Steven Berglas, Contributor
I wrangle with the psychological challenges of life and business.
Entrepreneurs|
1/10/2012 @ 9:37AM |18,663 views
Seven Ways To Conquer Indecision
Ever feel that gnawing pain in your stomach because you…just…can’t…decide?
Don’t feel bad: Even the greatest leaders suffer from indecision. What distinguishes the best from the rest is the ability to get at the fundamental cause of their mental roadblock—and then set dynamite to it.
Take my former client, whom I’ll call JC. This guy built a $400-million enterprise in less than a decade. Along the way, he never suffered indecision. He wasn’t rash or foolhardy, and on most days, he knew his mind and had the confidence to act on it.
That changed radically, however, after his company was profitable for seven consecutive quarters and his big backers urged him to kick growth into high gear. Although JC anticipated this directive, given how well his company was performing, it caused him to start second-guessing himself, and eventually brought on serious distress.
Plenty of executives I have coached had the same reaction JC did. It is so prevalent that I gave it a name so I could more readily help folks except it as non-career-threatening: I call it “Executive Yips,” like the kind a golfer suffers when sweating over a three-foot, straight-uphill put.
When golfers get the yips, they experience shaky hands, an inability to focus, or unsteady posture. Executives Yips grip business leaders with dread. After setting a course of action and narrowing the strategy to a few choices, they simply freeze up. Typically, in this dilemma, they’ll turn to various advisors and ask, “What should I do?” This never works since Executive Yips are never about making the correct choice but, rather, about being blocked from action.
To help JC, I had him consider what he would have to do before he could expand his business. The harsh reality: He had to replace his founding executive team—which included a bunch of JC’s college fraternity brothers, a group that was not up to the task. After JC finally dealt with the pain of telling those he truly loved that he would have to let them go, his Executive Yips vanished as suddenly as they appeared.
JC (and I) got lucky on that one. In most cases, folks who struggle with indecision have it bad. Because indecision is ultimately an action issue (rather than a cognitive one), the person gripped by it can look contemplative when, in fact, he is immobilized by fear.
Before I began working with JC, none of his colleagues knew that he was suffering Executive Yips; he always looked before he leaped, so they assumed he was just being judicious in setting a grander course for the business. No one guessed that he was paralyzed by concern for his fraternity brothers. Because indecision has no overt symptoms that reliably distinguish it from deep thought, JC could have languished in that state until his stakeholders roused him with an annoyed, “What’s up?”
Chronic indecisiveness can be one of the toughest psychological demons to banish. Here are seven ways to help you pull the trigger when a big part of you would rather do anything but.
Forget About Always Appearing Smart
Plenty of talented people, even those who have made a killing, go to exhaustive lengths not to appear dumb. (For proof, read Paul Allen’s recent autobiography: The man has billions but still craves respect.)
Actually, the smarter you are, the more likely your indecision is born of this anxiety. A kid building a startup can be wrong, fail, and feel no shame: “I’m a kid… what do you expect?” Not so for someone with an established reputation to protect. This fear of shame is pernicious, mainly because it’s useless. Let it go.
Trust Your Gut (It’s Savvier Than You Think)
As Malcolm Gladwell hammers home in Blink, mistrusting emotion-driven decisions can be dangerous. What you refer to as “your gut” is actually a wealth of knowledge marbled with empirically validated facts that you aren’t in touch with at critical crossroads.
Better yet, recall the breezy mantra: “If you don’t make the right decision, you can make the decision right.” If that sounds like cold comfort, set up a straw man—your gut—to absorb criticism if you end up making a poor choice. By making your gut the scapegoat, you protect your analytic self (your cortex) from blame, and prime it for triage, if necessary.
Don’t feel bad: Even the greatest leaders suffer from indecision. What distinguishes the best from the rest is the ability to get at the fundamental cause of their mental roadblock—and then set dynamite to it.
Take my former client, whom I’ll call JC. This guy built a $400-million enterprise in less than a decade. Along the way, he never suffered indecision. He wasn’t rash or foolhardy, and on most days, he knew his mind and had the confidence to act on it.
That changed radically, however, after his company was profitable for seven consecutive quarters and his big backers urged him to kick growth into high gear. Although JC anticipated this directive, given how well his company was performing, it caused him to start second-guessing himself, and eventually brought on serious distress.
Plenty of executives I have coached had the same reaction JC did. It is so prevalent that I gave it a name so I could more readily help folks except it as non-career-threatening: I call it “Executive Yips,” like the kind a golfer suffers when sweating over a three-foot, straight-uphill put.
When golfers get the yips, they experience shaky hands, an inability to focus, or unsteady posture. Executives Yips grip business leaders with dread. After setting a course of action and narrowing the strategy to a few choices, they simply freeze up. Typically, in this dilemma, they’ll turn to various advisors and ask, “What should I do?” This never works since Executive Yips are never about making the correct choice but, rather, about being blocked from action.
To help JC, I had him consider what he would have to do before he could expand his business. The harsh reality: He had to replace his founding executive team—which included a bunch of JC’s college fraternity brothers, a group that was not up to the task. After JC finally dealt with the pain of telling those he truly loved that he would have to let them go, his Executive Yips vanished as suddenly as they appeared.
JC (and I) got lucky on that one. In most cases, folks who struggle with indecision have it bad. Because indecision is ultimately an action issue (rather than a cognitive one), the person gripped by it can look contemplative when, in fact, he is immobilized by fear.
Before I began working with JC, none of his colleagues knew that he was suffering Executive Yips; he always looked before he leaped, so they assumed he was just being judicious in setting a grander course for the business. No one guessed that he was paralyzed by concern for his fraternity brothers. Because indecision has no overt symptoms that reliably distinguish it from deep thought, JC could have languished in that state until his stakeholders roused him with an annoyed, “What’s up?”
Chronic indecisiveness can be one of the toughest psychological demons to banish. Here are seven ways to help you pull the trigger when a big part of you would rather do anything but.
Forget About Always Appearing Smart
Plenty of talented people, even those who have made a killing, go to exhaustive lengths not to appear dumb. (For proof, read Paul Allen’s recent autobiography: The man has billions but still craves respect.)
Actually, the smarter you are, the more likely your indecision is born of this anxiety. A kid building a startup can be wrong, fail, and feel no shame: “I’m a kid… what do you expect?” Not so for someone with an established reputation to protect. This fear of shame is pernicious, mainly because it’s useless. Let it go.
Trust Your Gut (It’s Savvier Than You Think)
As Malcolm Gladwell hammers home in Blink, mistrusting emotion-driven decisions can be dangerous. What you refer to as “your gut” is actually a wealth of knowledge marbled with empirically validated facts that you aren’t in touch with at critical crossroads.
Better yet, recall the breezy mantra: “If you don’t make the right decision, you can make the decision right.” If that sounds like cold comfort, set up a straw man—your gut—to absorb criticism if you end up making a poor choice. By making your gut the scapegoat, you protect your analytic self (your cortex) from blame, and prime it for triage, if necessary.
Seven Ways To Conquer Indecision - Forbes
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