Tausi Insider

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. My phone kept ringing off the hook. I was receiving a flood of notifications, and the news kept giving mixed reports. March of 2020 wasn't just a frenzy, it was absolute chaos. But I don't need to remind you of that fact — it's hard not to recall those initial days of the pandemic. Back then, nobody seemed to know what was going on. There are no "founder guidelines" for what to do when an unprecedented pandemic hits. In those moments, it's just you and your choices. Colleagues were scrambling to set up Zoom meetings and re-structuring their organizations due to the new economic uncertainty. And we all had to address the biggest question of all: What's going to happen? In their enlightening story for Harvard Business Review , contributors David J. Snowden and Mary E Boone note that "Working in unfamiliar environments can help leaders and experts approach decision-mak...

Two staples of decision-making are the pro-con list and flipping a coin. Pro-con lists focus on the rational advantages and disadvantages of the options; flipping a coin is effective because when it lands and prescribes a course of action, your immediate reaction will reveal if that feels right, and hence, what you really want to do. Decision-making is about the head but also the gut. Instinct and emotions play a role. You need to be aware of that, and control it. Most of us don’t. “Human beings are flawed decision-makers,” management trainer Jim Loehr and Sheila Ohlsson, a senior scientist at the Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development at Tufts University, write in their book Wise Decisions . Among the classic organizational examples are the New Coke flop, Decca Records passing on the Beatles and Motorola deciding against smartphones. Bankruptcies, divorces and the bad health choices around us point to difficulties in personal decision-making. Decision-making fatigue can...