I like to believe I am rational. I am German after all, and we are known as being efficient, direct, and logical.
When it comes to making decisions, especially important ones, I pride myself in thinking things through, weighing the pros and cons, and then objectively choosing the best option.
If it only were this easy. My decision-making is far more complex than ‘logical thinking’. Because… well, my emotions come into play. They are central to how I weigh options, interpret information, and take action. And this goes for all of us. No matter if we are choosing a new career path, navigating a difficult conversation, or just trying to pick a brand of toothpaste at the supermarket, our emotions are part of shaping our decisions.
Accepting this doesn’t make us irrational. It makes us human.
“Let’s Just Be Objective…” Why That’s Not Really Possible
In professional settings, we often hear phrases like “let’s be objective” or “leave the emotions out of it.” While this may sound like a path to clear-headed decision-making, it ignores the reality that emotion is always involved.1
I experience emotions in my professional decision making daily. I experience the emotion of fear of making a wrong decision, I experience the emotions of happiness and joy when I help a client create meaningful outcomes, I experience the emotion of embarrassment when I stumble during an important presentation.
Let’s dive a little further into the first example – the fear of making a wrong decision. A few years ago, I needed a new laptop. My laptops had always been Windows systems, but since I use an iPhone and iPad, I was contemplating making a switch to a Mac laptop for all my devices to work together seamlessly in my digital eco-system. In exploring that option, I learned that while there are many advantages to this decision, it would come at a significantly higher cost, and there would be challenges to integrating it in our company wide digital eco-system. Despite those challenges, the logic of moving forward made sense, but there were still so many questions driven by emotion. What if… what if I don’t like it, what if I spend all this money and then it doesn’t work as well as I hope it will… what if I make the wrong decision? I am not kidding when I say the emotion of fear kept me up at night. It kept me up before I purchased the laptop, and definitely kept me up in the time between placing my order (and parting with my money; and my husband = our company tech guru making long lists of things that needed to happen in the setup) and receiving the laptop. I am happy to share that this story has a happy ending, I am typing this article on this very same laptop, which turned out to be the right decision for me.
When we try to suppress or ignore our emotions in any decision-making process, they don’t disappear. They just go underground, and often show up later as fear, resistance, regret, or conflict.
A Deeper Look at How We Buy Things (Even Toothpaste)
In business, understanding how customers make purchasing decisions is very important.
Let’s take a simple, low-stakes example to illustrate purchase reasoning: buying toothpaste. We all need it. At first glance, it seems to be a pretty straight-forward purchase. We want something that cleans our teeth. But when we look closer, the decision is shaped by a variety of emotional cues:
- The packaging design might make us feel like the brand is trustworthy. Colours, fonts, images… every component has impact.
- A minty-fresh tagline or product vibe might make us feel like we can be confident going into a meeting, trusting we’ll have the minty-fresh breath the toothpaste promises.
- We might buy the same brand your family used growing up, out of nostalgia or comfort. People we trust have trusted this brand before us.
- Or maybe we choose the product because it makes us feel responsible or aligned with your values.
Marketers have long understood what behavioural economists confirm: most purchasing decisions are made emotionally, and then justified rationally. 2
Even in B2B (business-to-business) environments, traditionally assumed to be driven by logic and ROI (return on investment), research shows that emotional connection is often a stronger predictor of loyalty than satisfaction with product performance.3
Making Space for Emotions in your Decision-Making Process
Here are a few practical suggestions how to bring more emotional intelligence into your decisions:
- Pause and check in: What am I feeling right now? How might that be influencing my decision? Is it the right time to make this decision? How will my decision impact myself and others?
- Name your emotions: Labeling your emotions gives you clarity. The Atlas of Emotions, based on emotion scientist Dr. Paul Ekman’s work, is a wonderful tool for exploring our different emotions.
- Ask ‘what matters most?’: What are my core values? What value is at play for me here?
- Look beyond logic: Why am I drawn to one option over another? Do I choose to approach this decision with openness?
- Talk it through: Voicing the emotional layers of a decision can help us make more confident, grounded choices. In my coaching practice, holding space for my clients to talk through decisions is an important part of the work we do together.
Embracing our Emotions in Decision Making
Our emotions are not the enemy of good decision-making. They are an essential part of it. The goal isn’t to eliminate emotions from the process, but to include them with awareness and curiosity.
When we bring emotional intelligence into how we make decisions, we’re not being soft. We’re being smart. And we’re far more likely to make choices that align with who we are and what matters most.
References:
- Pérez Nieto, Miguel & Fernández-Abascal, Enrique. (2009). ‘The Role Of Emotions In Decision-Making’. Studia Psychologica. 51(4), pp. 305-318. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Miguel-Perez-Nieto/publication/272791183_The_role_of_emotions_in_decision-making/links/5789087a08ae254b1ddceae1/The-role-of-emotions-in-decision-making ↩︎
- Zaltman, G. (2003). How Customers Think: Essential Insights into the Mind of the Market. Harvard Business School Press. https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=15994 ↩︎
- Harvard Business Review. (2013). ‘The New Science of Customer Emotions’. Harvard Business Review https://hbr.org/2015/11/the-new-science-of-customer-emotions ↩︎
