“Michael Nicholas has produced a fascinating piece of work. This book will challenge you in many ways – particularly in how you make decisions in all parts of your life, not just in daily business. It takes the reader through a logical, data-rich and scientifically proven journey that will cause you to pause and reflect on numerous occasions. If you only read one book this year, I would highly recommend you make it this one – you will not be disappointed.”
Stephen Murphy, President International Business, DJO Global
“I never normally get too excited about another decision making model or how to book, however this is an excellent read from Michael Nicholas. The book articulates as thorough a history and neuro-scientific explanation of decision-making through the ages of evolution as I have ever read, illustrated through great and at times tragically powerful examples and insights. It then concludes rather compellingly that the new way, despite the power of emerging artificial intelligence-based solutions, must nonetheless revolve around a human rather than machine outcome and contain a mindful approach at its core. I particularly loved ‘The Inside-Out Challenge’. ”
Ben Bengougam, Senior Vice President Human Resources EMEA, Hilton
“Over the last few years, mindfulness has become part of the mainstream business dialogue. To have meaningful impact on performance though, we need it brought to life in such a way that it entices us to really change our thinking and behaviours, not dissimilar to the impact of a great school teacher on his or her pupils. Michael achieves this in his new book, creating a convincing argument that mindfulness can be a key driver in improving one of the most critical leadership capabilities – decision making. It is fresh, thought provoking and very stimulating. Definitely a book that I'll be recommending to others.”
Robbie Feather, Commercial Director, Argos
“Rational decision making has long been the natural approach adopted by strategists and business leaders alike. But this book demonstrates that as the clock speed of business speeds up and business environments become more complex, this approach will become less and less reliable. Future business landscapes will place the emphasis onto learning how to develop aspects of mindset and judgment, rather than simply the empirical skills of old. Crucially, this book will show you how.”
Rob Woodward, Chief Executive Officer, STV Group plc
“The word ‘little’ in the title of this book is deceiving. The book is jam-packed with thoughts and insights that will transform your understanding of decision making, demonstrating that there is a lot more to it than: doing it on a whim, with gut instinct or as some kind of knee-jerk reaction, but that a purely rational approach won't get you there either. Michael diligently covers the whole bandwidth – from learning from mistakes and breaking the rules, all the way to how mindfulness awareness can reshape decision-making abilities. Enjoy it!”
Kai Boschmann, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, International SOS
“There can be no doubt that the number of decisions we are asked to make, and the amount of information available to consider in the process, are in exponential growth. So how can we synthesise and deal with such complexity quickly and confidently? This book will provide you with a completely new understanding of how to use your brain differently to make better and faster decisions. What's more, unlike many business books which I find to be quite turgid and uninspiring, this one manages to address a complex subject in depth, while remaining readable, digestible and stimulating. A brilliant book!”
Rhian Bartlett, Senior Director, Multinational eCommerce Corporation
“The Little Black Book of Decision Making teaches you how to train for success by dramatically improving your self-awareness, remaining in the moment, and focusing attention in a much more conscious and deliberate way. As I can attest from my own experience, as you do so you will become progressively more able to respond rather than reacting, enabling you to make decisions that are more flexible, creative, and appropriate to the challenges being faced. Like all things that are worthwhile, the application of the ideas in this book will require some effort, particularly at a mental level, but the results – including more consistent judgment and better relationships, both at work and in your life in general – will be well worth it.”
Richard Crampton, Managing Director, Retail Trading & Services, Coop
“This book may surprise you if you have never looked in depth at the impact that our internal world can have on how we perceive and evaluate external events. It is one of the finest books that I've read dealing not only with the ‘what’ but also the ‘how’ of decision making, presenting a powerful case that improvements must start from within. This book will help you to do just that.”
Aidan Neill, Chief Executive Officer, Bitposter
“Learn how you can develop to assure your success in today's ever changing environment… If you have read any of the many books on cognitive biases, but still found yourself wanting an answer to ‘how’ to improve your decision making, your interactions and ultimately your results, this book may be just what you have been waiting for. It draws on recent scientific discoveries to both explain why knowledge of these biases rarely allows them to be addressed effectively and what we can do to develop the mental capability and focus required. This is not a book that you can just expect to breeze through – it will force you to think. To me, that is a very good thing. I loved it. Michael is a true inspiration both as a coach and an author.”
Michelle Burton, HR Director, Poundland
“If you want to progress beyond the standard, and well understood, approaches to decision making to which we have all become accustomed, to the highest levels necessary for leadership, read this book. It offers an in-depth explanation of why and when changes are necessary, and will show you how to turn that understanding into results that extend far beyond the norm.”
Paul Sagoo, Chief Executive Officer, Lemon Group
“The Little Black Book of Decision Making provides a detailed exploration of the internal and external factors that drive decisions. Did you consider yourself to be a rational decision-maker? Read this book – it will give you pause for thought that definitely has the potential to improve your judgment. It shows how, by directing attention internally, towards our motivations and thoughts, we can increase self-awareness and thereby produce improvements in our external results. An engaging and insightful read.”
Jat Sahota, Head of Commercial – Retail, Land Securities
“Michael offers a different level of insight as to why we make decisions in the way that we do, how the ‘rules of the game’ are changing and, more importantly, how we can improve our decision making. I doubt whether this is a book that you will want to breeze through in an evening, as taking the time for deeper reflection could deliver huge benefits in terms of your own self-awareness, the value of which is just one of the many principles that the book addresses. Great stuff, and it works!”
Darren Sinclair, Zone Managing Director, Sainsbury's
“Decisions are vital to the way we navigate our daily lives both within the workplace and outside of it. We make hundreds, perhaps thousands, of decisions of varying significance every day, and yet how many of us genuinely pause to think about how we can improve our decision-making and the underlying judgment that results in these decisions? Michael Nicholas' book challenges us all to think about what's at the heart of the decision-making process and understand how we can improve the quality of our decisions through mindful awareness of the role of the conscious and sub-conscious in our thought processes. Simply put, the key to good decision-making starts from the inside-out and being willing to understand, and change, ourselves.”
Gareth Campbell, Senior Partner, International Consulting Firm
“This book is an incredibly enjoyable and thought-provoking read – exploring and developing an approach for attacking challenges that most of us are only just beginning to recognise or comprehend. Of course it is more than just a ‘management’ book for the workplace, with deep insights into thinking styles and emotional de-railers that can help outside of work too. In particular, it has reminded me of the vital importance of ensuring that I am always learning, while giving me the confidence to continue to grow and develop, and providing the direction to ensure that I do so efficiently.”
Chris Green, Chief Executive Officer, Arcus
This edition first published 2017
© 2017 Michael Nicholas
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Nicholas, Michael, 1962- author.
Title: The little black book of decision making : making complex decisions with confidence in a fast-moving world / by Michael Nicholas.
Description: Hoboken : Wiley, [2017] | Includes index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2017024314 (print) | ISBN 9780857087027 (cloth)
Subjects: LCSH: Decision making.
Classification: LCC HD30.23 .N523 2017 (print) | DDC 658.4/03–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017024314
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-0-857-08702-7 (hbk) ISBN 978-0-857-08701-0 (ebk)
ISBN 978-0-857-08705-8 (ebk)
Cover Design: Wiley
For my father, for always being there.
Looking back over my 30-year career to this point, there are countless people who have contributed to my professional growth and development, and many more who have profoundly shaped my personal journey. Without them, I could not be doing what I do, living a life I love full of meaning and purpose. They include family and friends, my coaches, thought leaders I've had the opportunity to learn from, colleagues and clients. I have huge gratitude for them all.
I'd like to acknowledge several key teachers who have had a profound impact on my thinking and progress: Tony Robbins, for accelerating my personal development and awakening me to my own potential for transformation; John Maxwell for the many insights he provided about what it really means to be a leader; Daniel Goleman, who first got me thinking in new ways about how we can maximise relationships, influence and impact; Deepak Chopra for helping me to understand how our minds and bodies are interconnected, and for the huge impact he has had on giving my life meaning; Eckhart Tolle for deepening my understanding of the power of present moment awareness; Dr. Joe Dispenza for his insights into how we can evolve our brains, reshape behaviours and proactively transform our results; and my meditation teacher, Bhante Bodhidhamma, who inspires and helps me to become a more caring, compassionate and joyful person. Last but definitely not least, Sir John Whitmore, who sadly recently passed away. My introduction to coaching was with him around 20 years ago, and it literally changed the course of my life – without him, it is most unlikely that I'd ever have been in a position to write this book.
I'm also indebted to the publishing team at John Wiley & Sons. Without your encouragement, this book would never have become a reality. Particular thanks go to Annie Knight for her willingness to adjust the publishing schedule to match my writing speed, and to my editor, Pete Gaughan, for constantly challenging me towards higher standards.
A special thank you to my partner, Angela Howe Missen. You must have heard more about the trials involved in birthing this book than anyone should reasonably have had to bear, as well as having to accept the impact that it had on your life, yet you never wavered in your encouragement and support. This would have been so much more difficult without you.
And finally, huge gratitude for my family. Thank you to my parents, Ian and Marion, and my sisters, Sarah and Debbie, for your endless support. You mean the world to me. And finally, thank you to my two wonderful children, Amy and Hannah. You light up my life, provide a constant source of love, and inspire me to be the best version of myself that I can be.
Michael Nicholas has spent his career either as a leader himself, or in helping other leaders to transform their impact, influence, creativity and adaptability. He constantly challenges himself and others to question conventional wisdom and to revolutionise thinking and behaviour. With a track record of delivering results in multiple challenging environments, Michael understands and has learnt to manage the pressures his clients must handle to meet performance expectations in the face of uncertainty, time pressure and shifting goal posts. More importantly, he has a proven ability to convey what he's learnt to others. This enables the barriers to, and requirements for, high performance to be addressed at root cause, creating high-quality, lasting change and sustainable improvements in results.
Having started his training business in 2004, Michael has become a highly-experienced coach and award-winning professional speaker. He specialises in decision-making, emotional intelligence and employee engagement, with clients ranging from leading FTSE companies, through small and medium-sized enterprises, to dynamic entrepreneurial businesses. His insightful, results-oriented training is grounded in 30 years' of real-world experience gained through working with leaders from a wide variety of industries, holding senior business positions, serving on active duty as a military officer, and completing the rigorous scientific training required to become a chartered engineer.
If you would like to find out more about Michael and his work, or to connect with him, you may do so at www.michaelnicholas.com.
“As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Decisions are of considerable importance in practically every aspect of life. Professionally, they are arguably the thing that makes the difference to the level of success we achieve, because they determine how well every other talent or capability that we have can be applied. Our decision-making capability also determines the size and type of problem we can solve, and is therefore strongly related to how far we can progress and how much we will thrive.
There is no reason to think that the importance of decision making will reduce any time soon either. While I was writing this book, the World Economic Forum released its list of the top 10 skills they believe we will need in the workplace by 2020.1 The top three were “complex problem solving”, “critical thinking” and “creativity”, all of which are vital elements of the mental capabilities necessary to make effective decisions (don't worry, if you don't recognise that creativity is a fundamental aspect of decision making, you will by the end of Part 1 of this book). Meanwhile, “judgment and decision making” was on the list explicitly at number six, and “cognitive flexibility”, without which there can be no creativity, was in at number 10. So, the indicators are that if you want to be successful you'd better make sure you are a good decision maker. Let's take a quick look at what that might involve.
Although the decision itself occurs at a particular moment in time, to break down and understand the challenges involved we need to consider the whole process. This is a pretty standard approach:
Historically, experts have been sought out for their ability to go through this process quickly and reliably. Their previous experience would enable them to efficiently complete the first three tasks, because they would know what to look for. They would instinctively understand the implications of the data and be able to come up with range of scenarios for how to proceed without needing to go far beyond the bounds of what they had seen before, somewhere else. That is the nature of understanding “best practice”, and it has been highly valued, for good reason. They would have a deep appreciation of how to implement the plan. Whether the skill involved was as a lawyer, engineer, scientist, medic, architect, consultant, entrepreneur or business leader, it has been pretty much essential, if we sought to progress, that we could demonstrate this decision-making capability. This was the route to recognition and respect, and a huge factor in determining a person's value in the marketplace.
Right now, we are at the leading edge of a transformation that will profoundly change all of that. I know, the term “transformation” is so overused, with many of the situations that it is supposed to describe, particularly corporate transformations, being little more than a bit of reinvention around the edges. Genuine transformation is what happens when a piece of paper is put in a fire – there is no going back. I use the word transformation deliberately, because there will be no going back from what is taking place right now. It has already started, and by the time it is over (to the degree it can be considered fully over), it will have fundamentally restructured the basis of how we, as human beings, will create value. The question is, will you keep up?
In 1987, as a junior officer in the Royal Air Force, responsible for the communications and navigation aids on an airbase, I had been updating our contingency plans for dealing with damage that might be caused by an enemy air attack. On completion of each section, it was sent to the typing pool; then, when it was returned, I'd proofread it for errors and send back any pages which had any so they could be re-typed. It was time-consuming, inefficient and pretty boring, but I didn't recognise that back then – I was just doing my job.
That was about the time I was offered my first computer, to which my response was, “What would I want that for?” I was relatively tech savvy having done a degree in engineering, with my final-year project involving writing computer code so that I could control part of a flexible manufacturing system, yet I still couldn't envisage how I could use a computer at work, much less how computing power might change the world of work (I'll be talking about this challenge to our decision making, which is called bounded awareness, later in the book). But lack of awareness in such circumstances doesn't shield us from the outcomes, and it wasn't long before all of us in that process, especially those typists, were forced to change.
Since then, while computing has revolutionised manufacturing processes and replaced many jobs in those industries with robots, for professionals and people in service industries, its impact has been relatively minor. Not many have lost their jobs, nor had to change the basic nature of what they do very much – they now just do it somewhat more quickly through a computer interface. Sure, we now have access to vastly more data at stage two in the process above, and we have computers to assist with stage three, but the underlying approach is the same, the way we think is the same, and so is our basic approach to adding value. But unless current forecasts are very wrong, this is all about to change in a way that will make what has happened so far look like little more than a ripple on the ocean, because artificial intelligence (AI) is coming, and soon, and with its arrival many jobs will go.
Just think what smart machines will do to decision making. Already, they can outperform experts in stages two and three of the decision process above, covering the two areas that have most enabled experts to differentiate themselves. They can learn more quickly and accurately, they don't run out of capacity, they have perfect recall, and the best of them can even outsmart us in critical thinking tasks, such as medical diagnoses. What's more, they aren't subject to the well-known biases that can affect human beings (some of which I'll introduce you to in this book). How long before even complex business problems are being diagnosed, and actions recommended, by a machine?
If that were the whole story, we'd be in big trouble. The reduction in our ability to add value would be all but inevitable – a question of when, not if. However, there are things that we are uniquely capable of doing; skills and capabilities which look as though they will be beyond machines for some time yet, perhaps indefinitely. These include our ability to understand novel concepts and situations, to connect with human beings at emotional levels, and to create, innovate and invent. We need to play to these strengths, and the interesting thing is that as the pace of change in the world increases, led by advanced technology such as AI systems, so does the demand for these human capabilities.
One area where this is especially true is in decision making, where success in meeting the needs and challenges of the new world will no longer be about the size of the problem you can handle, but more to do with the type of problem that you can solve. This is not just a response to smart machines – it is happening anyway, because of the volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity that have been such popular topics for leadership and business articles in general over the last few years. I'll show you in this book why the challenges created by a highly unpredictable environment can't be met with the form of decision making that uses a process like the one outlined above, and what you'll need to do instead. We'll look at some of the capabilities that will enable you to stay relevant and to continue to add value, whatever technology delivers.
What I hope to demonstrate is that your ability to perceive or think differently, which is within everyone's grasp, is going to be more important to decision making than any specific knowledge you may have gathered to date.
That's the good news. The bad news is that not many people have yet put much effort into developing the capabilities needed in this new world, or even know how to go about doing so. To be successful, you'll need a different focus to the one that you've been taught ever since you went to school, and which society has typically acknowledged and rewarded. You'll also need a different approach to the learning that is needed from that which we've always been taught. It's not really about “methods” or “techniques” – that approach would need an encyclopedia to cover all of the angles, and there would still be gaps. It is going to be about integrating a set of solid principles, based on sound understanding about how our minds and brains work, which can equip you both for what is happening and what is to come.
That is what I've sought to address in this book. Each chapter will introduce one principle, each of which I believe to be critical to developing the decision-making capabilities needed for the future. They are presented within a structured framework that will help you to gain a deep understanding of the relevance of each one. As this understanding grows, so you know what to do and why, the “how” that I'll describe in Part 3 will get easier.
I hope you will enjoy the book, find it interesting and that it will challenge some of your established beliefs, because that is how learning takes place. But even more than that, this is a time when knowing is not enough – we must take action – so I hope it will inspire you to do the personal work necessary to put the principles I'll be covering into practice. Know that if you do nothing, that is still a decision – it's a decision in favour of the status quo. It's a decision not to change. It's a decision to put comfort ahead of opportunity. And, as you will see, it's a decision that risks you waking up one day and realising that the world has changed and that you didn't take advantage of it. Or, alternatively, you could take the decision to get ahead of the curve, so that you will start to accrue benefits in advance and be ready when the full force of the coming transformation hits us.