Improving decision making through mindfulness

• Main Authors: KARELAIA, Natalie, Jochen REB
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2015
• Subjects: Mindfulness; Decision Making; Judgment; Awareness; Biases; Leadership Studies; Organizational Behavior and Theory
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/4809; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/lkcsb_research/article/5808/viewcontent/ImprovingDecisionMakingMindfulness_pp.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

With perhaps a few exceptions per day, we are seldom fully aware of our thoughts, actions, emotions, and what is happening around us. Even when it comes to making decisions, an activity that is often quite conscious, deliberate, and intentional, people are typically not as aware as they could be. We argue that as a result, decision quality may suffer. Consequently, mindfulness, most often defined as the state of being openly attentive to and aware of what is taking place in the present, both internally and externally (e.g., Brown and Ryan 2003; Kabat-Zinn 1982; 1990), can help people make better decisions. Making judgments and decisions is a fundamental human activity in both personal and organizational contexts. Decisions hold the potential for great gains: marrying the right person, accepting a job that fits well, putting one's savings into the right investments, or choosing the appropriate strategy for an organization. Decisions also hold the potential for great loss, pain, and suffering. Wrong decisions can destroy people, families, and organizations. People are haunted by rumination, even depression, looking back with regret at some of the decisions they made. Organizations are also a place of great decision blunders, such as the “merger” between Daimler Benz and Chrysler, or Coca Cola's decision to introduce New Coke.