So often in the midst of change or the unknown where our mind goes first is what are we going to do? But what if the key to being able to navigate change and uncertainty was less about doing, but rather a way of being? Today, I'm in conversation with April Rinne, a futurist, speaker, and author of the book, Flux: 8 Superpowers For Thriving In Constant Change, where she shares what she has found is the most effective way for navigating the current world of rapidly accelerating unexpected...

Whenever I teach about decision making, inevitably, the comment comes up, "These frameworks are great and all, but what do I do about the other people in the room?" Decision making in groups definitely adds a layer of complexity. That's why I invited Katherine Rosback, an expert decision and risk analysis facilitator and a colleague of mine from the Society of Decision Professionals onto the show. We'll be talking about the science behind asking questions, how to lay the groundwork for...

In all my years of teaching about decision making, no topic generates more angst than the need to know. But how do you know what you know? How do you know when you know what you know? And how do you integrate this knowing into some of the most important decisions of your life? In this episode, I invited Dave Evans onto the show to talk all about these topics of knowing and discernment. Dave is the co-author of Designing Your Life and Designing Your New Work Life. He co-founded the Stanford...

Risk. For some people, the very thought sends chills down their spines, yet for others, the topic prompts a sense of thrill. Why is that the case? And what does that mean for how we think about risk in decision making? To answer those questions and more, I turned to Michele Wucker, author of the books, The Gray Rhino, and You Are What You Risk. We chat about how the way we define risk matters, the layers of factors that make up our risk fingerprint, and things to keep in mind about risk when...

Confidence is a critical part of decision making and being an effective leader. Not enough confidence and you won't move a decision to the action or be able to cultivate the support needed to move it forward. Too much confidence and you could make decisions that unnecessarily put you and others at risk. So how do you walk the line of having just the right amount of confidence? Today, I speak with Don Moore: confidence expert, UC Berkeley Haas School of Business professor and author of the...

Decisions. They are the way we can steer our lives forward, yet how much thought do people give to how they are making them? And more importantly, what are the small things we can do to improve them? In this episode, I go back to basics with global decision making expert, Ralph Keeney. Ralph is a Professor Emeritus of Business Administration at Duke University and a Professor Emeritus of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Southern California. He has written multiple...

Decision-making is not just a cognitive exercise; there are benefits to approaching it as a whole person. To talk more about this, I invited Amy Day, decision educator and executive director of the nonprofit Clarity for Action, to my podcast. Amy likes to say that she grew up in a decision laboratory, surrounded by giants from the field of decision science. She's certified as a decision educator, coach and advisor through Stanford, continuing studies. Over the past 20 years, she has...

How can you know you've made a good decision, even before you know how things turn out? It’s all about understanding decision quality. To talk about that, I invited award-winning decision quality expert, Carl Spetzler onto today's show. Carl is the co-founder and chairman of Strategic Decisions group, a leading strategy consulting firm, renowned for its expertise in strategic decision making for greater value creation. He also literally wrote the book on decision quality along with his...

Making decisions as an individual has its challenges, but having to make decisions as a group adds many other layers of complexity. To talk about that, I brought my friend, Alexis Gonzales-Black onto today's show. Alexis is a Partner and the org design lead at August Public. Before August, she led the implementation of Holacracy at Zappos and helped shape an emerging org design practice for world-class clients at IDEO. She is an expert in organization design and is driven by a desire to...

When making a decision, we should seek out the "best" option, right? Turns out, seeking to maximize your outcomes is likely to leave you less happy and more stressed. On the show today I bring you one of my mentors, Barry Schwartz, who wrote the game-changing book The Paradox of Choice, Why More is Less. Barry shares why maximizing is a bad goal, talks about the benefits of constraints, and shows how practical wisdom is what will enable us to succeed in the face of uncertainty and...

Decisions about what you want to do next in life feel big- they can literally change your life. That's why so many people feel stuck in the process. Today I'm speaking with my friend, Kathy Davies, the Managing Director of the Life Design Lab at Stanford University. She is also the co-founder of Designing Your Life for Women and a Master Trainer of the Designing Your Life process. In today's episode, Kathy provides an overview of what it looks like to apply design thinking to life...

In this fourth season of the podcast, I'm bringing folks on the show who have influenced my work on decision-making. And who better to start with than Seth Godin, without whom this podcast would not exist. Seth is an entrepreneur, an author of multiple New York Times bestselling books, writer of one of the most popular blogs in the world and a dear teacher of mine when it comes to dancing with the emotions that come up in decision-making. Today, we talk about making decisions with intent,...

In season four of my podcast, Ask A Decision Engineer, I'll be interviewing guests on the show who will share insights, strategies, and tools to help you work through your decision-making challenges. You'll hear from authors, professors and practitioners spanning the fields of decision science, psychology, organizational behavior, and human centered design. New episodes drop in June. Subscribe now, wherever you get your podcasts.

In this Ask Me Anything (AMA) episode, I answer a question from a listener about how to tell whether the decisions he has made were the best ones. Listen in as I unpack his question and discuss strategies for making decisions with confidence in the future.

In this Ask Me Anything (AMA) episode, I answer a question from a listener about how to approach decisions so that she can move past overwhelm and feel more confident in her decision making. Listen in as I discuss four key steps for her to tackle decisions with more ease.

Sometimes there are decisions that are so overwhelming and emotionally draining that what we decide to do to stay mentally and emotionally fit enough to make the decision is as important as the decision process itself. In today's episode, you'll hear from a guest client facing a difficult decision regarding care for her aging mother with a mental health condition. Listen in, and learn strategies for working through tough decisions involving others.

Figuring out what to do after graduating from college can be a daunting task. In this episode, I show a college student how to clarify what she wants, reduce the stress of finding the perfect job, and avoid getting overwhelmed by uncertainties.

Sometimes it isn't the big decisions that get us stuck, but rather the seemingly small ones. Has that ever happened to you? In today's episode, you'll hear a small business owner unpack a smaller decision that has been taking up a lot of brain space in part, because her head says one thing, but her intuition says another. For full episode notes, check out the website AskADecisionEngineer.com

In today's episode, you'll hear from someone who is contemplating, whether he should start his own thing or seek out a job, he's trying to discern whether entrepreneurship is something he will actually enjoy, or if it's just something he thinks he should do, given the culture he's surrounded by. And then there are also all those uncertainties that each path holds.

Have you ever encountered a decision where you knew the path you wanted to take, but for some reason you couldn't take action? If your logical brain has already decided, but you're still stuck, it may be because something is happening in your emotional realm. Today, you'll hear from a business owner who has already thought through a decision to switch vendors, but can't pinpoint why he hasn't yet pulled the trigger.

In today's episode, I'll be talking about why it's important not to ignore feelings in decision-making, but instead to acknowledge and examine them. I'll touch on how naming your feelings can help you get unstuck, how tuning into feelings can help you make better decisions, aligned with what you actually want and how it becoming adept at assessing what your feelings are telling you can help you make decisions more quickly. By the end of the episode, I hope you'll see why feelings can be a...

In season three of my podcast, Ask a Decision Engineer, we'll be tackling ALL THE FEELS. You know, when you wish you could just make a rational decision, but can't. The truth is, if you want to feel confident in your decision, don't ignore your emotions. Examine them. This season, I'll teach you about the types of emotions that may arise in decision-making, what to do about them, and how to use them as data so that you can move forward with less stress and more clarity.

Information. It's the third component of any decision, and the trickiest one to deal with. Learn more about why this piece causes so much stress, what common mistakes people make in this area, and what questions you can ask yourself to improve this area of your decision making.

Making a decision is just choosing among options, right? There's more to it than that. Michelle dives into the options piece of decision making: why that piece is important, what mistakes people typically make, and what you can do about it.