You Have Data. Why Can't You Decide? | Michelle Florendo | ep 15

Most of us have more information than we've ever had, and an AI model will hand us ten options and a cited brief in 60-seconds or less. The decision still sits there. Signals & Subtractions is a weekly show for people deciding what their organization should do with AI, and this week we go upstream of the AI, to the deciding itself. Michelle Florendo is a decision engineer and facilitator, founder of Powered by Decisions, trained in decision science at Stanford, and host of the podcast Ask a Decision Engineer. Michelle Florendo: https://poweredbydecisions.com/ In this episode: Signal: as we offload the doing, the deciding matters more. Michelle walks through Ron Howard's three legs of every decision, objectives, options and information, and why "waiting for certainty is a decision in itself." Signal: AI made the analysis cheap. Options and information are nearly free now, but nobody's objectives arrive any faster. Subtraction: stop assuming good decisions must be purely rational. Fear, a gut sense, a feeling that something is off: emotions point to needs, and they're data. "It's more important to be resilient than to be right." Subtraction: stop using AI simply as a rational advisor. A model can list pros and cons, but it can't feel which option makes your stomach drop. "Good decisions need to make sense but also feel right." Also: fear of something better (FOSB), resulting and Annie Duke's Thinking in Bets, and why framing comes before all three legs. One thing to do this week: pick one decision you're sitting on. Before you ask anyone for the pros and cons, write down what you actually want from it. Then for each option, write down what concerns you, and whether that points to something you want that isn't on your list yet. The episode's takeaway runs that interview with any model: https://sigsub.show/takeaways/concern... Michelle's Substack, Decision Fluency: https://decisionfluency.substack.com/ Chapters: 0:00 Can I call you out? 0:22 You have data. Why can't you decide? 2:02 Michelle's signal: offloading the doing 5:22 Three legs of every decision 9:56 Sam's signal: analysis got cheap 12:16 What keeps people from deciding 14:52 Fear of something better 15:57 Framing comes first 19:40 Resulting: decision versus outcome 20:28 Michelle's subtraction: resilient, not right 22:36 Sam's subtraction: not a rational advisor 24:55 Where to find Michelle Livestreaming Wednesdays. Episode Fridays. Newsletter Sundays. https://sigsub.show/