Making Decisions

The Jakarta Post
Features - 29 April 2007
Published as "Overcoming Fear of Making Decisions"

In working with employees and with students, we often come across people who are unsure of what to do when given open ended problems. This article will focus on decision making and discuss blocks that may create fear for making decisions and ways to overcome them.

In the early years of developing creative thinking in children using visual arts as a media, Kayee met a girl of seven who, when asked to choose materials, wouldn’t even move from her seat. She was very quiet to begin with, that even during one on one discussion she would only whisper her ideas. But when Kayee asked her to select the material to visualize her idea, she literally cringed.

What it took at the end was for Kayee to hold her hand while she chose among the variety. Even then, every time she picked up a material, she would ask Kayee for reassurance that it was indeed alright for her to decide.

This instance was one of the many examples we later encountered in many of our students, and not just in the young. Dewi, who also teaches design for freshman students in a private university in Jakarta, is often troubled by students who have difficulties in dealing with open ended problems. Most of them, at the beginning of the semester, would ask so many questions when being given a task, for the fear of being wrong.

Dewi usually asks them to come up with several solutions they could think of, and select one that they think would solve the problem best. But many of them usually have a hard time in selecting one out of the proposed solutions to a problem. They often ask Dewi which one she prefers or try to guess which one Dewi likes and make their decision based on this perceived preference of their lecturer.

In the first instance of the young girl, we figured her fear was not only because she was very timid, but also because she was not used to being asked to make her own decisions. After some time being with us, she eventually opened up and became more confident in making choices on her own.

What we often advise parents, teachers, and adults working with children is to give children opportunities to make acceptable choices. For example, when going out with children, we can ask them to choose what clothes they want to wear if there is no dress code to worry about. If there is a dress code, we can show them choices of clothing they can wear, and let them choose. Likewise with places to eat, snacks to buy, things to do, shoes to wear, etc.

Reassurance, encouragement, and a lot of practice in the case of the young would do the magic. With a lot of practice in making decisions for themselves, children have more confidence in their ability to think and make decisions for themselves. With a lot of reassurance and encouragement, they know that they are being trusted, which in turn will improve their self-esteem.

In the second instance of the undergrad students, Dewi often asks her students why they are afraid of making decisions. Most of them would immediately say that they are afraid of being wrong, being laughed at, or being labeled as weird. Some also say that they are used to rely on or being told which decision to make by their lecturers.

In addition to the problem of not being used to making their own decisions, older people are more aware of their social environment, and are more likely to conform to the culture they are immersed in.

In the Eastern culture, decisions are often made by the elderly or the more respected people in any given group. In previous generations, and even today, children and the younger ones don’t normally have a say in the decision making process. They grow to be dependent upon their group leaders to make decisions on their behalf.

Some, if not most, of Dewi’s students at the university level choose to major in an area either because their parents or others close to them told them to, or because it was a compromised decision, catering more to their parents’ desire than their own passion.

But as we grow older, we are more likely to be held responsible for making our own decisions. The problem is that when we are not used to making our own decisions, not only do we feel uncomfortable with the responsibility placed on us, but we may actually think that we are not supposed to make decisions.

Being conditioned not to think for themselves most of their lives, in the context of Indonesia, we have seen many repercussions from those who are not used to independent thinking, those who think they are not supposed to think, those who don’t have the confidence to make a decision based on their own judgment, those who are too lazy to think for themselves, and those who don’t want to bear the responsibility of decision making.

In the work situation, similar situations also occur although in an even more complex ensemble that may camouflage the inability to make decisions.

In work organizations in Indonesia, especially in smaller companies, specialization is rare and there are many shades of grey area between work that fall directly within our job description, and those that are definitely beyond the responsibility of our role. As a result, many of us are often demanded to multi-task. Faced with such situations, how do people deal with the extra decision making responsibilities that come with each task?

We have seen different reactions, from those who would rather stick to their job description similar to the seven year old girl who cringed at the idea of having to make a decision, those who (like Dewi’s university students) ask so many questions and need so much guidance that we would rather work on the problem ourselves to save time and frustration, to those who pretend they are working on the problem, but end up creating more problems. The challenge is how to remove the fear of making decisions so that tasks get completed without having to issue step-by-step instructions.

Similar to how we approach this problem with the young, we could start by giving the people in question small decisions to make, and to provide some supervision to ensure and reassure that the decision making process is going well. As the person gains better judgment and confidence, we can reduce the amount of supervision given while providing plenty opportunities for the individual to practice and become comfortable with making small decisions. Over time, the scale of the decisions can be increased as confidence in the decision maker and our confidence in them grow.

But what if you are one of the persons who are having difficulties in making decisions? As a start, you could try to identify what is causing the problem. It could be related to the more general reasons that we have explored in this article, but there could be more personal reasons that may require some honest self-reflection.

Similar to our previously explored strategies, you could start by giving yourself small decisions to make. When facing a problem, try to first think about possible solutions for the problem. If you feel you need more information or guidance, find an experienced person you can trust to discuss how you have thought about the problem and how you arrived at the possible solutions. Your advisor will be able to help you generate some criteria which should help guide your thinking and decision making.

Whether you are dealing with simple or complex decisions, refer to the parameters of the problem and the objectives that you are trying to achieve before evaluating and ranking the solutions based on how each would best respond to the objectives and parameters of the problem.

Be deliberate in crossing out the solutions that you know do not meet the objectives and parameters for the given problem. On the other hand, remain open to and be mindful of solutions that have potential for solving the problem that need more refinement and development. These general decision making principles are applicable whether you are making simple decisions or are using complex decision making tools in evaluating solutions.

For simple decisions, you can simply rank the solutions based on the order of personal preference. Complex solutions may require the use of evaluation tools.

However, tools and strategies only help map out the strengths and weaknesses of different solutions. Tools and strategies will not make the decision for you – their role is to help you make better-informed decisions. Afterall, if all decisions can be made by computation without an element of risk, what is the role of humans in the decision making process?

What we should aim for is to recognize that there is always an element of risk in decision-making and pluck up the courage to take those risks. In short, we need to be comfortable with the idea of making decisions and the responsibilities that come with it.

As you go about making decisions, applaud your risk taking spirit and seek people you can trust to encourage you. Celebrate your courage and the mistakes and failures along the process. Trials and errors help us become better decision makers.