Recognizing and Sidestepping a Certain Decision Trap
Learning about it and remembering may help us bypass getting entangled in it
We don’t always notice the troublesome decision-making processes we’re engaging in and the likely outcomes that will result. One of these that is helpful to know and come to recognize is value attribution.
It’s our natural way we decide how we feel about someone or something based on the initial perceived value we detect and decide is present.
This can work for good yet it can also lead to faulty conclusions and potentially costly decisions.
“We may turn down a pitch or idea that is presented by the ‘wrong’ person or blindly follow the advice of someone who is highly regarded,” wrote Ori and Rom Brafman, in their book, Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior.
Have you either observed this or got trapped yourself? I’ve experienced it and will briefly detail a minor example to illustrate the point that the authors wrote about.
Years ago I heard about a painful time that a well-liked member (customer) of a company was going through. I pitched the idea to my superior for us to reach out to them in a compassionate way, to show support, both verbally and with a thoughtful gift. The manager look right past me, steely eyes, blank stare.
They told me why what I proposed wasn’t a good idea, that the member would not want to be bothered and that they would prefer privacy.
Some people are certainly very much that way personality wise, so what this manager was concluding was not anything absurd. Yet, it wasn’t what they said so much as their facial expression, stiff body language, tone of voice and how they presented their disapproval and honestly, the disdain towards the suggestion.
A few days later, I notice a greeting card in the office, for that particular member, addressing their trauma, with many co-workers already having signed the card (a gift was included), waiting for more employees (like myself) to sign the card. The manager made a point to come out of their office to ask if everyone had signed the card.
The idea, when first presented, wasn’t a poor one. The problem for the manager was who specifically presented that idea and what they thought about that person.
The value attribution about me was low. Very low. Thus, the suggestion was considered, in the moment, to be little-to-no value, and couldn’t be accepted.
Good enough, however, for the company, when it wasn’t aligned with me.
This isn’t the only experience and example. There have been more intense ones. I present the one above because it’s simple to understand.
“It makes you wonder how many times we miss out on something worthwhile because of our preconceptions about its value,” Ori and Rom Brafman wrote. “Once we attribute a certain value to something, it's very difficult to view it in another light.”
We can, especially when our emotions are overly strong, easily get locked into how we view a certain situation or certain person, based not only on our experiences but our feelings and perceptions of them, which are not always rooted in facts and reason.
“When the undercurrent of value attribution takes hold, it completely distorts our decision making,” the authors wrote.
We may have warnings or solutions to critical problems that go unheeded (I’ve read about, heard about, witnessed and experienced these) or opportunities bypassed because the value attribution in people’s minds was miscalculated. It happens.
We may not always be able to influence or persuade others. We may not always have our contributions valued. That’s the cold reality.
What we can do is realize this type of error of thinking, belief and decision making exists, recognize it when we’re beginning to do it and not fall into that hole ourselves.
Michael Toebe is a reputation and communications specialist at Reputation Intelligence and writes the Reputation Intelligence newsletter here on Substack and on LinkedIn. He helps individuals and organizations proactively and responsively with matters of trust, stakeholder relationships and reputation.
He has been a reporter for newspapers and radio, hosted a radio talk show, written for online business magazines, been a media source, helped people work through disputes, conflicts and crises and assisted clients with communications to further build, protect, restore and reconstruct reputation.
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