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Decision-making can suffer under stress

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published July 10, 2006

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( 16 votes, average: 4.7 out of 5)
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On the final hole, Mickelson could have played it safe and won, but instead made reckless decisions that wound up costing him the championship he'd dreamed of winning since he was a child.

"I was watching, and I had empathy for him," said Garry Ridge, president and chief executive officer of WD-40 Co. "You could see the pain in his eyes."


Mickelson's unexplainable actions under stress mirror some of the same things done outside of public view every day in the workplace and in executive suites.

Decision-making is as much an art as a science. What works for one individual might not work for another, experts say, although understanding yourself and being comfortable with the process seem essential to making the right decisions.

"Often, high-risk personalities push beyond what most of us think is rational," said Nancy Helgeson, a career coach and psychologist. "They may find themselves under pressure and unable to do what everyone else thinks is the rational thing to do. It doesn't just happen in sports. It's true for people in the business world every day."

Helgeson said decision-making can suffer under stress.

"I see the pressures the business world puts on managers, and it just seems to get worse and worse," she said. "But the internal pressures people put on themselves can be much more intense than any external pressures."

Extreme pressure can cause individuals to freeze. Unable to see clearly, they may revert to past behaviors. Those behaviors can often be counterproductive.

Ridge thinks that there is an issue of being self-aware that everyone needs. Making an honest assessment of your actions, your talents and your judgment is essential for you to adopt new behaviors.

"That's one of the reasons I like the TV character Columbo," he said. "I love the way he goes around asking more questions and questioning more answers. It really forces you to get down to the core issue.

"But most of us don't take the time to do that. Sometimes, it's just because we never make the effort, and other times our ego gets in the way. But I think you have to do that if you expect to change past behaviors."

Leslie Groene, a corporate coach and author of the book "Picture Yourself & the Life You Want" (Tiger Publications; $20), says changing behavior is a difficult process for anyone and sometimes nearly impossible.

"I've seen businesses where everyone knew they needed to change to survive, except for the owner of the business," she said. "If the management doesn't want to change and doesn't see a need to change, there's no way you can convince them to change."

She questions whether it would have been wise for Mickelson to abandon the decision-making process that got him to the brink of a major golf championship.

"Everybody gets to have a bad day," he said. "Mickelson had one of those bad days. But the decisions he made got him to that point. Maybe it wasn't right for him to change his course then. Maybe those same decisions have worked for him before."

Ridge, an Australian, said he felt constrained to a certain management style until he relocated to the United States in 1994 to direct the international sales of WD-40.

"There was something about that that gave me permission not to know certain things," he said. "At that point, I was able to say 'I don't know' and not feel stupid."

That liberation, he said, helped him make some personal changes.

Ridge said his style was to "Be brief. Be bright. And, be gone." He discovered that while the process worked for him, he wasn't allowing other individuals to share their thoughts before decisions were made. He made a concerted effort to make sure everyone got to share their ideas and found himself better off for it.

"I found out that I had access to greater information than I'd had before," he said. "It was very hard to reach that point, but it certainly has made me more effective as a leader."


© Copley News Service
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published July 10, 2006

( 16 votes, average: 4.7 out of 5)
What do you think about this article? Rate it using the stars above and let us know what you think in the comments below.

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