Sometimes the most intelligent business leaders make terrible decisions.

The reason why, often comes down to two things: Pattern Recognition & Emotional Tagging.

Let’s take a peak at where the smartest people in the world go wrong. 1/

Usually Pattern Recognition & Emotional Tagging are time savers.

CEOs, for ex, save time by rolling through situations making quick decisions - they’ve seen similar things before (pattern recognition), and have emotions attached (tagged) to this that guide what they do. 2/

Your brain is always scanning for patterns in some way...it’s efficient.

But we’re faulty machines & sometimes tripped up when things *seem* similar but aren’t. It’s why you might overreact in a relationship, with a manager....you think you are seeing something you aren’t. 3/

Emotional Tagging often tells us what to do in different ways.

Should you avoid? Dive in? What’s the emotion connected with your history of these experiences?

Our own biases, reactions, judgments, etc.. these can interfere, and once again, we make mistakes 4/

Strong leaders make decisions quickly. There is not always time to double check the logic in *every* decision or interaction, and so they often go on “gut.”

I’m a big fan of instinct...but this is where an unexamined self can easily derail the company. 5/

So you have a leader who is gutsy, risk-taking, and trusts their instincts. They’ve had big wins, and don’t see anything that needs to be checked.

Often, they’ll assume the bad decision was external. Most don’t understand how they made the (bad) decision in the first place.6/

There are many factors that can mess up decision making...that that throw off your pattern recognition or distort your emotional tags. Often with similar triggers.

With both things happening almost simultaneously and outside your awareness, it’s tough to parse out. 7/

Conclusion: People at all levels make the same mistakes. Why? Because we’re human.

Bezos sends pics he shouldn’t. Facebook passed on buying the predecessor to TikTok.

Whether high or low stakes, we can all improve effective decision-making with solid self understanding. 8/

Here’s more reading on these topics:
Pattern Recognition: https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/BF03198400
Harvard Business on Pattern & Emotional Tags: https://hbr.org/2009/02/why-good-leaders-make-bad-decisions
Emotional Tags: https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=6uk5dnEr3EMC&oi=fnd&pg=PA143&dq=emotional+tags+and+decision+making+&ots=CEYbVbTKxj&sig=e27MmAun_qXNSYuCfZo0yZTltw8#v=onepage&q=emotional%20tags%20and%20decision%20making&f=false /9/End