Leaders are paid to make difficult decisions, so why is decision-making so hard? "We're not thinking machines; rather, we're feeling machines that happen to think". Let’s explore.

1. Machines will make the same decision whether it is during peacetime or wartime. Machines do not have an emotional state, your car will not refuse to start on a Sunday morning because it's feeling weekend vibes.

But we are humans for a reason, how we feel will significantly alter our decisions. We might agree to a decision during peacetime but may violently disagree under stress during wartime.

Does that sound familiar? It is the same at home or work. The collective will applaud, and agree during peacetime but will have no recollection of collective agreement under stress.

2. Incentives can tempt good people to push the boundaries farther than they’d ever imagined. Financial boundaries, moral boundaries, all of them. Proactive prevention before it is too late is essential.

3. Lots of little errors compound into something huge over time. The sum of parts is the hardest for the leaders, each team will only present the best possible outcome aligned to the incentives during peacetime.

Leaders are required to add up the sum of parts, account for uncertainty, and model collective human behaviour to make a decision.

It is not easy.

What is the framework for making good decisions?

Marc Andreessen of a16z calls it  the “Navigating Idea Maze”

“Entrepreneurship, creativity, and innovation are what economists call decision-making under uncertainty.

Both parts of that are important.

Decision making—you’re going to make a ton of decisions, and then uncertainty—the world’s a complicated place.

In mathematical terms, the world is a complex adaptive system with feedback loops.

Military commanders call this the "Fog of War"

You’re just dealing with a situation where the number of variables is just off the charts.

And you are dealing with all these people who are inherently unpredictable making all these decisions in different directions, the whole system is combinatorial and people are colliding with each other and influencing each other's decisions.

As a leader, they have to navigate idea maze

In their head, they will have to build a map of possible futures as anybody possibly could.

Then on day 1, they’re in the fog of war, and a lot of the assumptions of that idea maze turn out to be wrong.

It is a feedback loop and the great leaders course correct frequently as the facts, feedback, incentives, and emotions change.

They run the loop thousands of times to course correct, adjust, and evolve into a good decision, which tends to be very different from the original plan"

Good decisions are not made, they rapidly evolve through iterations.

What do you think?

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