Decision Making Quality Influenced by Psychological Flexibility

Red Diamonds Features is an interview-rich publication that converses on topics of communication, decision making, behavior, conflict, trust, courage, resilience and courage and reputation and crisis.

What is psychological flexibility and why is it important for us as individuals in our professional and personal lives and why is it important for organizations to have as a core value and competency?

How does psychological flexibility influence decision analysis and decision quality?

Tanya J. Peterson, Heather Marasse and Eve Rosenfeld talk about the topic and share their insightful, interesting, helpful expertise in this piece.

Tanya J. Peterson, Therapist, Counselor and Author
Choosing Therapy

“This ability to expand our thinking, emotional responses to tough situations and our behaviors gives us the freedom to meet even the toughest of challenges, including making difficult decisions.

“Psychological flexibility means being open to different options rather than rigidly clinging to an idea of how something should look or be accomplished.

“In decision making, it allows us to consider multiple possibilities and outcomes without being attached to just one; guided by a greater goal, purpose, or value and with the adaptability to consider multiple means to get there our decisions become less stressful and more successful.

“In decision-making, psychological flexibility involves:

• Acceptance: Accept that there will be multiple possibilities to consider and adopt an open mindset to consider them in order to reach the best possible decision in this moment.
• Defusion: Separate yourself from personal, emotional attachment to a single method or outcome.
• Goals: What is the outcome you desire? Focusing on this will make you more flexible and open to multiple possibilities.
• Actions: Decisions lead to positive actions. Being open to setting up these actions will give you more confidence in your ultimate decision.

Heather Marasse, Managing Partner
Trilogy Effect

“Psychological flexibility in a leader is crucial for sound decision making. A leader needs to quickly bring themselves back ‘above the line’ in terms of their emotional, mental and physical state.

"‘Above and below the line’ is a simple concept, but not easy, that helps us understand when we are in a state of ego reactivity — compulsively seeking control, validation or security — or in a state of openness and presence.

“Both states have physical sensations. When we are ‘below the line’ we feel hyper-sensitive, tightness in the body and emotionally ‘lit up’.

“Acting from this state can produce results but it often includes collateral damage and misspent energy.

“When in an ‘above the line’ state of openness and presence we are able to respond thoughtfully, authentically and creatively to whatever situation is presenting itself. There is more freedom of expression and decisions made from this state are more effective and strategic.”

Eve Rosenfeld, Therapist and Clinical Psychological Scientist
and Doctoral Candidate at the University at Buffalo

“In layman’s terms, this basically means that you are able to stay connected to the present moment and what is important to you so that you can make choices you feel good about.

“It also means you can do this even if you’re experiencing overwhelming negative thoughts and emotions. You don’t ignore them or suppress them, but you’re also not getting all caught up by them.

“Psychological flexibility allows you to make decisions that are consistent with the type of person you want to be rather than making decisions based on thoughts which can be biased and don’t always reflect truth, and emotions which are our reactions to our interpretations of a situation, rather than based on the truth of the situation.

“With regards to our professional life, this means that you are making decisions based on how you want to be in the world and what type of professional you aim to be.

“For example, some of your professional values might be that you want to be an understanding and supportive boss and that you want to be an assertive and diligent worker.

“Let’s say one of your employees frustrates you and causes delays in an important project, creating extra work for you and several of your employees.

“If you are psychologically flexible, you might sit the employee down, ask them what contributed to the mistake, collaboratively generate a plan to remedy the situation, and firmly but kindly inform them that you understand that this was a mistake but in the future you would like them to be more careful.

“If you are a psychologically inflexible boss, you might let your emotions get the best of you and yell at the employee, fire them and create even more work for everyone by having one less member of the team.”

“Psychological flexibility in the workplace means that you are able to stay grounded in stressful situations and handle them in a way that makes you feel a sense of pride and vitality.

“It doesn’t mean that you won’t get stressed or won’t feel frustrated. It’s about how you manage it in an effective way.”

A thank you to Tanya, Heather and Eve for sharing their time, brain power, expertise and recommendations.

Michael Toebe is a specialist for reputation, professional relationships communication and wiser, more successful crisis management, serving individuals and organizations.

In addition to writing Red Diamonds Features, he writes the Red Diamonds Newsletter, a weekly publication on Medium about communication, decision making, behavior, conflict, trust, relationships, resilience, courage, reputation and crisis. He also writes Bag of Red Diamonds (on Revue) and is the host of the Red Diamonds Podcast with Michael Toebe.

Contact: RedDiamondsFeatures@Gmail.com