A632.9.3.RB - Role of Emotion in Decision Making

 A632.9.3.RB _Manglona, Matthew-Napu_Role of Emotion in Decision Making

Professor Baba Shiv described that confidence does matter when it comes to making decisions for a group. When he discussed the military commander’s confidence in his mission planning in a combat zone that plays an important factor when those who are under your supervision have to carry that order. (Shiv, 2011). A situation in which I was extremely confident was when I was deployed in Afghanistan in 2013. We had a mission that required the escort of the regional area’s General Officer from Canada. We had to take this officer around a camp and have him and his team inspect the operations of hospital that our Afghan counterparts were conducting. When it came to the mission planning, I had covered all angles of what could go wrong and placed mitigations of safety in place to ensure that no harm comes our way. When I gave the brief to the General Officer I had the best confidence in the world because I knew if Plan A didn’t work I would have Plan B to rely on if that did not work we would go through Plan C. So when I gave the brief, my soldiers, and the General Officer and his staff were impressed because of the confidence I had giving my brief. I ensured that we are all coming back to base in a safe manner and we will execute our plan(s) to the “Tee.”

The General Officer fed off that confidence and was impressed that a young Lieutenant had the cool, calm, and collected expressions with high motivation when he was receiving his brief.  Hoch, Kunreuther, & Gunther, (2001) discussed that there is evidence in that emotions play high importance when a decision presents uncertain outcomes.” (p. 2854) Just like my mission, we didn’t know what would or could happen especially if the enemy was to find out we had the regional commander in our convoy. When it came to this particular event, the emotions I experienced was passion, calmness, and excitement. These three were the pillars for my confidence for this particular mission. I was passionate about my job and the high visibility it presented because this was me and my platoon’s time to shine in front of not just our leadership but those above them as well. Calmness, I was able to remain calm showing to my soldiers despite our dangerous surroundings, there was no need to panic and freak out when conducting our mission. Then finally, excitement which was the most important, if I did not show excitement let alone passion we would not have been able to pull off this mission.

Then there was a time where I did not feel confident with myself. When my boss was on vacation, there was a last minute brief I had to give to our Adjutant General in which I was unprepared for. My Adjutant General was already in a bad mood from what I was told and I did not want to make him more angry. When it was my turn to brief and because it was so last minute I was literally sweating, heart beating at 100mph, and mumbling when giving my introduction. Hoch, Kunreuther, & Gunther, (2001) discussed that fear is a powerful emotion factor. (p. 2868) Bottom line, fear played an important factor as to why I felt the way did. I was so nervous that the Adjutant General saw it and notified me I did not have to go any further because it was not my job to know all the answers that my boss would have known. The three emotions I felt was fear, nervousness, and failure. I was fearful because I did not know if I could provide the answers the General wanted to hear, I was nervous as to what he and his staff would think of me when I was giving my brief, and finally failure, I thought I was going to fail and possibly be reassigned or at the worst lose my job.

References:

Baba, Shiv (2011) Brain Research at Stanford: Decision Making. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRKfl4owWKc

Hoch, S., Kunreuther, H., & Gunther, R. (2001). Wharton on Making Decisions (1^st edition). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.