Decision-making process
The Basic Idea
Which do you prefer, hamburgers or pizza?
You probably came up with the answer to that question quickly — unless you’re really torn between those two delicious meals. Yet, whenever we are making a choice between two or more things, our brains go through a decision-making process.
When we are presented with a choice, we first have to identify the decision. For the hamburger vs. pizza question, that’s an easy step — you immediately know that the decision is between two food items. Next, we have to gather the relevant information. You think of hamburgers and pizzas and their respective tastes. Then, you identify alternatives. Are there any other options? Maybe a secret taco stash laying around? No.
Now that you know the parameters of the decision, it’s time to weigh the evidence. Since it’s based on personal preference, you only have to conjure up your own experience eating both. Which one have you preferred in the past? And finally: you’re ready to make the choice.1
If the question was to require an action, such as “Do you want to go get hamburgers or pizza?”, after making the choice, you would implement the action and order one or the other. The last step is to reflect on that decision. As you sit thedown with your slice of pizza, are you content? You evaluate your outcome so that in the future, you can improve your choices.2
A decision-making process is the cognitive process where you weigh alternatives to achieve a desired result.3
It doesn’t matter which side of the fence you get off on sometimes. What matters most is getting off. You cannot make progress without making decisions.
- American entrepreneur and motivational speaker Jim Rohn.4
About the Authors
Dan Pilat
Dan is a Co-Founder and Managing Director at The Decision Lab. He is a bestselling author of Intention - a book he wrote with Wiley on the mindful application of behavioral science in organizations. Dan has a background in organizational decision making, with a BComm in Decision & Information Systems from McGill University. He has worked on enterprise-level behavioral architecture at TD Securities and BMO Capital Markets, where he advised management on the implementation of systems processing billions of dollars per week. Driven by an appetite for the latest in technology, Dan created a course on business intelligence and lectured at McGill University, and has applied behavioral science to topics such as augmented and virtual reality.
Dr. Sekoul Krastev
Dr. Sekoul Krastev is a decision scientist and Co-Founder of The Decision Lab, one of the world's leading behavioral science consultancies. His team works with large organizations—Fortune 500 companies, governments, foundations and supernationals—to apply behavioral science and decision theory for social good. He holds a PhD in neuroscience from McGill University and is currently a visiting scholar at NYU. His work has been featured in academic journals as well as in The New York Times, Forbes, and Bloomberg. He is also the author of Intention (Wiley, 2024), a bestselling book on the science of human agency. Before founding The Decision Lab, he worked at the Boston Consulting Group and Google.
