Prevent Decision Fatigue and Focus on What Matters
It’s estimated that people make about 35,000 decisions per day! I personally take forever when deciding what to eat and that only happens three times per day (okay sometimes more 😂). Add on all the other decisions to be made, plus the decisions you’re required to make as a leader in an agency (or any organization for that matter) and you’re quickly going to be battling decision fatigue.
Think about the somewhat simple task of writing an email, you need to make hundreds of decisions on that alone. From the tone, to vocabulary, to how to structure it. Do you call them James or Jim? The number of decisions can be staggering.
What is decision fatigue and why is it important to you?
Firstly, decision fatigue is when someone makes an exhaustive amount of decisions over a period of time and their ability to make quality decisions declines. Symptoms may vary, but could include a slowness to respond or uncharacteristic indecision. A person who is normally quick to make a choice could find it suddenly stressful or annoying to be presented with yet another decision to make.
Studies have proven that people who have to make a long series of decisions have lower self control and thus will start to make poorer decisions as time wears on. You might be able to see where I’m headed with this and how it can negatively impact you and your organization.
So, what are some things that can help?
Safe Environment: Create an environment where people aren’t afraid to ask questions. You can guarantee decision fatigue for yourself if you insist on micro-managing every step. Create an environment where the team feels comfortable coming to you for help or advice. But then let them make the decision and implement the choice unless they’re really stuck.
Make Decisions Well Rested: Get a good night’s rest. A study published in the journal SLEEP found that continuous wakefulness can be correlated to decreased speed in decision-making. Other executive functions, such as an ability to determine nuance or weigh the impact of a decision, are also affected. A person in this state of mind is more likely to make risky decisions. This helps enforce the adage to wait and, “Sleep on it!” Getting that full night’s rest is good for your brain and may make the difference when trying to make critical choices.
Have Processes in Place: Create systems that triage decision-making. Then you don’t have to start from scratch each time a new issue comes up. By having some processes or checklists in place, you’ll reduce the amount of questions that get asked repeatedly. The information will be available to you and the team!
Solution Focused: Create a culture amongst your team where anyone coming to you with an issue is also presenting a couple of solutions. Even better if they can lead with one of the solutions.
Set Clear Expectations: Make sure your teams know what the expectations are. This will give them some guardrails and enable them to stretch their creative muscles when coming up with solutions.
Hire Good Decision Makers: Surround yourself with great people who you know have a history of making good decisions. Even if they haven’t been perfect, if they’ve learned from them, that can be even more impactful in shaping who they are. Having a great track record will ensure you can trust the decisions that they make today.
Trust & Empower: Trusting others and empowering them to make decisions is a muscle that you develop over time. As a leader at your agency, it can be difficult to give up control, especially when it comes to making decisions that impact the company. Practice trusting your team with small decisions first, knowing that the end goal is a team of empowered, trusted leaders! Then you can gradually delegate more and more. Just remember that the more you can free yourself up from the day to day decisions, the more you can focus on scaling your organization.
There’s a good chance that if you’re the leader in an agency, you’ve been charged with making critical decisions. And if you’ve ever experienced some of the symptoms we mentioned, you likely feel pretty frustrated by it. I’m hopeful that this conversation will inspire you to start some new habits in your company.
The biggest way to prepare for decision fatigue is to prevent it. Before you feel the exhaustion fog, start implementing some of these tips to make way for a healthier company. Your agency will be on its way to becoming the well-oiled machine that it was meant to be.
