Years ago on a hot July afternoon, I made a very bad decision. With a new baby, a new house, and a new book in the works, I was in an abnormally stressed-out state of mind. So I did what all red-blooded American consumers know is the best way to cure stress: I went shopping. Specifically, I bought a motorhome. This was a horrible decision given that we lived in a city where there was no place to park a vehicle extending 31.5 feet from bumper to bumper; my wife and I were roughly four decades away from prime motorhome travel age; and my 4-miles-per-gallon enviro-slayer wasn’t exactly fuel efficient. In terms of quality this decision ranked somewhere between Neville Chamberlin’s choice to appease the Nazis and Eve’s decision to nibble on that apple in the Garden of Eden. And I could have avoided it simply and easily if I had only consulted my Anti-Me first.
Whether purchasing a car, planning a team strategy, or contemplating a career switch we always run the risk of betraying our own self-interest. Beginning with Herbert Simon’s classic work on “bounded rationality” in the 1940s, and kicked into high gear by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky in the 1970’s, the thriving field of behavioral economics has identified hundreds of irrational quirks of the human decision-maker. Almost all of them can be traced back to the stubbornly narrow frame of reference held by all goal-driven beings like you and me.
Consulting your Anti-You before deciding is perhaps the simplest way to protect ourselves from these blunders. Your Anti-You is something like a frenemy who sees the world very differently than you do, so their opinion naturally broadens your frame of reference. For example, after I sold my money pit on wheels, I received one of two responses from friends and colleagues. Some people were stunned, wondering why I would have possibly sold something with so much untapped potential for future fun. These people tend to make decisions the same way I do—they are reward-seekers who make decisions quickly. (Good judgment be damned!)
On the other hand, people like the COO at my company or my wife usually err on the side of caution, so they responded very differently to news of my RV sale. Without rubbing my nose in it, their eyes clearly said why in the world did you buy that thing in the first place? Any one of those people could have pointed out that a mechanically inept, 28-year old urbanite with no depth perception, probably should not purchase a motorhome. But I didn’t think to ask them.
So how do you find your Anti-You?
My research reveals approximately eight Decision Styles: Hunter, Inventor, Farmer, Fisher, Investor, Builder, Thinker, or Manager. Each of those styles also has a natural Anti-Style. For example, I am an “Inventor” and my natural Anti-Style is a “Manager.” I have short list of “Mangers” that I turn to often—some for personal choices and others for business—before deciding. It is surprisingly effective and takes no special skills.
Even though the occasional regret is unavoidable simply because we can’t predict the future, finding your decision style, and then identifying the people in your social network who are your Anti-Style can eliminate the vast majority of otherwise regrettable decisions. Of course, if all that doesn’t sound like much fun, I know a great place to get a new motorhome.
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