The Sensitive Man - Decision Making in an Instant Gratification World

Arriving at a decision time expectations have shrunk in the past thirty years, as our technology speeds have accelerated. This is largely due to our reliance on instant technology; technology that can either produce near instant results or produces the illusion of instantaneous gratification. This quick decision making has in many ways rewired our brains to expect hasty decisions, often based on little information inputs or with wide information gaps.

With text messaging and social media, we get faster response times and now our society looks for leaders particularly to make instant decisions. Technology is beginning to rewire our brains to expect more instant response decision making and teaching us to almost make battlefield decisions without the benefit of inputs or training can leave everyone feeling battle fatigued.

This type of decisioning seems to lack reflection and appeals mainly to our more primitive limbic emotional processing systems. With technology accelerating communication, decisive responses are now expected, too. From that we can see more and more bad decisions being made across the society, from teenagers to seniors, from politics to religion, from corporate to private worlds, it’s happening all over.

I’m not saying it’s all bad. There have and always will be times when quick decisioning is imperative, think of an emergency room, in NORAD’s control center, or while flying a plane in bad weather.  But more often now, we see decisions expected quickly for times when more reflective thinking is required.

This carries over into the realm of business, and in the field, I once worked in Information Technology it is rampant. We have created a great and ponderous beast, called the internet and it requires 24/7 attention and feeding. All of our technology is tied to that, one way or another; a giant communication network with billions of nodes and requiring perhaps as many or more decisions every day.

HSPs don’t work this way. We are deep processing thinkers and we are also observational, receiving high quantity of multiple inputs from multiple sensory paths. Instead of bypass processing, we are absorbed by all the inputs and have to sort, categorize and process the data. This takes time and runs contrary to modern cultural expectations. “I’ll get back to you”, doesn’t cut it today. Leaders expect workers and workers expect leaders to instant process to decisions – no rumination, no mulling, and culling, just get the answer…NOW.

Part of the stress that working HSPs that are in industries that require this type of quick thinking has to do with the expectation of making decisions on unprocessed information, hastily sifting through the inputs and creating a less than perfect output. HSPs are highly conscientious individuals and doing this kind of half-baked thinking goes directly against our wiring. The stress comes from the pressure to decide and not being given ample time to process deeply.

Now, we can do this like everyone else, but it’s not comfortable. To be asked to do this all the time can be almost debilitating. Going against our nature is what we are expected to do all the time, and indeed, not doing that, can have real world consequences for many HSPs in the workplace.  The increased pressure and stress can even at time short circuit our processing, delaying further decision making or in some cases shutting us down.

And, the world is not changing for our needs, at least not anytime soon. If you want to work today, you’ll need to find a way to cope, adapt or join in the fray, to deal with the pressure to move more quickly. Adaptation is the key, but with all things for HSPs – self-preservation is the lock. You’ll need that to stay secure.

Let’s look at some things that may help:

• There are three main types of decision strategies. Deductive, which is a rigid set of rules applied to proven facts. Inductive, which is more about suggestive logic; you infer from a set of data that appears to be true a decision. And finally, Abductive, which relies less on absolutes but uses creative and intuitive logic to arrive at a decision. Much of decision making depends on inference. Every decision you make can’t always be deduced from known information. Learn to practice inferring a decision by doing some intense upfront processing, then stopping and making inferences from what you have.A good example might be deciding on a new restaurant to eat at. Do some cursory research, with an online app, like Yelp, gather up info on a few good candidates, and then make a quick decision based on your primary criteria. You can infer things from pictures of the food, previous reviews, menu items, etc. You can generalize this to other things, like buying clothes, choosing a movie to watch, picking a book to read. Put a timeline on your decision making process and when it’s time to decide, pull the trigger.
• Give up the perfectionism strategy. This is sometimes called maladaptive perfectionism. Perfectionism implies that there is such a thing as perfect decision. Nada, not gonna happen. In an imperfect world, nothing is perfect, not even you.  The irony about perfectionism is that it doesn’t originate in extreme self-confidence, but rather it’s a veiled mask for insecurity. HSPs are notoriously tied to perfectionism and when used for review/edit mode, it has some benefits, but to strive for it in everything, will not aid you, but it will slow you down. Perfect decisions don’t exist. Let go of that.
• The hardest thing for HSPs under pressure is to battle overwhelm, which literally kills decision making in its tracks. The brain scrambles starts to shut down and often we are left like deer in the headlights, lights on – nobody home. Stop and focus on the results. What is the objective? Sometimes you can buy some time by asking for clarity on the request. We are very adept at picking up the vibe of the requester (often panicked themselves) that we mirror them. Calm them down by getting as much detailed information as possible about the decision they are looking for – this can calm you down, too.Questions like:1) what is the expected outcome, how does that look (sound or feel) like? This gets down to the subconscious drivers on a decision. 2) What are they most concerned about (bosses, customers, peers)? As you gather the data, start processing and as more clarity comes from refocusing, you can start to accelerate your decision time. Reigning in your brain should be the number one so that you can put it to full use.
• At some point let go and make the decision. Frame your decision around solutions that meet the necessary criteria with a focus on risk, consequences, and feasibility. If you work in an environment that encourages hacking, then take a swag at the decision sooner. Successive approximation is a great learning strategy but works with decisions, too. Hack it, till you make it. If your workplace favors, good, but quick decisions, then process and stall, but at some point infer or intuit a decision, and give it your best shot. You won’t always be right, but you made the effort without balking – then you can re-calibrate. Process, learn and reload.
• Be prepared for fallout. This may be the hardest part. As HSPs, we all to some extent know that feedback can hurt. If we are wrong too often, it can have dire consequences. And we process that emotionally and deeply. If you work in an environment where fire drills are the norm and you are too stressed out to carry on, then, perhaps, a job search is in order. Remember, self-preservation first. Of course, this applies to everyone, not just HSPs. It is imperative that you develop a quick mind relaxation hack that will calm you down during and after stressful situations. Meditation, a power nap, a relaxation audio, a massage, exercise, breathing properly when under fire techniques or brain training can help. To some extent, all jobs have elements of the stress induced decision. Know this – you can do this and the more you do it, the better it gets. So, as we say in hypnosis – relax and let go.

 
Thanks for stopping by, until next week…
 
References:
 https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/managing-perfectionists.htm

https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/decision-making-perfectionism/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-jim-taylor/kids-and-technology_b_2422535.html

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes-way/201505/the-neuroscience-making-decision

http://www.hsperson.com/pages/5Nov13.htm

http://www.butte.edu/departments/cas/tipsheets/thinking/reasoning.html

https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTED_79.htm

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/strategic-thinking/201307/make-good-decisions-faster