How I overcame decision paralysis | Mary Steffel | TEDxNortheasternU

back when I was studying to be a decision scientist I had the opportunity to learn from someone who changed the way I approach difficult decisions Cinderella that's me playing Cinderella in a university production of into the woods you see in this version of the fairy tale Cinderella embodies what it's like to be immobilized by indecision Cinderella is torn as to whether or not she wants to pursue a life with the prince and so night after night she attends the ball but she runs away before the prince can ever learn who she really is eventually the prince catches on to this and in a grand romantic gesture of sorts he spreads thick sticky tar all over the steps of the palace to prevent her from running away this time when Cinderella flees her golden slippers gets stuck in the tar her feet are glued to the ground and she's confronted with how her indecision is literally keeping her from moving forward what I love about this moment is how it so beautifully captures what it's like to be immobilized by indecision as a professor of marketing here at Northeastern University I study how people make difficult decisions and as a fellow for the White House social and behavioral scientists team in 2016 and in my ongoing work with the office of evaluation sciences at the General Services Administration I've had the opportunity to apply these insights to helping our government better support citizens and navigating decisions about the benefits our government provides what I hope to share with you today is what these experiences have taught me about how to overcome decision paralysis in our own lives and how to help others do the same despite knowing a thing or two about decision making I sometimes find myself immobilized by indecision as well I've grappled with small decisions like what to order for dinner I've also struggled with bigger decisions like where to go to college what to study or what to do with my life I still remember the first time I walked into a Teavana looking to buy some tea Tavano is paradise for a tea lover there were these rows upon rows of beautiful canisters each one had a fantastic name like lavender dreams or peach tranquility I spent what seemed like hours in there sorting through all the options tasting all the different samples and taken in the aroma of all the different flavors but Teavana was held for someone who's struggling to make a decision I was so overwhelmed that I left without buying anything you see our instinct when confronted with difficult choices is often not to choose anything at all and while foregoing some tea may not seem like that big of a deal it can be really costly when it leads us to put off or avoid more important decisions for which choosing something is better than nothing the cost of indecision is perhaps best epitomized by the paradox of burdens ass in this story a hungry donkey is placed between two equally appealing bales of hay the donkey can't decide which of the bales to eat first and so he starves to death while pondering the decision the moral of this story is that sometimes it's better to choose something than to choose nothing only an ass would do otherwise oh if that's true then I confess I've been a bit of an ass myself sometimes I've paid a price for my indecision but I suspect I'm not the only one who has if any of these experiences sound familiar to you raise your hand and keep it raised how many of you like me found yourself shopping at some point only to leave the store without buying anything how many of you like me might have been spending hours researching flights only to find that the flight that you want is now gone up in price or is no longer available how many of you like me had a coupon or a gift card that you weren't really sure how to spend only to find that now it's expired or has disappeared in the bottom of a drawer or somewhere and looking around this room I see that most all of us at some time or another have paid for indecision whether that be time money opportunities or even our happiness but is walking away empty-handed really our only alternative to making a difficult decision one thing I learned from Cinderella is perhaps there's a better option while sitting there stuck on the steps of the palace Cinderella had a realization she didn't have to choose she could delegate her decision to someone else she did this by leaving the prince a clue to her identity in this case of Golden Slipper and making it the princes responsibility to make the next move I took a tip from Cinderella the next time I went back to Teavana this time instead of getting overwhelmed by all of the options I delegated my choice to a salesperson I asked him which of the options he would recommend and I told him which ones I was considering and I purchased what he chose this way I walked away with what had become some of my favorite teas of all time in fact this strategy worked so well for me that I use it all the time now in fact I even out sourced what to call this talk this made me wonder can giving people the option to delegate enable them to overcome decision paralysis in their own lives my collaborator Eleanor Williams and I explored this question in an experiment that was inspired by my experience at Teavana in this study we asked participants to imagine that they were shopping for tea we gave them either a small or a large set of teas to choose from half of our participants were on their own to make this decision they could either choose a tea to purchase or pass for the time being the other half of our participants were told that a salesperson approached them and offered to help them make that decision these participants have the option of choosing a tea walking away empty-handed or delegating that decision to the salesperson and letting him help them make a decision what we found was that people were overwhelmed by choosing from a large array of options people were less likely to choose anything when they had many options to choose from than just a few but when people had a sales person present to whom they could delegate that decision we found that people were more likely to choose a tea when there are many options than when there were only few options in fact people were two-and-a-half times more likely to make a purchase when they had a salesperson to help them navigate that long list of options then when they had that same choice and were on their own what this study tells us is that giving people the option to delegate can enable them to overcome difficult decisions and walk away with something rather than nothing my collaborator and I followed up on this experiment in a series of other tests and what we found was that people often cope with difficult decisions by delegating them to other people people delegate decisions when there's a lot of options to sort through when those options are really similar to one another or when the choice involves difficult trade-offs people delegate trivial decisions like what tea to buy as well as more important decisions like whether to undergo surgery we find that people delegate not because they're just trying to put choices and better hands don't get me wrong people do like to delegate to experts but when confronted with a tough choice people are perfectly willing to delegate to anyone who's willing to shoulder that responsibility what does seem to motivate people to delegate difficult decisions is the desire to avoid making a difficult decision and and the fear of making the wrong choice our participants told us that they were afraid of making a mistake that they were worried that they might want to kick themselves afterward or that they might wish they would have known better what seems to be so appealing about delegation is that it allows people to avoid the responsibility and regret of choosing while still getting something out of the decision what we learned here can be used for more than just buying tea in my experience with the White House I had the opportunity to put these insights into action I call operated with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and I helped them to enable citizens to navigate choices about prescription drug plans every year a notice goes out over a million people who have prescription drug plans this notice tells them that their premiums are going up that they qualify to be paying zero dollars in premiums and that they can switch plans to avoid paying these increased premiums although just about everyone receiving this notice would be better off switching to any plan with a zero dollar premium than sticking with a plan that they're on only a small fraction of them actually do so it's not hard to imagine why people might be daunted by having to pick a different plan this is a list of plans in Massachusetts with a zero dollar premium it's overwhelming in some states people I visit have as many as ten plans to choose from each with different networks coverage and special rules it's enough to make anyone want to avoid the decision all together to help people overcome the decision paralysis that they may have been experiencing one of the recommendations that we made for this notice was to remind people they didn't have to make this decision alone they could delegate this decision by calling Medicare for help comparing ants between plans today we have more choices and more options than ever before in our lives in every facet of them in the modern dating scene singles like Cinderella aren't just deciding whether or not to see Prince Charming they're swiping left or right on hundreds of profiles of potential princes and plenty of frogs to find the one shoppers are waiting through dozens of consumer reviews and product descriptions to find the perfect cup of tea and families are navigating long lists of health plans in order to find the right protection for themselves and their families you would think that having all of these options available to us would only make us happier and yet it's left many of us immobilized with indecision we fail to choose anything for fear of making the wrong choice and we walk away from these decisions empty-handed often paying a hefty price for indecision the lesson I hope to leave you with today is that walking away from a difficult decision empty-handed isn't your only alternative to making a difficult choice you don't have to stand stuck like Cinderella with your feet glued to the ground you don't have to behave like an ass resigning yourself to an empty belly or empty hands you can and should delegate difficult decisions to friends experts even strangers so that you can overcome your decision paralysis and choose to make the most of the choices in your life we can also pay it forward in Len decision support to those in our lives who are stuck as friends we can lend advice and input to our loved ones who might need a nudge to move forward as retailers we can provide product specialists to help people figure out what's the right option for them and as employers and policy makers we can connect families with advisors to help them navigate complicated decisions like choosing a health care plan lending this decision support can help people overcome decision paralysis and leverage that support to walk away from these difficult choices with something rather than nothing and to live more happily ever after thank you you [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 129,982

Rating: 4.4956117 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Life, Choice, Decision making, Happiness

Id: K9yDyl_LX4E

Length: 12min 41sec (761 seconds)

Published: Thu May 30 2019