How to Make Better Decisions Under Pressure | Dr. Ali Atkison

0:00 I had demonstrated how quickly I could answer a question, but I hadn't really demonstrated good leadership. When everything feels urgent, slowing down can feel like the wrong move. But what if the pressure to make a decision quickly is actually the thing that's making it harder for you to make a good decision? Friction or uncertainty makes your brain go, wait a minute, what is this? I don't like this. It doesn't necessarily know the difference between uncertainty and actual danger. Well, my guest today, Dr. Ali Atkinson, she's a leadership development expert, and she uses an approach called deliberate doubt. And the goal is to help leaders challenge their assumptions and make better decisions, even under pressure. decisions that are made on binary choices, so either one or the other.

0:42 So if you are making an important decision and you are only considering two possible alternatives, then you have a 52% chance of failing whatever action you do based on that decision. So in this conversation, we're going to talk about why uncertainty can push us towards answers too quickly. The thinking traps that leaders can fall into that distort their judgment and how deliberate doubt can help us slow our thinking without slowing down our productivity. Deliberate doubt, very simply put, is the practice of interrupting our certainty, that certainty that we have about our interpretation of an event or a story. It's interrupting that certainty with curiosity, so that our first answer doesn't become our only answer.

1:28 So if you're leading in an environment right now where everything seems important and everything is moving fast and everyone wants answers, then this conversation is for you. This is Leading Through Growth featuring Dr. Ali Atkinson. Dr. Ali, I'm super happy to have you here, especially to talk about this title of deliberate doubt. And I call it a title. I know that's like a generic container. I want you to explain it to me when you first talk to me about this, this concept or this model. I don't even know what word you use for it. It felt unsafe to me. I heard deliberate doubt. I'm like, wait, no, I'm supposed to be the expert. How can I doubt deliberately? Like, why would I do that?

2:09 So can you give us a good working definition of what deliberate doubt is? Yes, absolutely. And I'm glad you're asking because I suspect that a lot of people have the exact same reaction that you did. Just like you just said, like, wait a minute, you want me to doubt myself? Aren't we like all walking around with imposter syndrome all the time anyway? You're suggesting I should do more of that. Yeah, I love this. So no, deliberate doubt is not. I'll tell you kind of what it's not and then I'll tell you what it is. So deliberate doubt is not permanent indecision. It's not chronically doubting yourself. It is actually choosing to be curious at a strategic moment.

2:50 Now, why would we do that? Let me ask you this. Have you ever had a situation, and I suspect that when I ask this, you'll say yes, and most people listening will say yes, because we've all had it. Have you ever had a situation where you said something and you were so sure of what you said, and then someone gave you another piece of information and you went, oh, Oh, well, okay. Knowing that, now I'm going to walk back my answer or change my answer. Or you were really certain about an approach that you were taking only to find out that you had been misinformed. Did you ever have a situation like either of those? I feel like you've been talking to my wife all the time. It happens all the time. Absolutely. Because we're human and this is what happens, right?

3:33 So what deliberate doubt is, and I love that you're asking, do I call it a concept, a model? I call it an approach because for me, it's a choice that we make as leaders and as communicators. So it's an approach. Okay. Deliberate doubt, very simply put, is the practice of interrupting our certainty, that certainty that we have about our interpretation of an event or a story. It's interrupting that certainty with curiosity so that our first answer, our first interpretation doesn't become our only answer. And when we can open room for that strategic curiosity, then we can increase our sense of confidence that our answer or our action, whatever the case may be, warrants the certainty that we're giving it.

4:21 And so this doubt is not chronic self-doubt or indecision or, you know, even endless debate when we're talking about applying it to teams, which it can be. It's a temporary, purposeful interruption. When something happens, like imagine that you're in a meeting with an employee, for example, and they say something that really comes out of left field for you. Like maybe you thought you were fully aligned on an approach to a project. And all of a sudden this employee comes in and says, well, I'm not really sure we're ready to proceed on that. And, you know, that challenges you. You're like, wait a minute, I thought we were aligned.

5:02 Yeah. What happens a lot of times is, well, what always happens in those situations is that there's always two things happening. There's the objective information. There's like what actually objectively happened, what we can capture, for example, with like an iPhone, right? That person's actual behavior and words. But then there's the story we tell ourselves about what just happened. And those two things arrive so quickly, nearly at the same time, because our brain is so wonderful that we assume they're the same thing. And so then what happens is that we're acting not necessarily on the objective thing, but rather the story we're telling ourselves about the thing.

5:43 So deliberate doubt is a choice that we make to say, hold on a second, what else could be true here so that I can act with a little bit more, like I said, certainty that the action or decision that I want to make is warranted? I like that. This concept or this approach, I can see it being helpful for a bunch of different people in a bunch of different ways. One way that came to me initially was I think about leaders who are working at growing companies. When the company grows fast, they get thrown into a leadership position and they are really good experts, but they're not expert makers. And so what happens is when something comes up, a problem arises, the situation is being talked through, and they're not going to be able to do it.

6:27 they will jump into action with the answer initially and just go full force towards that because that's what they've been known to do and what they've been, you know, were rewarded for. But then they don't get the opportunity to bring people along with them as they do that. And so I'm wondering if this approach, it sounds like it could help with, you know, my side bias or confirmation bias. I wonder if it could also help people be better leaders as they think about like interrupting themselves and then bringing other people along with them to make some of those decisions. 100%. And I love where your mind goes on this. You know, I remember years ago, Tony, this is like kind of embarrassing.

7:09 I'll be very vulnerable right now with you and your listeners. I remember years ago, I served as the associate dean for the College for Professional Studies for a private university in the West. And when I first got that job, I'll be honest, it was a stretch job for me. And I had serious imposter syndrome going into that job. So a couple of months pretty early into my job, an employee came to my office door and she asked me a question. And, you know, at the time I was so worried about being the expert, as you just said, like, well, I got hired because they're expecting me to be the expert. So I immediately gave her an answer. And she said something like, oh, OK, well, it's just the thing is. And then like she gave me more information and more context.

7:50 And so that changed my answer. So I immediately gave her a second answer. And then she did it again, this time explaining like some reason why my second answer might hit some roadblocks, you know. And finally, and if I'm being honest, with some exasperation, I finally said, well, what do you think we should do? Of course, she had a thoughtful recommendation because she had had it the whole time. And I remember feeling really embarrassed because I realized that I had demonstrated how quickly I could answer a question, but I hadn't really demonstrated good leadership. And so that move that you're talking about, this, you know, desire to be the expert, I call it trying to get leaders to move from expert to architect. Because what we're really trying to do is grow someone's ability to be a good thinker, right?

8:36 Yeah. And so, you know, in my case, like each of my answers made sense based on the very limited information I had at the time. But the problem was that I was assuming the partial picture I had was the complete one and moving forward on that every single time. So when we move as leaders, we can absolutely use deliberate doubt, not only in our own thinking. Again, asking that question like, you know, what am I assuming here about this person's question? What else could be happening here? then we can make sure that we're approaching that conversation with a real open mind so that we don't have to walk back what we just said or the decision that we have just made.

9:21 And also, of course, our desire is to build strong teams. Right. And so we have this sometimes I think leaders have this assumption that, well, I'm sort of abdicating my leadership if I don't solve this problem for this person. Right. Yes. As an architect, you're still guiding the thinking. If you're using deliberate doubt, you're going to ask things like, I have a great example. Actually, one of my clients just shared this example with me the other day. This client works for a nursing home facility, a senior retirement facility. I didn't say that very well. This client works for a senior retirement facility. And she told me that one of their leaders had come up and said something like, you know, the night shift never does what they're supposed to do.

10:06 And the other leader they were talking to immediately said, well, write them up. That is what the expert would do, right? But if we're practicing deliberate doubt as a leader, we might ask something like, well, what specifically is happening when you say they never do what they're supposed to do? Tell me specifically. What patterns are you seeing here? What have you already tried? What do you think the next step should be? And so, again, now they're not abdicating their leadership. They're guiding that person's thinking. They're not just automatically taking ownership of it. Yeah. What are some of the dangers when we don't have deliberate doubt or a way to slow down?

10:47 What are some of the things that leaders run into when they are just being a teller instead of an asker, like in that scenario? Yes. Oh, my gosh. So many. Well, of course, we're not growing our people. And again, really the goal of any good leader is to build a strong team, right, to build strong people so that you know that they can carry the torch when you're not around. I think what happens a lot of times is we fall prey to thinking traps. So when, especially for leaders, when a decision or, again, another person's action or behavior feels high stakes for us, like if it threatens something for us, like our sense of competence, our sense of credibility, even our values, right, or my sense of control, things like that, what happens is that that creates for us – moment of uncertainty.

11:42 And boy, our brains don't like uncertainty. We seek to close it up as quickly as possible, right? So how do we close that uncertainty? We tell ourselves a story about what's happening. And what that does is sometimes it makes us fall prey to thinking traps. Now, there are thousands of thinking traps, really, but There are some that I think are most prevalent in leadership in today's professional organizations. So imagine, for example, that you have a leader who is considering an employee for a promotion. One of the thinking traps that is very common in a situation like this is called the availability heuristic. I don't know if you've heard of this term. It's not super well known. Like confirmation bias is another thinking trap that I think people are quite familiar with.

12:26 The availability heuristic is interesting because it comes out a lot. It's essentially that we tend to focus solely or mostly on information and data that is easily and readily accessible to us. So things that like are, you know, really imprinted in our memory because it was associated, for example, with like a very emotional experience. That's going to be more easy to recall for a person. So we're going to rely on that more quickly. And then we place a lot of emphasis on that type of evidence. Yeah. So if you have a leader who's considering an employee for a promotion and they're falling prey to the availability heuristic, they might put a little bit too much weight, for example, on a memorable interaction or a particularly vivid meeting that dominated that leader's judgment.

13:17 And they might discount, you know, 10 months of solid performance by overweighting last week's mistake. So that's one example of how the availability heuristic might come through. I wonder, I've been thinking about this because preparing for this conversation and just thinking about some of the leaders and companies that I work with. Tell me if this tracks or if this lines up with your research and your experience and your history, because I am not a brain doctor or study the sciences of the brain in any way, shape, form or fashion. But this is just what I've observed and even what I felt for myself. The pain of a problem is.

13:58 sometimes the problem can be so painful that you rush to get an answer and not necessarily the right answer or the best answer. And so when I think about this availability bias or this heuristic, I think about the problem of early closure, right? It's like, I just want the pain to stop. And so the first answer that I come across that seems generally reasonable that I can get to the fastest is usually the answer that I'll go with. Not because I've like thoroughly searched it out, but it just feels like the safer option because it stops the pain. Is that kind of what's happening in our brain or with?

14:40 with leaders when they jump for, you know, the quickest answer or the most available information instead of taking a deeper dive into what may be the best information? Yes, I love what you've absolutely done is taken what is happening in the brain and translated it to how people are typically feeling. And I think that's a beautiful way of translating it is what happens is in those moments when so our brain, here's the fun thing. You know, that feeling of uncertainty creates in us, believe it or not, a very similar feeling to danger. And our brain doesn't necessarily know the difference between feeling uncertain about something. So any moment of difference or friction right away sends up alarm bells in your brain.

15:23 You know, our brain like tries to predict danger. Each moment of our day, our brain is constantly trying to predict what's next. It's really our brain's attempt to give us some semblance of control, right? Because if you really think about it, every single moment of our lives is completely unpredictable. But that thought is really terrifying. It is. And so our brain is constantly trying to predict, well, what's coming next? And so any moment... of friction or uncertainty makes your brain go, wait a minute, what is this? I don't like this. And so it doesn't necessarily know the difference between uncertainty and actual danger. And so especially when that moment of friction creates what you call a moment of pain, it makes me worried or nervous that you are affecting my credibility, my competence, you know, my sense of control, then my brain says, that's dangerous.

16:13 We don't like that. And so, yes, how do we seek to close up that gap between what we know for sure and And what we don't know, the brain wants to close that as quickly as possible. And so our brain relies on a story. And that story, of course, is informed by all of our history, all of our perspectives, all of our worries and biases and fears and experiences. Usually the most memorable or most recent experiences are the ones that we're more likely to draw on. And so that goes back to that availability heuristic. Okay, that's really good. I want to get into later how we kind of can override that story or rewrite the story, but I want to hear more about the thinking trap.

16:55 So we have the availability heuristic. What's another common thinking trap that leaders may find themselves falling into? The one that I think people will most recognize is confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is just very simply put, our tendency to seek out information or interpret incoming information in a way that supports our already held beliefs. So what happens is once we start telling ourselves this story, right, whatever story it is to get out of that, what you call that moment of pain, I love that, then we treat that story like a filter. Now I start to examine all of the evidence that's going on around me through the filter of that story.

17:37 And if it supports my story, I allow it in. And if it doesn't, I disallow it. And so that story literally functions as a filter so that we can, or excuse me, that confirmation bias functions as a filter so that our story kind of becomes how we protect ourselves. So I'll go back to, you know, that leader considering the employee for a promotion. Now we have evidence that this person was late last week, right? Even though they had 10 months of great work, maybe they were late to a meeting last week, then the leader might say, OK, so see, they can't make it on time to meetings. Once the leader concludes that employee might not be the right person, that could become the story in their head.

18:20 And then all other information gets filtered through that story. So even ambiguous behavior could begin looking like proof of the story you're already telling yourself. And that's how confirmation bias can be really, really, in some cases, insidious, because we will continue to find proof of our story and not allow evidence in that might disprove our story because we seek that constant certainty. Yeah. It reminds me of two things. One, a saying that I use all the time, which our podcast listeners are probably like, Tony, you say that all the time. Well, it comes up all the time. But there's a saying, and I don't know who to attribute it to.

19:00 I should look that part up. But the saying is, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. That's what I think about when I hear confirmation bias. It's like, oh, you're just trying to... fit this scenario or this circumstance into what you already believe or what you already know, as opposed to going out and seeking new information. And not to make an excuse, but a lot of our world has become a catalyst for confirmation bias. When you look at social media, even when you look at your AI search or your Google search, it is more likely to give disagree with, right?

19:41 And so I think about a leader who You know, they believe it, Allie. If they already have this belief, they start to see these things. It's hard sometimes to tell them that, hey, you are actually having confirmation bias or there's other data and information available that you have blinders up to right now that you don't see that would actually disprove what you so strongly believe. And so, yeah, these thinking traps are really important. They're really nerve wracking a little bit because it's like everyone that you've listed so far. It's like, yep, I've done that. Yep, I've been there. Yep, I've had those experiences, too. And so, yeah, so that that's I understand that thinking trap and how someone can easily fall into it all the time every day.

20:28 A hundred percent. I'm so glad you just said that. I think that's really important for people to understand is that, you know, if you hear this and you recognize it and you think, as you just said that you did, like, oh, wow, I'm doing this. Then, you know, my response to that is, congratulations, you're human. It happens to every brain in every human. Right. There are certainly people who are, you know, more advanced in this approach like deliberate doubt or, you know, there are similar approaches who can call upon that skill, I think, more quickly and readily. But the truth is that the brain functions the way it functions. It's just a matter of, you know, how quickly can you interrupt that story that you're telling yourself? And that's where deliberate doubt really comes in.

21:10 But, yeah, it happens to everybody. Yeah, this is so good. This is so exposing is the word that's coming to mind. But really, you're raising people's awareness, right? You weren't even aware that this thinking trap existed. You wouldn't know that you need a solution for it. Do you have another thinking trap for us before we get to how deliberate doubt can help us with these things? I do. And thank you for asking because this is the one I get most excited to share because it's so simple and it happens so often. And it's so easy to recognize once we learn that we're doing it. It is called binary thinking. Most humans, again, well, probably all humans, have this tendency to think in these very binary terms.

21:52 And again, you were talking about our current culture. Boy, does it reward binary thinking. It really rewards confirmation bias, too. Yeah. but also binary thinking. So everything is black or white, right? This thing is good or bad. I like this person or I dislike this person, you know? And so, again, very polarizing. We even think about it like when you think about a particular decision, we often ask questions like, well, should I do this or this? Or even it might even be, or should I do this or not do this? But we're essentially only giving ourselves two choices, right? There's a researcher named Paul Nutt who did some really interesting research on binary thinking. And I mean, get this, if this does not just blow your mind.

22:32 He found that decisions that are made on binary choices, so either one or the other, have a failure rate of greater than 52%. So if you are making an important decision and you are only considering two possible alternatives, either A or B or A or not A, then you have a 52% chance of failing whatever action you do based on that decision. And so for each additional, you know, option that you consider, your failure rate goes down accordingly. Got it. Wow. Isn't that fascinating? Yeah. That is super fascinating because I think about all the times where I make a decision and it does feel very binary.

23:16 It's like either I'm all in or I'm all out. Either I'm going to run 10 miles today or I'm not doing anything. I'm not leaving the couch. It's interesting that when you add in other options. And I wonder, does that study say, like, not necessarily that you would choose other options, but when you consider some of the other options, having that available to you, you can now decrease your potential failure rate. That is so interesting because I think about leaders in fast-paced growing companies. Not only do you want the quick decision so you're possible to have that early closure, you're also the expert.

24:03 Feel like you already know. And so you don't seek all the information that you need. But then also it's a lot of times when you're being directive, either we do this or we do that. Right. It's got to be A or B. And you don't see some of the gray area that may exist in between. And so, man, that is very, that is very, very fascinating. 52% failure rate. Yeah. That blew my mind when I first heard that. And you said something so important that this is about considering other options. It doesn't mean that your first instinct is necessarily wrong. It just means choosing to be curious about what the other options are so that, again, you can increase your certainty in the decision that you're going to make.

24:47 I'll go back to that example I told you about the leader considering an employee for a promotion. So again, if I'm that leader and I'm falling prey to binary thinking, then I might be looking at this as, you know, that my decision is promote now or do nothing, right? And I might be overlooking some really wonderful options for either me, my team, or my employee, like a stretch assignment. interim responsibility, greater exposure to senior leaders, or maybe just some targeted learning and development that this person might need before I feel that they truly are capable, right? So it doesn't have to become a yes, no answer. We close ourselves to so many other options that might serve us well.

25:29 That is such a better solution to the problem of We have so many people here and they want to grow and they want to develop. And we don't really have space for them. I worked with a company a couple of years ago and one of their biggest challenges was they had really low turnover. They had high tenure. So when people got there, they did not leave, which is a good thing. But the problem that it created was a career ladder escalation bottleneck, if you will. The people that were there who wanted to develop and grow in their career and wanted to be promoted, they would often leave to go another place because the leaders there weren't leaving. And so their solution to that was to create these fake tiers within a role to give people the illusion that they were growing.

26:17 So instead of just being an engineer, you would be an engineer level one, level two, level three, level four. And when you look under the hood of the title and the pay bump, there was really no difference between an engineer number one, number two, number three, number four. outside of that person complained. And so, but if we zoom out to a higher view, they are really having... an episode of falling into the thinking trap of binary thinking. Their thought process was either we give them a promotion, which means new title and new pay, or they leave. And what you just highlighted for them is like, oh, maybe there's another option. Maybe there's an option to develop people and to grow them in their career that does not include a promotion and does not include additional income for that person that they will be just as happy with or just as satisfied with And that's one of the things that I get to do with my work.

27:12 And I know you do with yours, too. When we get to develop these leaders, the development they feel as they go along the development journey proves that there isn't just A or B. There are other options in there that could work really well. So I'm listening to the thinking traps. I'm thinking about all of them. I'm thinking about how I'm wondering right now out of 24 hours, how much time do I spend in a thinking trap every day? It happens a lot. I want to know how we can use deliberate doubt as an approach to help pull people out of some of these thinking traps or maybe even help them avoid the thinking traps altogether. Yes, love it. Good. Thank you. This is the work, right?

27:53 This is where the work comes in. And the thing I love about Deliberate DAO is it is truly universally applicable. It's a very simple approach, three simple steps, and it's applicable at the individual level, and it is also applicable at the team level. And actually, I'll back that up even a little bit to say it's applicable at the individual level in two different ways. One, I can practice deliberate doubt as a leader, but I can also, you know, model the way and foster and facilitate deliberate doubt in those that I'm leading. And then again, at the team level, we can do it as well. So the first, so I'll walk you through the three steps and then feel free to jump in and, you know, ask questions at any point as I do.

28:37 Very simple. I mentioned earlier that when something occurs, whether it's a person's behavior or an event or an interaction or whatever it is, that we respond not only to that objective thing, but also to the story that we're telling ourselves about the thing. So the first step in deliberate doubt is just very simply asking myself, okay, what What is actually observably happening here, right? What could be recorded with a camera or microphone? And what am I making it mean? What story am I telling myself about this thing? I'll give you, I'm going to give you the simplest, and bear with me because this is a personal example, but it just happened pretty recently.

29:22 So I share, I have a fitness room in my house and I share the fitness room with my husband. And every once in a while, one of my step-sons will come over and work out there too. So I'm sharing it effectively with four young men, man and young men. And one day I got off, I have a Peloton spin bike and I got off my bike and had already taken my shoes off. So I was just in my socks and I didn't realize that someone had left a 40 pound dumbbell sitting directly next to my spin bike. And I went to walk and I kicked, I kicked the dumbbell and I broke my pinky toe actually. That's not really the point of the story. But so I as soon as I kicked that dumbbell, the first thought in my head was, oh, I guess I'm the only person here who cares about my health and well-being.

30:08 I guess I'm the only one who ever picks up in this room. Right. And so the objective fact is that a dumbbell was left on the floor. That's it. What I made it mean was no one cares about me. Now, if I wanted to react only to what I was making it mean, which is typically what we would do, then I probably would have flown downstairs and thrown a tantrum and said, I can't believe you don't care about me. And my husband would have been like, what are you talking about? Right. So we separate. Okay, what has objectively happened with what am I making it mean? So that's the very first step. And so frankly, if you never get past that step, you are already way ahead of the game.

30:51 Because being able to separate out what happened from the story you're giving it, the story you're telling yourself about it is a huge, huge important skill. And that will serve you well. Then we can get a little further, make our make our skill of deliberate doubt even more advanced. And then we ask, OK, so once I can acknowledge that there's the objective fact of the situation and then there's what I'm telling myself about it. Now I can start to investigate that story. OK, so if I can acknowledge that this is a story I'm telling myself, what else could be true? So that's the second step in deliberate doubt is asking what else could be true? So there are always other potential ways of viewing things, right?

31:36 So I'll give you a great example of this. I had a client engagement a few years ago where I was working with a group of leaders at a, it was a company in a small rural town in Indiana that manufactured truck brakes. And so they were frontline workers. They really knew the operation. They knew the community. And, you know, I was this outside consultant with a PhD coming in. I mean, we look pretty different on paper, right? And, you know, They had been, by the way, this group of leaders had not volunteered to be there. They had been voluntold, as it were. And so the first couple of workshops, there was a participant, I'll call her Angie.

32:21 She would sit in the front row, but she would sit there with her arms crossed. And she would kind of roll her eyes a lot. And she would do a lot of like audible sort of shifting and fidgeting. And even, believe it or not, she would occasionally audibly go, huh. And so when I talk about deliberate doubt to audiences, I always ask, I tell this exact story I just told you. And then I ask, what story are you telling yourself right now about Angie? And even just from what little I just described, I get five or six different interpretations of Angie's behavior. You know, one person will say, well, she obviously doesn't want to be there. Another person will say, she's probably nervous because maybe she's never done a training like this before.

33:05 And another person will say, she probably is worried about the meeting she has after this. And just, you know, her mind is already there. So we've got lots of interpretations. So this tells me that whatever story I was telling myself about Angie in that moment isn't the only possible interpretation. True. So we can acknowledge that there are other ways of possibly thinking of it. So that's the second step in deliberate doubt. Okay. And then the third is, at some point, I've got to rely on a little bit more than just the stories in my head. And so I want to ask, how can I test this? What more could I learn? Who else could I ask or what other resource could I employ before I decide to take action?

33:50 Got it. So like, for example, with my Angie story, you know, how could I have gotten a better idea of what was really informing Angie's behavior? I could have stood there and assumed and probably walked away with which at the moment, if I'm being honest, I did say she's not buying any of this. She doesn't want to be here. Right. Yeah. But how could I have known for sure? I could have asked her. I could have just asked Angie, how's the workshop series going for you so far? Yeah. What's your biggest takeaway? You know, I don't have to ask her something direct like, look, it seems like you're annoyed to be here. Right. But rather, I want to test the story in my head.

34:31 So I'm going to ask for additional ways of thinking about it. This is always an option. So when we're in a team setting, we might ask things like, okay, everybody, so we're making this decision. Let's make sure we're feeling really good about this decision. So first of all, what are we assuming about this particular situation? You know, have that discussion as a team. Well, what else could be true? We're assuming this, but what are some other possibilities? And then what could we test or what else could we learn before we commit to action? And this isn't about negating your idea or necessarily, like I said, throwing it into constant doubt.

35:16 But if we leave room for thinking about other opportunity, excuse me, why I keep saying opportunities, leaving room for other options, then again, we can increase that sense of certainty and hopefully ultimately save time. Because we don't have to walk things back. We don't end up finding out the hard way that we proceeded with not enough information. And we should, oh, gosh, we should have found this out. We should have talked to these people first. Right. That kind of thing. Yeah, I'm thinking about a scenario that I talked to a leader about a couple of weeks ago. Yeah. It was a coaching session and they said, I have a question for you. We're trying to figure out how we can implement work from home practices to make sure people know that they do have flexibility, but they also need to be available for their team.

36:04 Sounds like a very good question. So I started digging a little deeper. OK, well, tell me about the scenario. Tell me why you need this policy. You guys have been working from home for the last eight years, even prior to everyone else doing it due to the COVID pandemic. So tell me why you want to implement this policy. Well, there's one person on the team. who made a joke one day about doing laundry during the day. And so now the running joke within the team is every time this person doesn't answer, because they haven't been being responsive, that they're doing laundry. Yeah. And so because of all of this, they want to now create a policy that basically don't do laundry and be unavailable policy.

36:54 And I started to think about it. It's like, OK, well, have we talked to this person about it? No, we haven't talked to her about it yet. Do we know for sure that she's not responding because she's doing laundry? Because I don't know that that's an everyday thing, all day thing. It could be. It could be. But so when I think about this framework of deliberate doubt, the, you know, the objective fact of the situation was there were team members complaining about this person's availability and their responsiveness. The story that they were telling themselves about that was that it's because she's doing laundry. They don't know that she's doing laundry. No one's asked her. No one's confirmed. She just kind of made this. It could have been a joke. Like, maybe she never does laundry, right? Like, who knows?

37:35 So then if we go through and say, okay, what else could be true? Maybe we unearth some other potential options. that look different than let's roll out a new policy for the entire department because one person's not responding to a team's chat when we think they should. Right. And then be able to test it before they take action. Like have a conversation with this person. Right. Don't just roll out a new policy and everybody's like, okay, why? Even when rolling out the new policy, you may get, um, rid of that particular issue. But another issue is going to come up if you haven't fixed the root cause. Right. And so I love that this framework can be so practical that you can literally work through and say, OK, let me make sure that we have the right answer here.

38:19 I love that you said something about saving time because there are people that are listening to this right now and saying, OK, Dr. Ali, that sounds good. But in the heat of the moment, I don't have time to think through these three steps. I'm just reacting and responding. And so My question is, when we think about deliberate doubt, I know that it's a approach that takes practice, right? I don't expect people to listen to this today and immediately just go be able to implement this. It takes practice. But is the practice more done during times of reflection? or times of preparation, or is it practicing in the heat of the moment? How do you suggest people who don't yet have these skills or can't override their normal reactions to start implementing these three steps?

39:03 Yeah, I love this. What an interesting question, Toni. I have never been asked that about, you know, is it better done in a moment of reflection or kind of in the heat of the moment or preparation? I really want to think about that. My gut instinct is to say yes. That there's no time that deliberate doubt wouldn't serve you well. Where I would say to pay the most attention when it's new to you as a skill is moments of friction. Moments where you feel yourself that ding, ding, ding or wherever you feel it. You know what I mean? Like everybody gets that friction. feeling somewhere when things don't feel right.

39:44 You get your hackles get raised, whether it's at the back of your neck or sometimes I get like a thing in my throat where I feel like I'm going to cry, even if I'm not sad. When something's like stressing me out or worrying me, I get this like throat feeling. Pay attention to that. Like, where are you feeling that moment of friction? And the moment you feel that, that's when it's a great opportunity to practice deliberate doubt. Because that is the moment that that friction, that red flag, that icky feeling you're getting, that is your brain reacting emotionally to the objective thing that just happened. And so that means you're more likely in that moment to proceed with the story that you're going to quickly tell yourself.

40:24 Yeah. than you are on a robust exploration of that story. So I would say, yeah, a moment of friction, wherever that happens to be for you. That makes sense. I'll tell you why I asked that question. Maybe about 10 years ago, I was talking to a leader. He was an executive at Procter & Gamble, and then he was working at the company that I was working in. And he said he keeps a decision-making journal. And in his decision-making journal, he will write down the day that he makes the decision. And these are for bigger decisions, right? Not small things. But the day that he makes a decision, what he thought about it, how he felt about it, the information that he had, why he made the decision. And then he'd have a routine where in 90 days, you know, at the end of the quarter, he'd go through and review all of his decisions.

41:11 Right. And I'm thinking about, you know, this framework of deliberate doubt. Right. And I've been journaling a lot lately. I could definitely see in a moment of reflection, kind of using this to filter through the decisions that I made, not necessarily the result of those decisions, right? Because sometimes the result of the decisions don't indicate the quality of the decision making process. So, but this is a good framework for the decision making process was that I did I look at the objective fact and that I lean more into that or did I create a story around it that helped drive that decision that I even consider what else could be true beyond what I already believed, what I already thought or felt.

41:52 And did I did I test it before I took action on it or did I just jump right into it because the business was calling on me and things were urgent and I felt like I needed to move. And so I think this is something that I'll definitely add. to my journaling process, as I think about the decisions that I make for my business and for my clients, I think this will be a really, really good framework for me to go back and say, okay, am I improving on my decision-making skills, especially in times of uncertainty, right? Because as you said, those are the times where we reach for that story even more. And leaders that are growing companies are always working through uncertainty. We reach for that story even more to help us help us kind of fill in the blanks when we don't have all the information.

42:35 So this is really, really good. Yeah, I love that concept of a decision journal. I may have to borrow that as well. And what I love about you, what you just talked about, you know, applying deliberate doubt to that is that, you know, of course, we always think connections made in the moment are important. And that's how we learn and grow. But connections made in hindsight still, you can still absolutely learn from those. Right. Even if you didn't. A lot of times I have clients who will say, oh, gosh, I missed an opportunity to employ deliberate doubt then. But the fact that you just realized that and you can now go back and debrief and say, OK, where could I have done it? That's still growth. And so every time you can make that connection, even if it's in hindsight, you're still going to increase your chances of being able to do it in the future because your why will become stronger every time you look back and see that it worked.

43:26 Yeah. I would love for you to give some a closing thought or closing encouragement. I'm thinking about a leader. who is working really hard to try to just stay with the craziness of growth. They want to make good decisions, but they deal with so much uncertainty. And they're listening to this podcast and they really want to put into action what we've been talking about today. If you had their ear just for 30 seconds, 60 seconds, What would you tell them to do? How would you encourage them? What would you say to them to help them make better decisions, even though they're navigating all this craziness of growth and uncertainty?

44:08 As most leaders are nowadays, right? I mean, it just seems like the kind of the landscape we're in now. I think start small. before acting on an important conclusion or decision, just very simply ask yourself, what am I assuming and what else could be true? And that's a very simple starting point. What am I assuming and what else could be true? And I think one of the things that I would offer to any leader for whom deliberate doubt is a new approach is that deliberate doubt, the purpose of it is not to distrust your expertise or to ask you to throw that right out the window.

44:51 Because, again, as leaders, we really want to grow our people, right? Right. But rather, it's testing those moments, or I should say it tests whether this is a moment when our expertise is serving us well, or it's actually narrowing our focus. And so I think what deliberate doubt really shows us is that a good instinct, if that's what it is, because that's, you know, instinct comes from expertise, right? Is that a good instinct can survive one thoughtful question. That is so good. That is so good.

45:31 A good instinct can survive one thoughtful. That is good because I think that'll help people slow down. People don't want to slow down. They don't feel like thinking through things an extra second is going to help them make a better decision. They think it's going to slow them down long term and then they won't hit production goals because it's the end of the month and the end of the quarter. But but I love how you frame that. If this is a really good thought or a really good idea or a really good decision that I'm going to make an extra second to think about it. One other question, considering one or two other options is not going to all of a sudden make it a bad idea. And if it and if it does, it wasn't a good idea to begin with.

46:12 But if it's a good idea, if it's a good idea, it'll be able to withstand that. Dr. Ali, thank you so much. This was super helpful. I know it will be helpful for our listeners. It's helpful to me. I'm already thinking about like how I'm going to implement this after this is over. So thank you so much for sharing your expertise. I really appreciate it. It is absolutely my pleasure, Tony. I knew I would enjoy this conversation and I did. And so I thank you for having me on. And I hope this was valuable for your listeners. Thank you.