Decision-Making Expertise

Today marks one year since we lost Professor Ron Howard. Ron was one of the pioneers of decision analysis, a Stanford professor who shaped how thousands of people think about complex choices. His work changed my life, and it continues to change the lives of everyone I teach. Every single time I teach about decision-making, I share his framework. It's elegant, powerful, and cuts through the confusion that paralyzes so many people facing big decisions. The 3-Legged Stool Framework: Every decision has three core components, like a three-legged stool. Remove any leg, and the stool collapses. 🎯 Values (Objectives) – What actually matters to you in the outcome? Not what you think should matter, but what genuinely does. 🛣️ Alternatives (Options) – What are the different paths you could take? (If there are no options, there's no decision to be made.) 📊 Information – How does each option help you achieve your objectives? What do you know, and what do you need to find out? This framework transforms decision-making from overwhelming to manageable. I've watched leaders and individuals use this approach to gain clarity on everything from product strategy to career transitions. It works because it externalizes the chaos in your head and organizes it into something you can actually work with. Ron's legacy lives on every time someone uses this framework to make a better decision. Every time someone moves from paralysis to clarity. Every time someone realizes that good decision-making isn't about having perfect information – it's about having a clear process. I'm grateful for Ron's teachings, and I'm committed to keeping his work alive by empowering others to make decisions with confidence. What framework or tool has most shaped how you make decisions? Society of Decision Professionals (SDP) | A Great Decision Every Time #decisionanalysis #decisionmaking #decisionprofessionals

At Boeing, Deloitte, and Baker Hughes, I was one of the guys who decided if a cybersecurity threat required calling the FBI. Today, I use that decision-making framework to build a $243M real estate empire. As a cybersecurity incident commander at Baker Hughes, when a threat hit, I had seconds to make critical decisions. A security alert comes in: something's wrong, potentially very wrong. My job wasn't just to respond - it was to assess, prioritize, and decide who needed to be involved. Is this urgent or can it wait? Minor issue or major breach? Handle internally or need external help? And the biggest question: Is this serious enough to call the FBI? That wasn't taken lightly. Calling the FBI meant the threat was severe - potential data breach, nation-state actors, serious financial implications. The decision-making process: 1. Identify: What's happening: Real threat or false alarm? 2. Assess severity: How bad is it and what's at risk? 3. Contain: Stop it from spreading. Like a fire - don't let it burn through the whole house. 4. Determine stakeholders: Who needs to know: Leadership? Legal? FBI? 5. Recover: Once contained, how do we restore systems? 6. Root cause analysis: What caused this and how do we prevent recurrence? I made these decisions under pressure, fast, with incomplete information, millions of dollars and company reputation on the line. Here's what that taught me: 1. Speed matters, but precision matters more. You can't freeze, but you can't panic. Assess quickly and act decisively. 2. Know when to escalate. Some problems you handle internally. Some require bigger resources. 3. Containment first, then recovery. Stop the bleeding before treating the wound. 4. Always do root cause analysis. If you don't understand what went wrong, it'll happen again. Today, I apply this framework to real estate investing at XSITE Capital Investment: Identify: What's the opportunity? What are the risks? Assess: Is this a good deal or are there red flags? Contain risk: What due diligence do we need? Determine stakeholders: Who needs to be involved? Execute and monitor: How do we ensure performance? Learn and improve: What worked? What didn't? The pressure of deciding whether to call the FBI taught me how to make high-stakes decisions quickly and accurately. That skill translates directly to real estate: assessing deals, protecting investor capital, knowing when to move forward or walk away. Different industry. Same decision-making framework. What high-pressure experience taught you skills you use in your current career?

Being data-led isn't the best way to sell sports sponsorship. I think we've been getting it wrong. Here's why. 👇 📊 I, like many in the industry, have been an advocate for using data to illustrate rights holder value to prospective sponsors. 👴 Much maligned are 'CEO's whim' sponsorship decision-makers. It's seen as what sponsorship did 20 years ago. 🤔 However, I wonder if personal bias & a lack of appreciation for how different decision-makers solve problems haven't narrowed our thinking. ❎ Being data-led might be the best way to sell sponsorship to some decision-makers, but not all. Here's why. 👩🏫 Cheryl Strauss Einhorn is a Professor at Columbia Business School & a decision-making expert. She says that people have different problem-solving styles. 🤾♀️ She explains that making decisions is aligned with what we are most comfortable with. Just like being right-handed means we usually prefer to throw a ball with our right hand. ✅ Experienced people, which sponsorship decision-makers usually are, have patterns of making decisions that have worked well for them in the past creating a stronger bias to do things the same way. 🖐 Einhorn says there are five types of decision-makers: 1️⃣ Adventurers -make decisions based on gut, downplaying evidence & input from others if it conflicts with their opinion. They can overlook important details & are liable to optimisation bias. A CEO's whim candidate. 2️⃣ Detectives -they follow the data but overvalue facts & undervalue people’s opinions - the new breed of sponsorship decision-makers. They can suffer from confirmation bias i.e. looking for data to support their view. 3️⃣ Listeners -the collaborative & cooperative decision-maker. They solicit the opinions of others but struggle to have an opinion themselves. Prone to liking bias i.e. they overweight opinions from people they have affinity with. 4️⃣ Thinkers -they want to understand the why. They thrive on multiple options to solve their problem but struggle to decide promptly. They can suffer from loss aversion, wanting to avoid failure rather than optimising for outcome success. 5️⃣ Visionaries -they see the solutions that others don’t but they may fall foul of scarcity bias or avoid the ordinary, even if it is effective. ❓ Next time you’re pitching to a brand, ask them what it is they need to make a decision. Do they talk about facts, including stakeholders, understanding options etc? Active listening will help you understand how best to get to yes. 👉 What type of decision-maker are you? #sportsmarketing #sponsorship #StriveSays ---------------------- 💥 My name is Malph. 🆘 Helping brands to use sponsorship to deliver marketing objectives. 🤝 Supporting rights holders to build valuable partnerships. Like this post? Want to see more? Ring the 🔔 on my Profile. 🔎 Follow me for insights on the sponsorship and sports industry, and how outside learnings and theories can be applied. 🔝 Connect with me (please add an intro/reason).

In a world of noise and constant chatter, I've noticed something profound: We often mistake confidence for competence. 🤔 The loudest voice in the meeting isn't necessarily sharing the most valuable insight. The person who speaks with unwavering certainty isn't automatically right. The colleague who never hesitates may not have considered all angles. Throughout my career in financial advisory, I've witnessed this pattern repeatedly: → The thoughtful advisor who carefully considers all scenarios often has more valuable insights than the one with the quick, assertive answer → The consultant who acknowledges complexity typically provides better guidance than the one offering oversimplified certainties → The team member who asks thoughtful questions usually contributes more than the one with ready-made proclamations The truth is, wisdom tends to whisper while confidence often shouts. Deep thinking embraces nuance. It acknowledges uncertainty. It wrestles with complexity rather than dismissing it. In our quest for quick answers, we're drawn to those who speak without hesitation. Their certainty feels reassuring in an uncertain world. But this is precisely when we should pause and listen more carefully to the thoughtful voices, those who weigh their words, consider multiple perspectives, and aren't afraid to say "it depends" or "I'm not entirely sure." The most valuable insights often come wrapped in thoughtful consideration, not packaged in absolute certainty. When making important decisions about your future, your finances, and your family's security, consider: ✅ Who is thinking deeply about your specific situation? ✅ Who acknowledges the complexities involved? ✅ Who is willing to say "I need to consider this further" instead of rushing to conclusions? True expertise isn't about having all the answers, it's about asking the right questions. In a world that rewards confidence, let's make space for thoughtfulness. In your next important meeting or decision, I challenge you to look beyond the most confident voice and seek out the most thoughtful one. The difference might transform your results.

One of the biggest dilemmas leaders face is this: “Do I make the decision myself, or do I involve others?” ➕ Too much participation can be slow, messy, frustrating. ➖ Too little leads to information gaps, misalignment, rework. The key is recognising that not all decisions are created equal, and your approach should shift depending on whether the decision is simple, complicated, or complex. Here’s the guide I use with leaders 👇 🔊Tell: Be directive Make the decision and inform others. Use this when speed is essential, outcomes are predictable, or there’s broad support. Participation here slows things down. Ask yourself what value participation will bring. 🧑🔬 Consult: Seek expert input You still make the decision, but you do it with better information. This is ideal when the decision is complicated and expertise will materially improve the quality of the outcome. Ask yourself what expertise do you need to make the decision. 🤝 Co-create: Decide collaboratively Bring stakeholders together when no one individual sees the full picture. Best for complex, ambiguous situations where involving people surfaces important perspectives, reduces risk and increases alignment. Ask yourself how can we help each other make a good quality decision. 🤯 Why this matters Decision-making is time-consuming and messy at the best of times. Choosing the right method for the right situation reduces friction, speeds execution, and builds coherence across the system. Have you every leaned into participative decision-making unnecessarily, or made a unilateral decision that went wrong? Tell me about in the comments 👇

Human decisions aren’t static moments - they’re unfolding processes. We don’t just pick an option; we accumulate evidence, shift attention, and adapt as we go. Traditional models assume fixed preferences and perfect rationality, but real choices are fluid. Our goals change, confidence fluctuates, and uncertainty shapes every step. Modern choice modeling captures this dynamic reality. It starts with probabilistic thinking, accepting that people rarely make identical decisions twice. Signal detection theory adds nuance by showing how we decide whether evidence is strong enough to act. Sequential sampling models go further, tracing how information builds until a decision threshold is reached. These models can predict not just what people choose, but how long it takes and how sure they are. As choices grow more complex, preference itself becomes a moving target. Decision field models show how attention alternates between attributes - why adding one more product, feature, or design element can unexpectedly shift preference. Reinforcement learning explains how feedback shapes these patterns over time, connecting the psychology of experience to the brain’s reward system and showing how people balance habit with goal-driven behavior. More recently, two powerful frameworks are reshaping how uncertainty is understood. Quantum cognitive models treat thought as a superposition of possible states - explaining why order, framing, and context change our responses. Bayesian approaches describe how beliefs stabilize as evidence accumulates. Together, they capture the full arc of decision-making: the fluid, evolving states of thought and the structured updating of belief. Choice, in this view, isn’t random or irrational. It’s the result of dynamic, probabilistic systems shaped by attention, learning, and memory. Understanding these mechanisms gives us a more realistic foundation for design, policy, and AI - one that models how people truly decide, not how we wish they did.

Your client made 47 critical decisions at work today. Now you're asking them to choose between 12 cabinet hardware options. This is why they go quiet mid-project. It's not indecision. It's depletion. Decision fatigue is the silent killer of client experience in custom work. Clients won't tell you they're overwhelmed—they'll just slow down, disengage, or regret their choices later. Research shows that decision-making capacity depletes throughout the day like a muscle that gets tired. For our clients—physicians, attorneys, executives—they've burned through their best capacity before they ever sit down to select finishes. You've probably seen this pattern: Early in a project, clients respond within hours. Six weeks in, response times stretch to days. They revisit decisions already made. They defer to "whatever you think is best"—not because they trust you, but because they're exhausted. We misread this as indecision. The reality: we were asking too much from people who had nothing left to give. So we redesigned our entire process around one truth: Our clients' scarcest resource isn't money. It's decision-making capacity. Instead of 47 individual finish selections, we created bundled lifestyle packages. Instead of 50 cabinet styles, we present three pre-selected options that work with their design. Instead of overwhelming choice, we offer curated direction. High-impact decisions happen early when mental resources are fresh. Lower-impact decisions come later in smaller batches. Clients don't choose nail types or insulation brands—we eliminated dozens of micro-decisions that create fatigue without adding value. The result? Client time investment dropped 60%. Satisfaction increased. Decision regret decreased. Timelines improved. Premium service isn't providing unlimited options. It's curating the right ones and protecting clients from unnecessary choice burden. The expertise clients actually pay for? Knowing what decisions matter and eliminating the ones that don't. How are you protecting your clients' decision-making capacity? Let's chat in the comments. #customhomebuilder #customhome

Expert decision-makers process patterns 6x faster than they can explain them. That's the real reason your team can't close like you—and why your sales playbook will never fix it. Carnegie Mellon University researchers found that experts aren't thinking through steps. They're matching the current situation against thousands of previous situations—instantly, unconsciously. Cognitive scientists call this tacit knowledge. Michael Polanyi named it in 1958: "We know more than we can tell." The uncomfortable part: the more expert you become, the less able you are to explain what you do. It's called the expertise reversal effect. As skills become automatic, the reasoning behind them becomes invisible—even to you. You don't decide to read the room. You just read it. This is why documentation fails as a transfer method. You can't document a pattern-matching engine. You can only create conditions where someone else builds their own. Three conditions research supports: 1️⃣ Exposure to expert decision-making in real time—not after the fact. 2️⃣ Deliberate practice with feedback in realistic scenarios. 3️⃣ Forced verbalization—the expert narrating their own judgment while it's happening. That third one is the hardest. It requires founders to slow down and articulate what's normally automatic. Uncomfortable. Unnatural. And, it's the single most effective method for transferring tacit expertise. What's one judgment call in your sales process you've never been able to explain to your team—even though you do it every time?

It’s not every day millions witness a masterclass on judging decision quality. The 2025 Qatar GP gave us just that, if we look beyond the results. On lap 7, a crash brought out the safety car. Nine teams pitted for fresh tires. McLaren, leading 1-2 with Piastri and Norris, stayed out to protect track position on a tough overtaking track. Commentators hailed the strategy’s flexibility and potential late-race advantage. By race end, Verstappen won, Piastri was second, and Norris fourth. Praise turned criticism and even McLaren’s boss admitted they “got it wrong.” But did they? Judging only by outcome: yes. But that’s outcome bias. McLaren’s decision was based on: - Track position importance in Qatar. - Likelihood of another safety car. - Late-race tire offset advantage. What they couldn’t control: - No further safety cars. - Rival’s tires held up. - A green-flag finish negating their edge. This happens often in business: good decisions meet bad luck, and are labeled mistakes. Here’s how to improve decision-making: 1. Focus on decision process, not just outcome. 2. Separate skill from luck. 3. Use the right data at the right time. 4. Explicitly manage uncertainty. 5. Reward strong processes, not just results. Most of us don’t have million-dollar split-second calls but daily decisions shape our success. Ask: Was the process logical? Did we control what we could? Would we choose the same again? If yes, you’re winning. Outcomes are often luck and context—decision quality is yours.

Nearly 60% of CEOs evaluate their strategic decision capability based on outcomes rather than the quality of their decision-making process (PwC). It’s easy to see why. Outcomes are tangible, measurable, and at the end of the day, they’re the bottom line. Yet, decades of research show that using smart decision processes thoroughly beats congratulating yourself on outcomes. This is because outcomes are influenced by factors outside your decision scope—like market shifts, new regulations, or good old-fashioned luck. You could have a positive result because the market suddenly changed in your favor, or because a competitor stumbled. Or, a great decision could lead to an unfavorable outcome simply because of unexpected variables—like an economic downturn or an unforeseen risk. By the way, some of the most brilliant, value-creating moves I’ve seen came after a bad misstep or unexpected event prompted exec teams with stellar decision practices to re-evaluate and take advantage of the new conditions. (Insert your favorite example from early COVID here!)  When you evaluate your strategic decisions through the lens of the quality of your decision-making process it can reveal key insights: ✨ Clarity of information: Did you gather the right data? Were there gaps in your information? ✨ Diverse perspectives: Did you get a variety of viewpoints? Did you challenge assumptions? ✨ Navigating uncertainty: What risks were identified? Did you fully explore what you were unclear about? ✨ Alignment with values and mission: Did your decisions consistently reinforce the org’s larger vision? Were the decisions aligned with your org’s core values? ✨ Flexibility and agility: Did you stay flexible to new information or changing circumstances? ✨ Room for improvement: What worked well? What changes might be made next time? Focusing on the quality of your decision-making process reveals whether your decisions are based on thorough analysis, aligned with your strategic goals, and designed to be repeatable for long-term success. What could change for your team if you started measuring success by increasing the quality of your decisions instead of waiting for the results?