in more than one way, with emotion, reason or something in between. The most common way to make decisions is through unconscious ways, such as emotions and reactions. Habits and traditions also fall into this category, and we use them all the time in our decision making.

It is estimated that humans make between 20-30 thousand decisions a day, not a number that you would immediately think of, or even be able to estimate. That number sounds big, and it is. It gets bigger when you add in all the unconscious decisions you don't even realise you're making. Every movement, even the smallest one, you make with your body or any part of it is a decision, and that includes everything from breathing to blinking, and everything in between.

The human being has an autonomous system inside that makes the vast majority of decisions for us, of course we can hold our breath if we want to, but only for a moment before we feel a sensation of running out of oxygen and we can't continue to hold our breath because we don't want to die, our body won't allow it.

Only a very small part of our daily decisions are conscious, deliberate, the rest are autonomic reactions of the body that are very difficult for us to control, often we don't even have time think, before it has already been done by our subconscious.

Informed or considered decisions are influenced by many factors, including those we are not even aware of. Making a pure or completely neutral decision is practically impossible, and in most cases not even necessary. A good personal decision is best made when it is based on personal grounds, and is then truly subjective, not neutral or objective.

So what are the things that influence or complicate decision-making? Excessive bias can distort the perception of a good decision or life. Even if bias is present, it must be controlled and not limit the possibilities too much. Another challenge is information overload, the human brain can only process a limited amount of information, too much is shut out and ignored.

To make a good decision you need enough information, but not too much. Herein lies the challenge of gathering the right amount of information for a decision. And it is important to gather what is relevant and important, the rest is sand in the cogs.

How to collect such an abstract and appropriate amount? The appropriate amount is not a precise concept, what is more important is the importance of the information and its relation to the issue to be decided. Relevant information is gathered by following a scientifically researched process to go through the elements necessary for a decision. This process not only gathers sufficient information to support the decision, but also eliminates irrelevant information, thereby facilitating the decision. In figure 1. I illustrate my science based model for decision making.

This process always starts by defining the problem, i.e. the issue to be decided, also clarifying what is actually being decided. If you don't know what you are deciding or what you are deciding about, it is difficult to get a satisfactory outcome, if you even get that far.

The process continues with clarification and consideration of the person's background, which includes values, dreams and goals and priorities. The process ends with an evaluation of options. It is worth noting that you should not try to gather as much information as possible, as this will overload the brain and make the task even more difficult.

The pruning of information is a critical part of decision making because, especially in the modern information society, there is an overwhelming amount of information. There is no shortage of information in the world. Statistics estimates that in 2025 the world will produce around 180 zettabytes of data, roughly 400 trillion megabytes, the equivalent of the size of the collection of 19,000 US Library of Congress converted into data, or 60 trillion round trips to the Sun, if one byte equals one kilometre. The pace has shot up like a space rocket with population growth and the internet and other technologies. Figure 2 shows progress of data produced between 2010-2025.

?Source: Holst A 2021 Amount of data created, consumed and stored 2010–2025, Statista available at: https://statista.com/statistics/871513/worldwide-data-created/

While the human brain can process an estimated 10^15 FLOPS of information, the same amount as a supercomputer, consider the sheer volume of information the human brain receives every single moment. This is not easy to understand and perceive, because again, we cannot see or feel it. The human senses never go dormant as long as a person is alive, so the brain is constantly receiving messages from outside as well as inside the body. In humans, information processing is not decentralized, there is only one brain and one information processing unit.

People are often a bit blind to themselves and don't always notice all the things that might be relevant to the decision. This is why it is often useful to have someone else to talk to and observe from a different angle; you can only observe properly from one angle, your own internal angle.

People naturally seek validation for their actions and decisions, so having another person's approval of one's own decisions strengthens confidence and belief in the rightness of the decision.

Making a decision while thinking about it with another doubles the brain capacity to process it. Then new and interesting ideas and perspectives may open up, with the bonus of support and caring. Let's not forget that everyone has a different background and experience base, this can be crucial when making decisions, because when two different backgrounds are combined, one person may have exactly what the other needs, to fill the blank page.

What are the consequences of poor decision making? The most common are, less surprisingly, loss of time and money. Others can include not achieving one's dreams or not going after them at all, boredom with life and missed opportunities. As said before, each action requires a decision, which can be unconscious and quick or actively considered.

Why then are decisions that are good for you not taken? The answer is somewhat complex, involving many aspects of human behaviour and needs. The most common is probably fear. Fear is a powerful influencer on our actions and behaviour, designed to protect us from danger.

Making a decision means making a change, and it is well known that creatures do not like change because it can mean danger and harm. Overcoming fear is essential in change situations, the better we know the future situation we are heading for, the easier it is in theory to make a decision.

Decision making always involves uncertainties that we can never fully control, therefore taking a decision, especially implementing it, is always a risk. We can therefore say that decision making is also about managing risk, and especially about tolerating it.

So how can we make better decisions? Self-awareness is key, the better you know yourself and what you want out of life, the better prepared you will be to make choices. Big decisions are best taken with time, rather than in a hurry, and it can be useful to talk it through with a friend.

Finally. So there are conscious decisions and unconscious decisions, but another way of classifying decisions is to divide them into active ones and passive ones, where you make a choice just by being. So not doing something is also a decision, even though you may not notice it, if you are just standing still and not actively contributing to your choice.

Matias H?gnabba is a decision making specialist and consultant with an engineering background. He helps individuals to make decisions of their dreams. He also helps organisations to use better their potential by improving their decision making systems and procedures.

Matias` dream is to reduce resource wasting with better decisions.

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