Fear of making decisions: find out how to overcome it
As a Product Manager, you are called upon to make larger or smaller decisions practically every day.
Based on the priorities set, you will have to choose the development plan, who are the competitors to monitor, how to intercept the target audience, how to measure high-impact actions, and how to convince stakeholders that you are making the best strategic decisions.
I’m talking about an obvious burden of responsibility which, even after years of experience, can lead to a high level of stress. If left unmanaged, stress can generate fear and fear can generate a lethal paralyzing effect for those involved in Product Management.
Hence the need to prevent this highly deleterious loop. What you will find in this article are not grandma’s remedies or motivational mantras, but a scientific method that will allow you to overcome the fear of making decisions.
This is how the fear of making decisions is overcome
I recently reflected on my decision-making learning process. At the beginning of the career as a Junior Product Manager, it may happen that instinct becomes predominant in certain cases, and equally so does the fear of making decisions. This is completely natural and is attributable to the lack of experience which highlights the irrational sides of our being more. Not bad, because decisions in the business pyramid have consequences that are directly proportional to the role.
But when I started making decisions on high-impact business projects and strategies, and when the number of managed resources grew exponentially, I decided to stop and see if I was doing right.
In this way, I activated my decision-making process.
- I started reading manuals on how to make decisions
- I have listened to the advice of the most established decision-makers
- I have honed a scientific method not to be afraid to make decisions
Trick n. 1 – The principle of Efficiency to defeat the fear of decisions
The first feature in the decision-making learning process is derived from the 80/20 Principle. I will not stay here to dwell on something that you can explore independently (in any case I gladly recommend this book).
The substance of this principle is that by working on 20% of the decisions you can get 80% of the results, vice versa to quote Richard Koch (author of the book I suggested to you):
“80% of products, customers and employees contribute to just 20% of the profit. Which means that the most powerful assets of the business are blocked by a majority of much less effective segments and activities ”.
How does all this translate when one is stalled out of fear of deciding? Simple! Learning to choose which decisions to make and focusing on priority and relevant decisions. If you want to know what they are, proceed to the next chapter.
Trick n. 2 – Categorize decisions to avoid being afraid
Not all decisions are the same. To understand which decisions are priority and relevant, the Product Manager makes a first basic skimming between Irrevocable Decisions and Revocable Decisions, the difference is given by the consequence that the choice generates. On the one hand, decisions with reversible consequences, on the other, decisions with irreversible consequences.
The measurement of the consequences is based on various factors, one of the most relevant is the cost/benefit ratio.
- If I make the wrong decision, what is the cost that I will bear?
- If I make the right decision, what are the benefits?
What are the revocable decisions?
The good news is that many decisions are reversible, even if often the perception we have at the moment of the choice is completely opposite. This depends, to a large extent, on the fear of making decisions, which crystallizes us in an unmotivated stalemate and makes us waste precious time on revocable decisions, that is, recoverable with corrective and adjustment actions.
Note: The distinction is not between important decisions and unimportant decisions, but between revocable and non-revocable decisions. Which means that revocable decisions can be important if not decisive for the objectives.
Important revocable decision example
The logo is essential because it is a powerful marketing and branding tool and uniquely identifies the product. Yet, compared to the product that represents your core business, what is its weight percentage in terms of costs/benefits?
In the product launch phase, once the time resource is 100, devoting 80% of the time to brainstorming to find the perfect logo makes no sense because you will only have 20% time to test the product. Don’t you think it might be more useful to invert the proportions? After all, changing the product costs much more than changing the logo.
If a decision is revocable, it is not functional to waste time making a perfect choice right away, because you can make adjustments in the course of work: it is better to decide quickly, making the wrong (or rather not optimal) decision rather than wasting time without acting.
“If you’re good at course correcting, being wrong may be less costly than you think, whereas being slow is going to be expensive for sure” (Jeff Bezos)
What are the irrevocable decisions?
Irreversible decisions are a minority percentage of what you are going to make. Despite being few, however, they have a very significant weight: the cost to change them, in case of errors, is very high. That is why the time you will devote to the decision will not be considered as a loss but as an investment. Do not hurry!
Imagine having to put a flagship product update on the production line. You will not initially focus on the name, logo, or packaging (if necessary), but on the competition, customers and costs. Any decision you make will have a high impact on:
- Corporate organization
- Number of human resources
- Corporate core business
Trick n. 3 – Decision Tree to overcome the fear of strategic decisions
The Decision Tree or Decision Tree is a logical-graphic representation of Machine Learning, the learning of machines based on input and output variables. The input variables (also called Decision Tree attributes) derive from empirical and observation data. The output variables represent the decisions to be made and the consequent actions to be taken.
Find out more about the Decision Tree on Wikipedia.
To understand if the time has really come to make a decision and perhaps get help visually from an example of Decision Tree, you can use the Scrum principle of LRM (Last Responsible Moment). LRM states that one of the fundamental keys to making a decision is to do it when it is not possible to do otherwise, neither before nor after. Decisions, that is, must be taken at the right moments, without procrastinating or hastening. A decision is made when it is needed and when you have all the useful information available.
By ignoring the LRM scheme you risk making a misleading decision, which could have consequences over time.
How does the Decision Tree work?
The Decision Tree takes in an instance (INPUT) described by a vector and outputs a decision (OUTPUT) for example binary (YES / NO). The process takes place sequentially on the basis of a series of nodes that verify a certain condition. Each node can have two or more branches, proceeding along the flow leads to the decision related to the value of the variable examined.
Decision tree example
Here is an example of a Decision Tree based on the initial question, purely illustrative, “Whether to grant a mortgage”.
No Fear! KPI Decision Making
I dwelt above on speed in making decisions, as a rewarding factor. And I repeat: being fast is beneficial, provided that speed has a basis in the data.
If I make a decision, quickly, it means that I have gathered enough information to evaluate the problem from different perspectives. As Product Manager, it means that I have involved collaborators and key stakeholders in the decision-making process, for example, the Project Manager or the Product Owner, or the Head of Development.
For data collection, once again, I set myself the goal of being quick and selective: 60% of the total relevant information is more than sufficient as a basis for analysis. Within that 60%, they are able to give a weight based on the source.
What does it mean? It means that the role of the person, the level of experience, and the degree of involvement in the process are discriminating in order to attribute the right value to the information.
Have you ever attended very specific meetings where you had the distinct feeling that there were people out of place? I’ll give you an example, you are the Product Manager who is following the UX side development of a B2B product. Who do you expect to find in a strategic decision-making meeting? Probably not a sales manager who pushes to guide the choices in such a way that they are functional above all in terms of sales and customers. Not that it’s not important, but that’s not the point and location.
NB: In design thinking sessions on transversal issues, vice versa, having opinions from different backgrounds and from distant perspectives, represents an important added value for the process.
How to use metrics in decisions?
As a Product Manager, you will not be afraid of decisions, even unpopular ones, because you will be able to motivate them and share them effectively.
To achieve this double result, you will use a powerful and versatile tool: KPIs. I assume that you know perfectly well what KPIs are and that, in carrying out your profession, you have already had more than one opportunity to put them to good use.
In this context, I am interested in focusing on how to use key metrics to make strategic decisions and to measure their effects.
A set of high impact decision metrics could include the following elements:
- Customer profiling data
- Information on the stakeholders involved (investors and company figures)
- Product details (e.g. strengths and weaknesses)
- Sprint of the process
- List of costs and funding
What do you need a set of metrics for? To obtain data and numbers that will measure performance in relation to the objectives set and that will give you answers to the questions:
- How is the product progressing?
- Have areas for improvement been identified? If so, what must be done to intervene?
- Have the actions taken yield satisfactory results? If not, what are the priority critical points? Can I Make High Impact Reversible Decisions Quickly?
The Product Manager knows how to use all kinds of feedback to optimize his decision-making process and knows which metrics help him to overcome any obstacles along that process.
Let’s imagine we want to know customers are happy with the new product release. What metric helps us understand if there are strategic decisions to be made in the action plan? The CSAT metric measures customer satisfaction based on a survey / questionnaire, on a scale of 1 to 5. The results you get will help you understand which decisions to make and with which team members.
Why should you never be afraid of making decisions?
Do you know why fear of decisions should scare you? Because when you don’t decide you waste time and money.
No strategic decision, more or less complex, is made by itself: time passes inexorably and in the meantime nothing and no one will wait for you. The more time passes between the decision and the action, the worse it will be for the business and the team: what happens while you are debating Hamlet questions? It happens that the market will continue its evolution, the process will proceed as set and the team will advance in the set action plan.
All while you risk getting stuck. Paralyzed while you try to analyze all the available data, while you continue to search for new information to process and you strive (in vain!) To predict all the possible consequences of your decisions. Like a chess player who tries to anticipate every possible move of the opponent. When, in reality, the only opponent to beat is the fear of deciding that grips you.
This is a luxury that as a Product Manager you cannot afford: not deciding is itself the worst decision you can make.
Conclusion: action plan on how to make decisions without fear
Act methodically and reasonably, without wasting time on non-priority decisions (use the Pareto Principle), evaluating reversible and irreversible decisions and establishing decision-making metrics that will serve as a guide.
To conclude, whenever you feel that the fear of making decisions is taking over your ability to act, you can move the deadlock with an action plan that begins with these 3 questions:
- Is this decision really necessary or does it have a negligible impact?
- Is this decision reversible?
- Have I collected sufficient data from authoritative sources on the subject?