A pocketful of marbles
There was an executive who had an uncanny ability to make tough decisions quickly. When confronted with an important choice, he–of course–did the necessary research. He listened to people with insight. Sometimes doing that made the decision obvious.
When the choice still wasn’t obvious, he reached into his pocket where he had six black marbles and six red marbles. He pulled out a random handful of marbles. More black marbles meant his answer would be yes. More red marbles meant his answer would be no. Before he stated his answer, he’d do a quick gut check to see if the marble solution felt OK. If it was, he went with the marbles.
This turned out to be a brilliantly successful technique. What made it so brilliant?
How we overvalue the impact of choices
There are three reasons his marble system was so successful.
First, the expected value of one choice over another was almost 50:50. If the expected value of both choices was not nearly equal, it wouldn’t be a hard choice. It would have been obvious once the data was gathered.
The very fact that the choice was hard tells us that the expected values of the options are roughly the same SO choosing one rather than the other doesn’t make much difference.
The second reason is our tendency to attribute too much value to our initial decisions and too little to the impact of how we engage the situation after making the decision. An example makes this easy to see. Let’s say Dani gets into Harvard and Yale and doesn’t know which to attend. Ultimately she decides on Yale and then goes on to have a brilliant career and lots of great friends. Chances are she’d have had a brilliant career and lots of great friends had she gone to Harvard. She had success at Yale because of how she engaged the situation once she got to Yale, not because she chose Yale over Harvard.
It wasn’t the choice that made her successful. It’s what she did after making the choice. Still, years later, she’d likely say, “I’m sure glad I chose Yale. What a difference that made.”
The third reason is we underestimate the cost of rumination and delay. Hanging out in a realm of no action and uncertainty takes a toll on our spirit.
It’s frustrating and anxiety provoking, and we don’t do our best work when we’re frustrated, anxious, and inactive. We do our best thinking when we are relaxed. Life is more pleasant that way, too. The marbles system moved our executive quickly from the realm of low energy rumination and into the realm of “Now, how do we make success from this decision?”
A pocketful of marbles may not be the best strategy for you making hard choices, but almost all of us operate better when we recognize the three reasons it can be such an effective approach.
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