More Than a Feeling: The Keys to Making the Right Choice, with Baba Shiv

If we want to make better decisions, then we need to think more like an artist.

Rationality is often seen as the gold standard when it comes to making decisions, but Professor Baba Shiv prompts us to consider: “Is a good decision based on reason? Or is it based on emotion?”

Shiv is the Sanwa Bank, Limited, Professor of Marketing at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Throughout his career, he’s researched how brain structures related to emotion and motivation affect the choices we make. “Emotions, these instinctual brain-body systems, have a profound influence on our decisions and we aren’t aware of it,” he says. Even when we think we’re rationally deliberating about a decision, Shiv’s research reveals that our conscious minds are often “simply rationalizing what the emotional brain has already decided to do.”

In this episode of If/Then: Business, Leadership, Society, Shiv explains why emotion can be just as powerful as rationality in helping guide decisions, and why, if we want to make better decisions, then we need to think more like an artist.

Key Takeaways:

- Emotions drive decision-making: Human decision-making is much less rational than we think. Shiv emphasizes that emotions and instinctual brain-body systems operate at a nonconscious level to shape the choices we make.
- Decision confidence rooted in emotion: “Decision confidence,” Shiv says, is the conviction that we’ve made the right choice. That feeling, crucial for commitment to a chosen course of action, is fundamentally rooted in emotion.
- Balancing rationality and emotion: Both the scientific and artistic minds play into decision-making. While rationality and data-driven approaches have their place, incorporating emotional aspects, akin to thinking like an artist, can lead to more meaningful and confident decisions.

More Resources:

Baba Shiv is The Sanwa Bank, Limited, Professor of Marketing at Stanford Graduate School of Business.

If/Then is a podcast from Stanford Graduate School of Business that examines research findings that can help us navigate the complex issues we face in business, leadership, and society.

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[jaek]

Wow, what eye opening content. This is so true. You will most likely make it If you think you can make it.

[AtandraBhar]

Very informative discussion. I feel that decision must be primarily scientific with emotion flavor. That means decision making must check pros n cons n then check the emotional aspects of the decision. But if first check the emotional aspects of the decision n then the scientific aspect, then the probability of wrong decision is high. This point is not discussed. I feel that scientific decision making is idealistic but emotional decision making is more realistic. Thank you.