January 27, 2025 • 28 mins
In today’s episode of The Leadership Vision Podcast, Nathan Freeburg and Brian Schubring dive into the topic of decision-making. From personal life to leadership, decision-making is an essential skill but most often uncertain. Drawing insights from the book Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts by Annie Duke, the conversation explores how we can make better decisions by managing uncertainty, separating the process from the outcome, and learning from others’ decisions.
Key Takeaways:
- Embrace Uncertainty and Make Decisions Based on Probabilities:
Leaders often make decisions based on incomplete information, like poker players assessing probabilities rather than outcomes. Embrace uncertainty, make decisions with the information available, and don’t get paralyzed by fear of making the wrong choice. - Separate the Decision-Making Process from the Outcome:
The process of decision-making is what we control; outcomes can be unpredictable. Just like the famous NFL play call by Pete Carroll in the Super Bowl, sometimes great decisions don’t lead to great outcomes. It's essential to focus on the quality of the decision-making process, not just the end result. - Learn from the Decisions of Others:
By observing and reflecting on how others make decisions, especially in high-risk situations, you can build a better understanding of your own decision-making process. It’s not just about mimicking others but evaluating decisions within the context they were made.
This episode is packed with leadership insights and practical advice to help leaders at all levels improve their decision-making processes. Whether leading a team or making personal choices, these strategies can help you navigate uncertainty with greater confidence and clarity.
Resources Mentioned:
- Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke
- Leadership Vision Consulting: leadershipvisionconsulting.com
-
Read the full blog post here!
CONTACT US
- email: connect@leadershipvisionconsulting.com
- Leadership Vision Online
ABOUT
The Leadership Vision Podcast is a weekly show sharing our expertise in discovering, practicing, and implementing a Strengths-based approach to people, teams, and culture. Contact us to talk to us about helping your team understand the power of Strengths.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You are listening to the Leadership Vision Podcast,
our show helping you buildpositive team culture.
Our consulting firm has beendoing this work for the past 25
years so that leaders arementally engaged and emotionally
healthy.
To learn more about us, you canvisit us on the web at
leadershipvisionconsultingcom.
Hello everyone, my name isNathan Friberg and today on the
(00:20):
podcast, we're gonna be talkingabout decision-making, perhaps
one of the most important taskswe have to do in life.
And before we get into all ofthat, I want you to just reflect
on how you approach decisionsbig ones, small ones as a leader
, as a parent, as a partner, asa whatever.
Do you rely on your gutinstinct, go by a certain set of
(00:40):
values or principles or try toweigh all possible outcomes?
Now, obviously, it depends onthe context and what's at stake,
and so in today's episode,we're going to be talking about
all of this, as we share threebig takeaways from the book
Thinking in Bets Making SmarterDecisions when you Don't have
All the Facts by Annie Duke.
She is a professional pokerplayer and uses that as the
(01:05):
basis to challenge us aboutthinking of our decisions in the
terms of bets and uncertainty.
I'm joined in this conversationtoday by my friend and colleague
, brian Schubring, and togetherwe'll explore how leaders can
make better decisions byembracing uncertainty,
separating the process from theoutcome and learning from the
decision of others.
(01:26):
This conversation, we think,will help you reflect a little
bit on your own decision makingprocess and perhaps give you
some new tools to apply in bothyour personal and professional
decision making lives.
Let's dive into this.
Good morning, brian.
How's my hair look?
Nathan, your hair looks so good.
(01:47):
I'm so excited to do thispodcast with you.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
We were talking about how much time I spend looking
at my hair in the mirror or whatI'm wearing.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
It is too much hair, Too much time on the hair.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
I should say I don't think I've ever been anything
but that.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
I agree, I agree.
And I directed traffic thismorning for school and I wore a
taco costume because it's TacoTuesday and my hair is all I'm
realizing now.
I should have looked at itbefore.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Yeah, but your hair is like George Clooney hair.
It's like it always looks right.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
It's getting a little grayer.
I'm I have to make this bigdecision.
I'm getting my haircut nextweek and whether or not I want
to go really short or kind ofkeep what I'm doing, cause this
is kind of I don't know, itmight be time.
How do you make decisions,brian?
Speaking of decisions, do youhave a like a decision?
Speaker 2 (02:43):
tree.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
I'm pivoting hard decisions.
Do you have a like a decisiontree?
I'm pivoting hard?
Yeah, like would you say a verybig, broad statement that, as a
leader, as a husband, as afather, others, as a business
owner, as an athlete, aswhatever way you want to take
this do you have any particularway that you make decisions
about things?
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Two things.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Philosophy rubric two things okay.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
It may sound like three.
I think that I am primarilydirected by my gut instinct.
I am directed by precedent andthe prize what's the goal?
I think that the older I get,the more I realize that those
three factors are somewhat atplay.
(03:28):
I really have a gut instinct onwhat I'm looking for, what I'm
dreaming, what I'm aspiring to.
I'm realizing that I aminfluenced by history, lived
experience, past experience, andI also want to be very clear on
the goal and then the directionthat we're going.
Why do you ask Nathan?
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Well, I'm curious to know about this because today
we're going to be talking aboutmaking better decisions for
leaders, and this came to mebecause I read this book called
Thinking in Bets Making SmarterDecisions when you Don't have
All the Facts, by Annie Duke.
I don't know if you can focus.
Yeah, totally, have you readthis?
I believe Linda recommendedthis to me.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
I think Linda read it .
I'm pretty sure I didn't.
Okay, I don't recognize thecover.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
So it is real quick.
So the author, annie Duke, is aprofessional poker player, oh,
and which, when she initiallyrecommended it to me, I was like
a poker player.
What is this going to be about?
But when you think about it,poker is basically just a whole
bunch of decisions, one afteranother, and poker players the
(04:36):
really good ones.
Yes, it's like in the movieswhere you kind of read people
and figure out, but it'sessentially evaluating
probabilities and makingdecisions based on that, and so
the core thesis of the book isthat making decisions and you
can apply this to yourleadership life, to your
(04:58):
personal life, to your financiallife, to your you know, weekend
softball league, sporting life,whatever it is the core thesis
of the book is thatdecision-making it's more about
managing uncertainty andprobabilities than it is about
predicting outcomes, and so whatshe really talks about is that
(05:19):
and I'm applying the leadershiplens to it but leaders can make
smarter decisions by reallyfocusing on the process rather
than the results, and thatdoesn't mean that you know
they'll necessarily have moresuccess making decisions and
(05:46):
control more of what you cancontrol, to kind of let go of
the fact that there's all theseunpredictable, unforeseen
examples.
And so I have three we'll callthem big takeaways, and what I
want to do is kind of presentthe big takeaway, give you just
a little bit from the book andthen have you riff on it and see
if this matches up with yourexperience as a leader, with any
of our leadership visions, work, working with leaders and
(06:10):
coaching leaders, and then justkind of kind of kick it around
Is this, does this sound good toyou?
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Yeah, it does I.
I'm getting kind of nervous onyour expectation on me being
able to riff.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Oh, you're a riffer, as you say, just totally you
know random riffing.
You're a good riffer.
So here are the three points.
I want to focus on and there'sprobably lots more and listeners
, if you've read this book, Iwould love to hear your thoughts
.
But the three big points arenumber one embrace uncertainty
and make decisions based onprobabilities.
That's number one.
Number two separate thedecision-making process from the
(06:46):
outcome, and this is one that'sreally interesting, this one, I
think this will be the the, thecrux of our conversation, Okay.
And the third one is learn fromthe decisions of others and
evaluate in the context of thesituation.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
So I want to hear your perspective on that one.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Yeah, that one's.
That one's really good.
So the first one embraceuncertainty and make decisions
based on probability.
So I'm not a poker player.
Coincidentally, I am hosting apoker fundraiser for my kids'
school in a few weeks.
I know how to play poker.
I've played poker.
I don't understand theprobabilities behind it, but
(07:25):
what she talks about a lot inthe book is how, in poker,
players make these decisionsbased on tons of incomplete
information.
They're basically betting onthe likelihood of a certain
outcome, and so I don't know ifyou know anything about poker,
but kind of Texas hold'em, fivecard.
You get two cards in your hand.
They lay down five cards I'mblanking.
(07:48):
They lay down cards on thetable.
I have no idea Whoever makesthe best hand out of those wins.
There's all these differentthings.
This really is not about poker,but the point is is you're
trying to make all of thesepredictions based on okay, I
have these two cards in my hand,there's these on the table.
So you know, it's like I don'tknow if you've ever seen the old
(08:09):
movie Rain man.
You're making all theseprobabilities and so what she
says leaders need to do andhere's I'll stop talking about
the book and we can talk aboutsome examples.
Is you look at what you have infront of you?
You look at the information,you look at the facts?
Is you look at what you have infront of you?
You look at the information,you look at the facts, you make
the best decision that you canbased on the best case scenario,
(08:31):
with what you know, and youjust kind of embrace this idea
of uncertainty.
Let me just pause there.
Does that make sense?
I don't want to over-explain orunder-explain this, but does
that make sense?
Because I think a lot of timesI want to have a certain outcome
before I make a decision.
And that's she's just sayingyou can't, you can never do that
which creates a different typeof anxiety when making decisions
(08:53):
.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
That's that's probably the one thing I want to
say off the bat.
When you talk aboutprobabilities, about making
decisions based on probabilities, uh, I, I.
My immediate reaction to thatis all the leaders that we are
(09:16):
exposed to that are making thesecalculated decisions based on
mostly unknowns.
When it comes to probabilities,for the sake of this
conversation, I would like toask well, what are the elements
of the probabilities, like namewhat those are, because I don't
know.
Nathan in the book does.
(09:37):
Does the author, does she talkabout the different types of
probabilities that a person ismaking decisions against?
Speaker 1 (09:45):
a little bit.
She also talks about, like youknow, if it's some sort of life
or death decision, you're goingto want a much higher
probability than if you're likedeciding where to go to eat, and
so there's somecontextualization around like
that, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Okay, yeah, it does make sense because I'm thinking
about when leaders are makingbusiness decision.
I feel like there areprobabilities that they're
making decisions against, likethe probabilities of individuals
, the current environment, anykind of indicators on what the
future might be.
I think that leaders areputting a lot of risk in how
(10:27):
long they think their timelineis, that there's certainty to
the behaviors, and they'rebetting on the probability that
the behaviors and attitudes willcontinue for a period of time.
Now, I haven't read the book,I'm just making a hunch on.
There are a variety of elementsthat people are making this bet
on and a lot of leaders,including myself, get surprised
(10:49):
when we get that wrong, where aperson's behaviors, attitudes or
beliefs don't play out as longas we thought, or if
environmental circumstanceschange, then you're losing or
then you know there's somethingabout that decision that's going
to go wrong rather quickly.
But I think that the point thatyou're making, Nathan, is to
embrace the uncertainty of whatis to come, making the best
(11:12):
decision you have, and howcomplex are we looking at the
elements of probability.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Yeah, and it's interesting to connect to this I
heard Jeff Bezos on a podcasttalking about like SpaceX or not
SpaceX, blue Origin, his spaceprogram, one way or two way door
decisions.
And so he's like there's somethings in life and business
where it's a one way door you gothrough, you can never come
(11:39):
back.
There are these giganticdecisions and you really need to
have a very high probability ofthis is the right decision.
But even with that, you don'tknow.
And so another factor that sheactually mentioned, and he
mentioned this podcast, was like, and to your point of like,
what is the timeframe?
Is this a you know decision?
(11:59):
I'm going to get an immediateresult and be able to make some
more decisions based on that?
Is this like a five, 10, 20year thing?
Or is this a decision we canmake and if it's wrong, come
back and make another decision?
And so there's some of that withuncertainty, that different
people she talks about this inthe book too have different
levels of comfortability withuncertainty, different you know
(12:22):
again, just timeframes of which,with how much time do they have
to you know better decision,just go with what's got a higher
probability and done.
It's more about this idea ofwhen you make this decision, you
(12:46):
do it to the best of yourability at the time, except that
you don't know all the answers,except that there's possibly a
better decision out there.
But based on what I know today,this is what you know.
We have to make a decision tomove forward and she also talks
in there, but people getparalyzed.
Like oh, for sure any decisionand that's sort of that.
(13:06):
They're like oh, I just don'tknow because I could go guess
wrong.
It's like you have to dosomething.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
You know what's gonna you know what's going to be the
51% versus 49% outcome.
So, and the I mean there's alot of pressure on the decision
maker to you know, play out thatlikelihood scenario in his or
her brain on what might or mightnot happen.
Right, but again, it's going tochange tomorrow or later today,
(13:32):
exactly so.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Embrace uncertainty, go with the highest probability.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
And embracing uncertainty is also focused on
oneself as well, because thecertainty you have today may
change tomorrow, based upon thefactors that you're considering.
Your attitudes may also change,and so there's something about
embracing the uncertainty thatthere's a likelihood that you
may not make the same decisionsix months from now.
But, right now, you're bettingon the likelihood of something
(13:59):
that's going to happen, based onthe patterns that got you here.
Good luck.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Yeah, good luck.
And what we don't have time toget into today, but I'll just
mention, is, you know, as theleader, your self-worth and your
I mean financial and jobsecurity, and a lot is riding on
some of these decisions, and soyou know, it gets emotional and
(14:24):
so, again, we can't unpack that, but I guess, just to keep that
in mind, the second point, orthe second thing that I found
most interesting about this book, was separating the decision
making process from the outcome,and I don't know how many times
I have been in a situation, onboth, both ends of this scenario
(14:44):
I'm going to mention, where youdo something and you're like
that was a failure.
Why would you decide to do that?
And it's like, well, based onwhat I knew at the time, this is
why I did it.
It's like, yeah, but why wouldyou possibly think that?
And the story in the book thatreally made this stand out was
(15:07):
several years ago, when theSeahawks and Patriots were in
the Super Bowl.
The Seahawks were at the oneyard line.
They were going to punch it infor a touchdown, put the game
away, win the super bowl.
Pete carroll, the head coach,he they end up calling for a
pass play.
It's intercepted.
New england runs it back,touchdown, win the game.
And everyone's like, why in theworld, when you've got I forget
(15:31):
his name marshall lynch, maybethe league leading rusher why
would you not just pop it in?
And to this day, he stands bythis decision because, based on
these probabilities, this was,from a statistical technical
perspective, the right decision.
And so one of the points in thebook is sometimes great
decisions do not lead to a greatoutcome, sometimes poor
(15:55):
decisions lead to a greatoutcome, and so you really have
to focus on the process and notthe outcome when it comes to
decisions.
What resonates about that withyou?
Speaker 2 (16:05):
That the decision-making process is like
stacking bricks the longer youdo it, the higher and more
stable it gets.
It's like there's just it's asmall process.
The outcome is something that Ireally feel we don't really
have much control over.
I think the outcome issomething that I really feel we
don't really have much controlover.
I think the outcome is likesetting a direction and not
necessarily setting an outcome,is facing a specific direction
(16:29):
but not navigating one route toget there.
You're just headed, You'regoing in a specific heading.
I think that a lot of peoplethat myself included when you're
focused solely on outcomes,then there tends to be this
level of expectation and evenperfectionism and what you're
(16:49):
doing along the way, because youfear so much that you're going
to miss a specific outcome.
When directional like justheading in the right direction,
I think, is, you know, the thebest decision.
When I first read this outline,when you sent it to me earlier
today, this, this one, poppedout.
this question popped out to mequite specifically because, as
(17:12):
well, Nathan, you've been aroundfor a while, you know that I'm
very outcome for a while youknow that I'm very outcome, you
know goal-driven and that is abig part of my life, and having
you know success or you know thecorrect outcome is often
defined by how I got there andnot necessarily about a specific
(17:33):
outcome that was dreamed up.
It's the process of visualizingthe parts of the journey that
you can anticipate withoutknowing exactly where you're
going to end up, right, right,well, and I think sometimes you
know, brian, like in leadershipexample, no-transcript or it
(18:21):
didn't work.
I don't know if it's a failure.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
It didn't work as planned it didn't work as
planned and so I would, you know, love to run that whole
decision-making process.
It's like that was not a goodoutcome, but I have to imagine
that they had some good data.
They were looking atprobabilities, like this is a
smart move for us.
Who knows why it didn't work.
Maybe, listeners, if you'reconnected to Target, you can
(18:43):
tell us.
But sometimes we just look atthat outcome and be like those
are dumb people, they made adumb decision, they weren't
smart, they weren't doing allthis stuff and it's like, you
know, maybe cut yourself a break, maybe it was just that process
.
But this is also where I thinkvalues and long-term short like
there's a lot of stuff that cango into that decision-making
(19:04):
process.
And I think maybe the key andthis is partially why I asked
you at the very beginning islike what's your decision-making
process?
I think the key for anyorganization is sort of have
some kind of rubric.
It's like this is how we makedecisions.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
There's so many different contextual examples of
that's specifically achieved,usually way down the road, when
there's another option of, youknow, like I was saying earlier,
heading in the right directionand then marking the steps of
progress that are being mademoment by moment, day by day,
activity by activity.
And the amount of uh, you knowemotional and neurological
(20:03):
gratification that a person canreceive on a daily basis, I
think is much better for anindividual than delaying a
specific you know, then delayingthe gratification around a
specific outcome.
As you know, in the fitnessindustry a lot of people are
asking me like how do theyattain certain goals?
I try to remind people thatthat one specific outcome,
(20:25):
whether it's weight loss or acertain fitness level or BMI
index, or something that'sachieved by attending one class
at a time, making healthychoices one choice at a time,
and understanding that we canmake progress towards a specific
outcome, but we're also makingdecisions in this daily routine
(20:47):
that we can set up and becomemuch more encouraged along the
way, and that, to me, is agreater payoff to the individual
, because if they can understandand begin to teach themselves
that this you know dosing if youwould you know all these
positive feelings.
Yeah, that's a daily thing and Iknow an individual where
they're trying to.
(21:07):
You know, um, you know, take acertain amount of fitness
classes within a month andthat's almost like a daily
gratification of being able tosee them take these steps
towards getting to that goal andthat, to me, is yep the
outcomes out there of living ahealthier lifestyle.
But you're making these smalldecisions and, Nathan, like you
and I like, with this whole bookidea, you and I have goals or
(21:30):
like we're looking for, you knowa specific outcome for reading,
but we don't know what's goingto happen until we actually dive
into a book.
And even what you said lasttime we podcast was giving
yourself the opportunity to notneeding to finish the book.
Even that is gratifying becauseyou realize that my outcome is
to learn something and if you'renot, it's okay to make a
(21:52):
decision to stop and trysomething new.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Well and that's a great segue to our last one here
Learn from the decisions ofothers and evaluate in the
context of the situation.
So Shirley stresses theimportance of like how do you
learn from other leaders, otherdecision makers, in high risk
environments, low riskenvironments, and evaluate those
decisions in context, I thinkcan help all of us evaluate and
(22:19):
make better decisions.
And again, knowing that there'suncertainty, knowing you got to
go on probabilities, knowingyou know to focus on that
process.
But I think that's where eveneven something like reading this
book of like how do I makebetter decisions?
How do you learn from you knowcharacters in a novel, like what
I was saying last week?
How do we learn from you knoweither sitting down with someone
(22:40):
and say how did you decide tosell this house and buy that
house?
How did you decide to sellbusiness, this business, and buy
that business?
How did you decide to write abook?
How did I mean fill in theblank?
How can you expand yourrepertoire, so to speak, so that
when it comes time to make asimilar decision, you have
something to pull from?
(23:02):
Do you, can you think of it?
Well, first, what do you thinkof that?
But then, second, do you haveany examples of leaders that are
good at kind of leaning on thedecisions of others, leaders
that they've learned from?
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Man.
I know both.
I know a lot of leaders thatrely on learning from the
decision of, from the decisionsof others, and I also know a lot
of leaders that considerthemselves, you know, so
entrepreneurial or pioneeringthat they're not going to listen
to anybody else.
They want to do it their ownway.
So I kind of have thisexperience where I know people
(23:36):
that are on both ends of thespectrum and anywhere in the
middle.
I'm not drawn to the learninglessons or learning from the
decisions of others as much as Iam.
Evaluate the context, becausethat to me, I think, is that's
almost the more importantquestion to me.
Of course, I would inviteanyone to learn lessons from
(23:59):
other people that have gonebefore they've learned something
and to let those decisionsinform the decision that you're
making.
But I think it's even moreimportant to evaluate the
context.
If you evaluate the contextualconditions of a decision in the
past, of course that's not goingto be mirrored in the present,
but to also do the practice ofevaluating the contextual
(24:23):
circumstance that you'recurrently in and also knowing.
You know, from our first point,you're still making a decision
based on a likelihood orprobability of something
happening, but contextual forceswill always influence your
decision.
If you can imagine, if you would, a team of individuals sailing
(24:45):
like sailing a boat, sailinglike sailing a boat.
They are always responding tothe contextual, the context of
their situation, the context ofthe water, the context of the
sailing vessel and the contextof the atmosphere, and those
contexts are always changing.
(25:06):
So that, to me, is so important.
We always say that contextmatters and context has a
shaping influence.
Those are things that we reallyreally lean on, so I just love
this point.
Number three learn from thedecisions of others and evaluate
in the context of theirsituation and in the context of
(25:27):
your situation.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
It's interesting you say that because I was.
We had some friends over fordinner and they had made a
decision about something intheir life that I was like
telling my wife.
I was like that seemsridiculous.
Why would they do this, Do they?
Speaker 2 (25:41):
have four kids.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
What's that?
Do they have four kids?
Not four, but.
And so they were over and justsort of kind of off the cuff.
I was like, hey, why did uh?
I'm just curious, why'd youguys decide to do that?
And when he when the husbandkind of unpacked his process,
shared a little more context, Iwas like, oh, that actually I
can totally see that wouldn'thave made sense for our family
(26:05):
of six, but that makes sense andI think that was actually a
good decision and maybe we'll.
I don't know if we'll close onthis, if you have any thoughts,
but sometimes you know, when youlearn from others, it's like
get that context, understandwhat's going on, understand more
of your own context when makingthese decisions.
And then I think sometimes,brian, we need to set like a
(26:27):
deadline.
I'm going to decide by thisdate, because you could always
get more information right, youcan always collect more details.
Eventually, you do have to makea decision and decide with this
.
So do you have any finalthoughts or last little nuggets
of wisdom that might help ourlisteners as they're approaching
a decision?
I mean, we've talked aboutembracing uncertainty.
(26:49):
We've talked about separatingthe outcome from the
decision-making process and thenlearning from others.
How can we learn from you inthis?
With one, I don't know truthbomb.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
One of the things that I would just say is be kind
in making your decisions,knowing that the likelihood of
your decision going wrong ispretty high.
You will always have a chanceto make another decision.
And practice that with yourselfand with others.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
I love it, brian.
Thank you so much.
Thank you, nathan, and thankyou for listening to the
Leadership Vision Podcast, ourshow helping you build positive
team culture.
If you found value from thisepisode or any of our other
materials, we would love it Ifyou could share this with
someone that you think couldbenefit from this as well.
We'd also appreciate it If youcould follow us and all the
(27:39):
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Speaker 2 (27:45):
I got so many leaders Consultingcom.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
I might leave that in there, cause that was a funny
little plug up and follow us onSpotify, on Apple Podcasts or
wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm Nathan Friberg and I'mBrian Schubring, and on behalf
of our entire team, thanks forlistening.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
Stop.
You are listening to the Leadership Vision Podcast,
our show helping you buildpositive team culture.
Our consulting firm has beendoing this work for the past 25
years so that leaders arementally engaged and emotionally
healthy.
To learn more about us, you canvisit us on the web at
leadershipvisionconsultingcom.
Hello everyone, my name isNathan Friberg and today on the
(00:20):
podcast, we're gonna be talkingabout decision-making, perhaps
one of the most important taskswe have to do in life.
And before we get into all ofthat, I want you to just reflect
on how you approach decisionsbig ones, small ones as a leader
, as a parent, as a partner, asa whatever.
Do you rely on your gutinstinct, go by a certain set of
(00:40):
values or principles or try toweigh all possible outcomes?
Now, obviously, it depends onthe context and what's at stake,
and so in today's episode,we're going to be talking about
all of this, as we share threebig takeaways from the book
Thinking in Bets Making SmarterDecisions when you Don't have
All the Facts by Annie Duke.
She is a professional pokerplayer and uses that as the
(01:05):
basis to challenge us aboutthinking of our decisions in the
terms of bets and uncertainty.
I'm joined in this conversationtoday by my friend and colleague
, brian Schubring, and togetherwe'll explore how leaders can
make better decisions byembracing uncertainty,
separating the process from theoutcome and learning from the
decision of others.
(01:26):
This conversation, we think,will help you reflect a little
bit on your own decision makingprocess and perhaps give you
some new tools to apply in bothyour personal and professional
decision making lives.
Let's dive into this.
Good morning, brian.
How's my hair look?
Nathan, your hair looks so good.
(01:47):
I'm so excited to do thispodcast with you.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
We were talking about how much time I spend looking
at my hair in the mirror or whatI'm wearing.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
It is too much hair, Too much time on the hair.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
I should say I don't think I've ever been anything
but that.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
I agree, I agree.
And I directed traffic thismorning for school and I wore a
taco costume because it's TacoTuesday and my hair is all I'm
realizing now.
I should have looked at itbefore.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Yeah, but your hair is like George Clooney hair.
It's like it always looks right.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
It's getting a little grayer.
I'm I have to make this bigdecision.
I'm getting my haircut nextweek and whether or not I want
to go really short or kind ofkeep what I'm doing, cause this
is kind of I don't know, itmight be time.
How do you make decisions,brian?
Speaking of decisions, do youhave a like a decision?
Speaker 2 (02:43):
tree.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
I'm pivoting hard decisions.
Do you have a like a decisiontree?
I'm pivoting hard?
Yeah, like would you say a verybig, broad statement that, as a
leader, as a husband, as afather, others, as a business
owner, as an athlete, aswhatever way you want to take
this do you have any particularway that you make decisions
about things?
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Two things.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Philosophy rubric two things okay.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
It may sound like three.
I think that I am primarilydirected by my gut instinct.
I am directed by precedent andthe prize what's the goal?
I think that the older I get,the more I realize that those
three factors are somewhat atplay.
(03:28):
I really have a gut instinct onwhat I'm looking for, what I'm
dreaming, what I'm aspiring to.
I'm realizing that I aminfluenced by history, lived
experience, past experience, andI also want to be very clear on
the goal and then the directionthat we're going.
Why do you ask Nathan?
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Well, I'm curious to know about this because today
we're going to be talking aboutmaking better decisions for
leaders, and this came to mebecause I read this book called
Thinking in Bets Making SmarterDecisions when you Don't have
All the Facts, by Annie Duke.
I don't know if you can focus.
Yeah, totally, have you readthis?
I believe Linda recommendedthis to me.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
I think Linda read it .
I'm pretty sure I didn't.
Okay, I don't recognize thecover.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
So it is real quick.
So the author, annie Duke, is aprofessional poker player, oh,
and which, when she initiallyrecommended it to me, I was like
a poker player.
What is this going to be about?
But when you think about it,poker is basically just a whole
bunch of decisions, one afteranother, and poker players the
(04:36):
really good ones.
Yes, it's like in the movieswhere you kind of read people
and figure out, but it'sessentially evaluating
probabilities and makingdecisions based on that, and so
the core thesis of the book isthat making decisions and you
can apply this to yourleadership life, to your
(04:58):
personal life, to your financiallife, to your you know, weekend
softball league, sporting life,whatever it is the core thesis
of the book is thatdecision-making it's more about
managing uncertainty andprobabilities than it is about
predicting outcomes, and so whatshe really talks about is that
(05:19):
and I'm applying the leadershiplens to it but leaders can make
smarter decisions by reallyfocusing on the process rather
than the results, and thatdoesn't mean that you know
they'll necessarily have moresuccess making decisions and
(05:46):
control more of what you cancontrol, to kind of let go of
the fact that there's all theseunpredictable, unforeseen
examples.
And so I have three we'll callthem big takeaways, and what I
want to do is kind of presentthe big takeaway, give you just
a little bit from the book andthen have you riff on it and see
if this matches up with yourexperience as a leader, with any
of our leadership visions, work, working with leaders and
(06:10):
coaching leaders, and then justkind of kind of kick it around
Is this, does this sound good toyou?
Speaker 2 (06:16):
Yeah, it does I.
I'm getting kind of nervous onyour expectation on me being
able to riff.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Oh, you're a riffer, as you say, just totally you
know random riffing.
You're a good riffer.
So here are the three points.
I want to focus on and there'sprobably lots more and listeners
, if you've read this book, Iwould love to hear your thoughts
.
But the three big points arenumber one embrace uncertainty
and make decisions based onprobabilities.
That's number one.
Number two separate thedecision-making process from the
(06:46):
outcome, and this is one that'sreally interesting, this one, I
think this will be the the, thecrux of our conversation, Okay.
And the third one is learn fromthe decisions of others and
evaluate in the context of thesituation.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
So I want to hear your perspective on that one.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Yeah, that one's.
That one's really good.
So the first one embraceuncertainty and make decisions
based on probability.
So I'm not a poker player.
Coincidentally, I am hosting apoker fundraiser for my kids'
school in a few weeks.
I know how to play poker.
I've played poker.
I don't understand theprobabilities behind it, but
(07:25):
what she talks about a lot inthe book is how, in poker,
players make these decisionsbased on tons of incomplete
information.
They're basically betting onthe likelihood of a certain
outcome, and so I don't know ifyou know anything about poker,
but kind of Texas hold'em, fivecard.
You get two cards in your hand.
They lay down five cards I'mblanking.
(07:48):
They lay down cards on thetable.
I have no idea Whoever makesthe best hand out of those wins.
There's all these differentthings.
This really is not about poker,but the point is is you're
trying to make all of thesepredictions based on okay, I
have these two cards in my hand,there's these on the table.
So you know, it's like I don'tknow if you've ever seen the old
(08:09):
movie Rain man.
You're making all theseprobabilities and so what she
says leaders need to do andhere's I'll stop talking about
the book and we can talk aboutsome examples.
Is you look at what you have infront of you?
You look at the information,you look at the facts?
Is you look at what you have infront of you?
You look at the information,you look at the facts, you make
the best decision that you canbased on the best case scenario,
(08:31):
with what you know, and youjust kind of embrace this idea
of uncertainty.
Let me just pause there.
Does that make sense?
I don't want to over-explain orunder-explain this, but does
that make sense?
Because I think a lot of timesI want to have a certain outcome
before I make a decision.
And that's she's just sayingyou can't, you can never do that
which creates a different typeof anxiety when making decisions
(08:53):
.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
That's that's probably the one thing I want to
say off the bat.
When you talk aboutprobabilities, about making
decisions based on probabilities, uh, I, I.
My immediate reaction to thatis all the leaders that we are
(09:16):
exposed to that are making thesecalculated decisions based on
mostly unknowns.
When it comes to probabilities,for the sake of this
conversation, I would like toask well, what are the elements
of the probabilities, like namewhat those are, because I don't
know.
Nathan in the book does.
(09:37):
Does the author, does she talkabout the different types of
probabilities that a person ismaking decisions against?
Speaker 1 (09:45):
a little bit.
She also talks about, like youknow, if it's some sort of life
or death decision, you're goingto want a much higher
probability than if you're likedeciding where to go to eat, and
so there's somecontextualization around like
that, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Okay, yeah, it does make sense because I'm thinking
about when leaders are makingbusiness decision.
I feel like there areprobabilities that they're
making decisions against, likethe probabilities of individuals
, the current environment, anykind of indicators on what the
future might be.
I think that leaders areputting a lot of risk in how
(10:27):
long they think their timelineis, that there's certainty to
the behaviors, and they'rebetting on the probability that
the behaviors and attitudes willcontinue for a period of time.
Now, I haven't read the book,I'm just making a hunch on.
There are a variety of elementsthat people are making this bet
on and a lot of leaders,including myself, get surprised
(10:49):
when we get that wrong, where aperson's behaviors, attitudes or
beliefs don't play out as longas we thought, or if
environmental circumstanceschange, then you're losing or
then you know there's somethingabout that decision that's going
to go wrong rather quickly.
But I think that the point thatyou're making, Nathan, is to
embrace the uncertainty of whatis to come, making the best
(11:12):
decision you have, and howcomplex are we looking at the
elements of probability.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Yeah, and it's interesting to connect to this I
heard Jeff Bezos on a podcasttalking about like SpaceX or not
SpaceX, blue Origin, his spaceprogram, one way or two way door
decisions.
And so he's like there's somethings in life and business
where it's a one way door you gothrough, you can never come
(11:39):
back.
There are these giganticdecisions and you really need to
have a very high probability ofthis is the right decision.
But even with that, you don'tknow.
And so another factor that sheactually mentioned, and he
mentioned this podcast, was like, and to your point of like,
what is the timeframe?
Is this a you know decision?
(11:59):
I'm going to get an immediateresult and be able to make some
more decisions based on that?
Is this like a five, 10, 20year thing?
Or is this a decision we canmake and if it's wrong, come
back and make another decision?
And so there's some of that withuncertainty, that different
people she talks about this inthe book too have different
levels of comfortability withuncertainty, different you know
(12:22):
again, just timeframes of which,with how much time do they have
to you know better decision,just go with what's got a higher
probability and done.
It's more about this idea ofwhen you make this decision, you
(12:46):
do it to the best of yourability at the time, except that
you don't know all the answers,except that there's possibly a
better decision out there.
But based on what I know today,this is what you know.
We have to make a decision tomove forward and she also talks
in there, but people getparalyzed.
Like oh, for sure any decisionand that's sort of that.
(13:06):
They're like oh, I just don'tknow because I could go guess
wrong.
It's like you have to dosomething.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
You know what's gonna you know what's going to be the
51% versus 49% outcome.
So, and the I mean there's alot of pressure on the decision
maker to you know, play out thatlikelihood scenario in his or
her brain on what might or mightnot happen.
Right, but again, it's going tochange tomorrow or later today,
(13:32):
exactly so.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Embrace uncertainty, go with the highest probability.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
And embracing uncertainty is also focused on
oneself as well, because thecertainty you have today may
change tomorrow, based upon thefactors that you're considering.
Your attitudes may also change,and so there's something about
embracing the uncertainty thatthere's a likelihood that you
may not make the same decisionsix months from now.
But, right now, you're bettingon the likelihood of something
(13:59):
that's going to happen, based onthe patterns that got you here.
Good luck.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Yeah, good luck.
And what we don't have time toget into today, but I'll just
mention, is, you know, as theleader, your self-worth and your
I mean financial and jobsecurity, and a lot is riding on
some of these decisions, and soyou know, it gets emotional and
(14:24):
so, again, we can't unpack that, but I guess, just to keep that
in mind, the second point, orthe second thing that I found
most interesting about this book, was separating the decision
making process from the outcome,and I don't know how many times
I have been in a situation, onboth, both ends of this scenario
(14:44):
I'm going to mention, where youdo something and you're like
that was a failure.
Why would you decide to do that?
And it's like, well, based onwhat I knew at the time, this is
why I did it.
It's like, yeah, but why wouldyou possibly think that?
And the story in the book thatreally made this stand out was
(15:07):
several years ago, when theSeahawks and Patriots were in
the Super Bowl.
The Seahawks were at the oneyard line.
They were going to punch it infor a touchdown, put the game
away, win the super bowl.
Pete carroll, the head coach,he they end up calling for a
pass play.
It's intercepted.
New england runs it back,touchdown, win the game.
And everyone's like, why in theworld, when you've got I forget
(15:31):
his name marshall lynch, maybethe league leading rusher why
would you not just pop it in?
And to this day, he stands bythis decision because, based on
these probabilities, this was,from a statistical technical
perspective, the right decision.
And so one of the points in thebook is sometimes great
decisions do not lead to a greatoutcome, sometimes poor
(15:55):
decisions lead to a greatoutcome, and so you really have
to focus on the process and notthe outcome when it comes to
decisions.
What resonates about that withyou?
Speaker 2 (16:05):
That the decision-making process is like
stacking bricks the longer youdo it, the higher and more
stable it gets.
It's like there's just it's asmall process.
The outcome is something that Ireally feel we don't really
have much control over.
I think the outcome issomething that I really feel we
don't really have much controlover.
I think the outcome is likesetting a direction and not
necessarily setting an outcome,is facing a specific direction
(16:29):
but not navigating one route toget there.
You're just headed, You'regoing in a specific heading.
I think that a lot of peoplethat myself included when you're
focused solely on outcomes,then there tends to be this
level of expectation and evenperfectionism and what you're
(16:49):
doing along the way, because youfear so much that you're going
to miss a specific outcome.
When directional like justheading in the right direction,
I think, is, you know, the thebest decision.
When I first read this outline,when you sent it to me earlier
today, this, this one, poppedout.
this question popped out to mequite specifically because, as
(17:12):
well, Nathan, you've been aroundfor a while, you know that I'm
very outcome for a while youknow that I'm very outcome, you
know goal-driven and that is abig part of my life, and having
you know success or you know thecorrect outcome is often
defined by how I got there andnot necessarily about a specific
(17:33):
outcome that was dreamed up.
It's the process of visualizingthe parts of the journey that
you can anticipate withoutknowing exactly where you're
going to end up, right, right,well, and I think sometimes you
know, brian, like in leadershipexample, no-transcript or it
(18:21):
didn't work.
I don't know if it's a failure.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
It didn't work as planned it didn't work as
planned and so I would, you know, love to run that whole
decision-making process.
It's like that was not a goodoutcome, but I have to imagine
that they had some good data.
They were looking atprobabilities, like this is a
smart move for us.
Who knows why it didn't work.
Maybe, listeners, if you'reconnected to Target, you can
(18:43):
tell us.
But sometimes we just look atthat outcome and be like those
are dumb people, they made adumb decision, they weren't
smart, they weren't doing allthis stuff and it's like, you
know, maybe cut yourself a break, maybe it was just that process
.
But this is also where I thinkvalues and long-term short like
there's a lot of stuff that cango into that decision-making
(19:04):
process.
And I think maybe the key andthis is partially why I asked
you at the very beginning islike what's your decision-making
process?
I think the key for anyorganization is sort of have
some kind of rubric.
It's like this is how we makedecisions.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
There's so many different contextual examples of
that's specifically achieved,usually way down the road, when
there's another option of, youknow, like I was saying earlier,
heading in the right directionand then marking the steps of
progress that are being mademoment by moment, day by day,
activity by activity.
And the amount of uh, you knowemotional and neurological
(20:03):
gratification that a person canreceive on a daily basis, I
think is much better for anindividual than delaying a
specific you know, then delayingthe gratification around a
specific outcome.
As you know, in the fitnessindustry a lot of people are
asking me like how do theyattain certain goals?
I try to remind people thatthat one specific outcome,
(20:25):
whether it's weight loss or acertain fitness level or BMI
index, or something that'sachieved by attending one class
at a time, making healthychoices one choice at a time,
and understanding that we canmake progress towards a specific
outcome, but we're also makingdecisions in this daily routine
(20:47):
that we can set up and becomemuch more encouraged along the
way, and that, to me, is agreater payoff to the individual
, because if they can understandand begin to teach themselves
that this you know dosing if youwould you know all these
positive feelings.
Yeah, that's a daily thing and Iknow an individual where
they're trying to.
(21:07):
You know, um, you know, take acertain amount of fitness
classes within a month andthat's almost like a daily
gratification of being able tosee them take these steps
towards getting to that goal andthat, to me, is yep the
outcomes out there of living ahealthier lifestyle.
But you're making these smalldecisions and, Nathan, like you
and I like, with this whole bookidea, you and I have goals or
(21:30):
like we're looking for, you knowa specific outcome for reading,
but we don't know what's goingto happen until we actually dive
into a book.
And even what you said lasttime we podcast was giving
yourself the opportunity to notneeding to finish the book.
Even that is gratifying becauseyou realize that my outcome is
to learn something and if you'renot, it's okay to make a
(21:52):
decision to stop and trysomething new.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Well and that's a great segue to our last one here
Learn from the decisions ofothers and evaluate in the
context of the situation.
So Shirley stresses theimportance of like how do you
learn from other leaders, otherdecision makers, in high risk
environments, low riskenvironments, and evaluate those
decisions in context, I thinkcan help all of us evaluate and
(22:19):
make better decisions.
And again, knowing that there'suncertainty, knowing you got to
go on probabilities, knowingyou know to focus on that
process.
But I think that's where eveneven something like reading this
book of like how do I makebetter decisions?
How do you learn from you knowcharacters in a novel, like what
I was saying last week?
How do we learn from you knoweither sitting down with someone
(22:40):
and say how did you decide tosell this house and buy that
house?
How did you decide to sellbusiness, this business, and buy
that business?
How did you decide to write abook?
How did I mean fill in theblank?
How can you expand yourrepertoire, so to speak, so that
when it comes time to make asimilar decision, you have
something to pull from?
(23:02):
Do you, can you think of it?
Well, first, what do you thinkof that?
But then, second, do you haveany examples of leaders that are
good at kind of leaning on thedecisions of others, leaders
that they've learned from?
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Man.
I know both.
I know a lot of leaders thatrely on learning from the
decision of, from the decisionsof others, and I also know a lot
of leaders that considerthemselves, you know, so
entrepreneurial or pioneeringthat they're not going to listen
to anybody else.
They want to do it their ownway.
So I kind of have thisexperience where I know people
(23:36):
that are on both ends of thespectrum and anywhere in the
middle.
I'm not drawn to the learninglessons or learning from the
decisions of others as much as Iam.
Evaluate the context, becausethat to me, I think, is that's
almost the more importantquestion to me.
Of course, I would inviteanyone to learn lessons from
(23:59):
other people that have gonebefore they've learned something
and to let those decisionsinform the decision that you're
making.
But I think it's even moreimportant to evaluate the
context.
If you evaluate the contextualconditions of a decision in the
past, of course that's not goingto be mirrored in the present,
but to also do the practice ofevaluating the contextual
(24:23):
circumstance that you'recurrently in and also knowing.
You know, from our first point,you're still making a decision
based on a likelihood orprobability of something
happening, but contextual forceswill always influence your
decision.
If you can imagine, if you would, a team of individuals sailing
(24:45):
like sailing a boat, sailinglike sailing a boat.
They are always responding tothe contextual, the context of
their situation, the context ofthe water, the context of the
sailing vessel and the contextof the atmosphere, and those
contexts are always changing.
(25:06):
So that, to me, is so important.
We always say that contextmatters and context has a
shaping influence.
Those are things that we reallyreally lean on, so I just love
this point.
Number three learn from thedecisions of others and evaluate
in the context of theirsituation and in the context of
(25:27):
your situation.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
It's interesting you say that because I was.
We had some friends over fordinner and they had made a
decision about something intheir life that I was like
telling my wife.
I was like that seemsridiculous.
Why would they do this, Do they?
Speaker 2 (25:41):
have four kids.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
What's that?
Do they have four kids?
Not four, but.
And so they were over and justsort of kind of off the cuff.
I was like, hey, why did uh?
I'm just curious, why'd youguys decide to do that?
And when he when the husbandkind of unpacked his process,
shared a little more context, Iwas like, oh, that actually I
can totally see that wouldn'thave made sense for our family
(26:05):
of six, but that makes sense andI think that was actually a
good decision and maybe we'll.
I don't know if we'll close onthis, if you have any thoughts,
but sometimes you know, when youlearn from others, it's like
get that context, understandwhat's going on, understand more
of your own context when makingthese decisions.
And then I think sometimes,brian, we need to set like a
(26:27):
deadline.
I'm going to decide by thisdate, because you could always
get more information right, youcan always collect more details.
Eventually, you do have to makea decision and decide with this
.
So do you have any finalthoughts or last little nuggets
of wisdom that might help ourlisteners as they're approaching
a decision?
I mean, we've talked aboutembracing uncertainty.
(26:49):
We've talked about separatingthe outcome from the
decision-making process and thenlearning from others.
How can we learn from you inthis?
With one, I don't know truthbomb.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
One of the things that I would just say is be kind
in making your decisions,knowing that the likelihood of
your decision going wrong ispretty high.
You will always have a chanceto make another decision.
And practice that with yourselfand with others.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
I love it, brian.
Thank you so much.
Thank you, nathan, and thankyou for listening to the
Leadership Vision Podcast, ourshow helping you build positive
team culture.
If you found value from thisepisode or any of our other
materials, we would love it Ifyou could share this with
someone that you think couldbenefit from this as well.
We'd also appreciate it If youcould follow us and all the
(27:39):
social channels.
Subscribe to our emailnewsletter.
Subscribe to our emailnewsletter at leadership.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
I got so many leaders Consultingcom.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
I might leave that in there, cause that was a funny
little plug up and follow us onSpotify, on Apple Podcasts or
wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm Nathan Friberg and I'mBrian Schubring, and on behalf
of our entire team, thanks forlistening.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
Stop.
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