I came home from a full day of working on projects, creating proposals, and talking to customers. When I walk in the door my wife asks me a question, “Hey babe, which color do you like for painting the kitchen?” And what did I say to her? “I don’t know. I think they all look good. Whatever you want is fine with me.”  If you’ve been married awhile, you know that didn’t sit well.

After she had labored over the entire color palette and narrowed it down to four colors, she just wanted to involve me in the project. I felt like I didn’t have the mental capacity to make even one more decision. My response made her feel like all of her work was meaningless and unimportant.

Do I care about the color of the kitchen? Of course I do! It’s just paint, but this will be the color I have to look at for the next 5 to 10 years while I’m drinking my coffee! Since I didn’t feel like I had the brain power to make one more significant decision, I opted out of the decision. I thought letting her make the decision would make her feel empowered… not the case. My response sent the wrong message. As leaders, we need to understand the positive and negative power of choice and how to balance them with our teams.

First, how often do we make choices?

There is a widely repeated (and unfounded) statistic that we make 35,000 choices per day. While no one has been able to accurately provide a source for this data, I bet the actual number is more than what we might think.  Cornell University did scientific research and found we make over 221 choices per day about food alone. I know food is a big part of my day, but I only spend a few waking hours actually eating. By my own math, and knowing that I chose what to wear today without the assistance of my wife, I’d be willing to bet my decision number could be as high as 1,000 per day.

Here’s the point… we make decisions all day long. Some are insignificant, like “Which socks will I wear today?” while others are more important, “What should I counter-offer in this contract negotiation?” Regardless of importance, every decision takes mental energy. Every decision has a mental cost.

What’s the Negative Power of choice?

Using physics definitions for work and power, if we do a lot of WORK over a short period of TIME, we will use a lot of POWER. By comparison, if we make a lot of decisions over the day, it will use a lot of brain power.

Too many choices over a period of time can fatigue our minds. As soon as we’re required to make choices to navigate unchartered waters, we feel a sense of excitement. But, if we are bombarded with too many new decisions, our brains become taxed. This is called decision fatigue.

A simple example, think about eating at a new restaurant and the waiter hands you a menu that’s as thick as a book. There is so much to pick from our brains can get overwhelmed and fatigued. Now contrast that with a restaurant that has zero menu choices. They just serve what they’ve prepared for that day… no substitutions. While the food could be amazing, some of us might want the option to hold the chipotle mayo! We want balance.

How do we combat decision fatigue?

One way we reduce the number of decisions we make each day is by developing patterns we can repeat without involving the executive functions of our brain. We call these patterns, habits. I bet that from the time your alarm clock went off this morning to the time you began your morning commute, you most likely performed the same steps you do every day. It allows you to start the day without doing too much heavy lifting in the brain. (and if you were taken out of that normal routine, I bet you felt a little fatigued!)

In other words, we remember the choices we like and then arrange them in patterns so we can repeat them. This helps us get things done faster while using less brain power. Any time we’re taken out of this normal pattern (habits), we become mentally fatigued. We may even get frustrated or angry if we’re taken too far out of our normal routines. That’s because we know we’ll have to use our brains (and more power) to make these new decisions and that’s just going to be work!

What is the Positive Power of choice?

Dan Pink points out in his book Drive that one of the key motivators in our lives is choice. He calls this autonomy. When a leader wants to energize her team, she must give the team choice. Trust in the team to make the right decisions. Then, let them decide on their own next steps. As a leader, you can help your team by providing a balance with choice. Don’t allow too much choice to create decision fatigue and don’t take away all choice to create frustration. This means knowing when to step in and when to let them run.

In addition to gaining energy from autonomy, choice improves your own story. Nothing improves until something changes. If you want to improve anything you have to change something and that will require a choice.

Some people argue with me that some choices could lead to a worse situation. My argument back is that if you were targeting a positive outcome then even the worst situation is really only a setback, not a destination. It’s only a destination if you stop trying. If you learn from your choice and then make a new choice, you can redirect toward that original destination. You can’t lose!

Now I gotta go figure out which socks to wear today… and apologize to my wife…
Russ

p.s. If you like these messages, please invite others to join us! They can sign up here and receive these weekly posts via email.

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Books referenced in this post:

Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us, by Dan Pink

My books on communication:

Corporate Ovations: Your Roadmap to More Effective Presentations, by Russ Peterson Jr. and Kevin Karschnik

Cut the C.R.A.P. and Make the Sale, by Russ Peterson Jr.

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Russ Peterson Jr. is the co-founder and Managing Director of iSpeak, Inc. – An award-winning professional development training company. Russ is a published author on Professional Sales Communication and Business Communication. He delivers workshops, keynotes, and personal communication coaching services to business professionals in the US and around the world. You can connect with Russ directly through Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.