How to Make Better Decisions Under Pressure

Summary

HBR On Leadership: How to Make Better Decisions Under Pressure

Episode Release Date: January 29, 2025
Host: Kurt Nickish
Guest: Carol Kaufman, Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School and Founder of the Institute of Coaching

---

Introduction

In this insightful episode of HBR On Leadership, host Kurt Nickish engages in a deep conversation with Carol Kaufman, a renowned expert in decision-making and leadership. Drawing from her extensive experience coaching leaders and her co-authored book, Real Time: Find Your Winning Moves When the Stakes Are High, Kaufman presents a comprehensive framework designed to enhance decision-making skills, especially under high-pressure situations.

Challenging Conventional Leadership Wisdom

Kaufman begins by addressing the common belief that leaders rely predominantly on their past experiences to make decisions. While experience is valuable—Kaufman notes, "You can say maybe 90% of the time, 95% of the time" (03:02), she emphasizes that in rapidly changing or high-stakes environments, this reliance can lead to pitfalls. Leaders must cultivate agility and the capacity to create space for smarter choices rather than defaulting to familiar patterns.

The MOVE Framework for Decision Making

Central to Kaufman's approach is the MOVE framework, an acronym that guides leaders through making effective decisions under pressure:

1. Make Space by Being Mindfully Alert
   Recognizing the moment between stimulus and response is crucial. Kaufman references Viktor Frankl’s idea that "between every stimulus and response there is a space," highlighting the importance of mindfulness in decision-making (03:34).

2. Options Generator
   Leaders should actively generate multiple potential responses to any given challenge. For example, when faced with a snide remark in a meeting, Kaufman suggests having options such as confronting the issue, focusing on data, showing empathy, or choosing not to engage immediately (09:32).

3. Validate Your Vantage Point
   It’s essential to assess whether your perspective is clear and unbiased. Kaufman warns against over-optimism and emphasizes the need to validate one's viewpoint to avoid cognitive biases that can cloud judgment (18:03).

4. Engage and Affect Change
   After generating and validating options, leaders must decide how to act to implement the best possible outcome.

Three Dimensions of Leadership

Kaufman expands on the MOVE framework by introducing the three dimensions of leadership:

• What Do I Need to Do?
  Identifying the objectives and desired outcomes.

• Who Do I Need to Be?
  Aligning personal identity and inner resources with leadership roles.

• How Do I Relate to Others?
  Adopting the Platinum Rule—“treat others as they would like to be treated”—to foster better relationships and team dynamics (05:54).

Real-World Applications and Case Studies

Kaufman shares compelling stories to illustrate her framework. One such example is Matt, a candidate vying for a CEO position. Initially focused solely on showcasing his knowledge, Matt failed to connect with the board. Through coaching, he learned to adjust his approach by considering not just what he needed to do, but also who he needed to be and how to relate to the board members effectively (07:03).

The Importance of Practice and Repetition

To internalize the MOVE framework, Kaufman advocates for consistent practice or "reps." By regularly simulating decision-making scenarios, leaders can develop the habit of creating space and exploring multiple options instinctively. This preparation equips leaders to handle real-life high-pressure situations with greater confidence and flexibility (14:05).

Developing an Organizational Culture of Smart Decision-Making

Kaufman emphasizes that effective decision-making should extend beyond individual leaders to become ingrained in an organization’s culture. She introduces tools like the "10 of 10 conversation," which encourages employees to envision optimal outcomes and critically assess their current performance to foster continuous improvement and strategic alignment across the company (21:50).

Overcoming Common Challenges

Leaders often struggle with maintaining this adaptive decision-making approach, especially under stress. Kaufman identifies ego and overconfidence as significant obstacles. She advises leaders to remain humble and open to feedback, ensuring that their decision-making remains objective and aligned with the organization’s goals (18:03).

Conclusion: Embracing an Authentic Leadership Style

Kaufman concludes by advocating for an authentic modus operandi that reflects a leader’s true self rather than a rigid, predetermined style. By embracing flexibility and self-awareness, leaders can navigate complex challenges more effectively and create environments where their teams feel safe and empowered (27:12).

---

Notable Quotes

• "Between every stimulus and response there is a space... that is our freedom." — Carol Kaufman (03:34)

• "If you were a 10 out of 10 on this, what would you look like?" — Carol Kaufman (21:47)

• "Leadership sucks. It's really hard... and it doesn't serve your company." — Carol Kaufman (16:07)

---

Final Thoughts

This episode of HBR On Leadership provides invaluable insights into the nuanced process of decision-making under pressure. Carol Kaufman’s MOVE framework equips leaders with the tools necessary to break free from automatic behaviors, fostering a more thoughtful and adaptable leadership style. Whether you’re navigating a corporate boardroom or leading a team through uncertain times, the strategies discussed offer a pathway to more effective and resilient leadership.

Transcript

[Kurt Nickish]

You know there's another HBR podcast you might like. Coaching Real Leaders takes you inside real life leadership coaching sessions. Host Muriel Wilkins has advised CEOs for nearly 20 years. Listen in as she helps guests work through their hardest career challenges. Find new episodes of Coaching Real Leaders wherever you get your podcasts.

[Muriel Wilkins]

Welcome to HBR on leadership case studies and conversations with the world's top business and management experts, hand selected to help you unlock the best in those around you. Many people believe that leaders instinctively make the best decisions based on past experience, almost like a muscle memory. But Carol Kaufman argues that following falling back on automatic patterns of behavior is often wrong, especially when the stakes are high. Kaufman is an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and the founder of the Institute of Coaching, and she's the co author of the book Real Time. Find you'd Winning moves when the stakes are High. In this episode, she explores her framework for sound decision making in high stakes situations. She also shares real life stories from leaders she's coached through making difficult decisions. This episode originally aired on HBR IdeaCast in February 2023. Here it is.

[Kurt Nickish]

Welcome to the HBR IdeaCast from Harvard Business Review. I'm Kurt Nick. When it comes to making tough decisions, leaders often draw on their experience. Whether they're a consensus builder or a pacesetter, it makes sense for them to do what has worked before. Don't we all? But today's guest says, in reality, many leaders fall into traps when they manage problems the same way each time. Because each situation is different, organizations evolve, and what got you here isn't necessarily what's going to get you there. Instead, she argues that successful leaders take a more expansive view of situations at hand. They reevaluate those problems across a broader set of possible solutions and dynamically adapt their management to each problem. Carol Kaufman is a professor at Harvard Medical School and founded the Institute of Coaching and with David Noble of View Advisors, she wrote the HBR article the Power of Options and the new book Real Time. Find your winning moves when the stakes are high. Carol, thanks for being here.

[Carol Kaufman]

Thank you.

[Kurt Nickish]

Conventional wisdom is that leaders are great at solving problems because they've done it before. I mean, isn't that why experience counts?

[Carol Kaufman]

Absolutely. You can say maybe 90% of the time, 95% of the time. But when the world is top sea turvy, what you need is massive agility and the capacity to make space to make a smart choice.

[Kurt Nickish]

This is where modus operandi gets its name right. Your mo. It's like we know what we like to do People also know how we like to do things and that helps with predictability. If that works 90% of the time, that actually sounds pretty good to some people.

[Carol Kaufman]

Well, that's true. Unless your life is on the line or your company is on the line, a curveball gets thrown at you. One of the things that really helped us think about this is the Viktor Frankl quote, that between every stimulus and response there is a space. And in that space is our freedom. What we try to do in real time leadership is help people know to make that space, but then what to do in that space. And pattern recognition and default options work a lot of the time, but you have to really be mindfully alert when you got the biggest opportunities or the greatest risks facing you.

[Kurt Nickish]

You use this term, make the space for thinking about this. People like to get to the response quickly. Why do people always fall back on solving problems kind of the same way? What's the benefit to that?

[Carol Kaufman]

Fallback is the perfect word. When we're under stress and high stakes, we become exaggerated versions of ourselves. So if you're someone who leaps into action, you're going to immediately leap and you might leap in the wrong direction. But if you're someone who thinks a lot, you may actually lean back and rely on data for too long and take too much time. And if you're kind of a natural nurturer, you will kind of take care of people first. And that may be exactly the right thing to do. So it's how do you overcome that automatic default, again, particularly under stress?

[Kurt Nickish]

So we recognize that it's handy, but it is a trap. Let's talk a little bit more about creating that space and taking a more expansive view. Like how do you start to do that?

[Carol Kaufman]

In our book we have an acronym and we have an acronym because particularly under stress, we can't remember things. And so this will help. It also helps me remember it. One is, when you're in a situation, how can you make space by being mindfully alert? Then how can you make space by being an options generator then to really validate your vantage point because we tend to believe ourselves too quickly. And then E is how you actually engage and affect change.

[Kurt Nickish]

And those spell move. The move framework.

[Carol Kaufman]

Exactly. So the first one, how to be mindfully alert. So that's sort of noticing how do you just create a space by. By noticing and then noticing what? Most people are one dimensional leaders and we think about three dimensional leaders. So there's the one who just gets things done. And we know those, they're really brilliant. But they roughshod over their people, et cetera. So the first dimension of leadership is what do I need to do? The second one that's often overlooked is who do I need to be? What about my inner resources so I can make space and choices. And then the third one is how do I relate to other people? And we tend to get it wrong. That one with the golden rule, treat others as you would want to be treated. As opposed to the platinum rule, treat others as they would want to be treated. So for that to kind of expand your leadership, Question one, what do you need to do? Question two, who do you need to be? And question three, how do people need me to relate to them?

[Kurt Nickish]

Okay, what's an example and how might you answer those questions then?

[Carol Kaufman]

One of the stories that we really love is Matt. Matt was the shoo in candidate to be a CEO of an organization. And he's in front of the board. You know those two day things you do in front of the board. So the first dimension of leadership would be what is he going to accomplish? Well, his understanding of what was being demanded of him was to be super smart, show how much he knew the business, he was the guy. He's doing that, he's watching the board look bored. Then he's watching them, he's lost them. But he only has that first dimension in mind and he hasn't really thought it through. So he just tries harder and it gets worse. So he finally, with his dignity intact, just kind of leaves. He then calls me and David going, hey. So we started talking to Matt and first we looked at what was your first dimension of leadership. You decided that was what it was, but were you right? He then got to the point where he realized that what he needed to accomplish wasn't so much to wow them with information, but to communicate to them to act like a CEO rather than a supplicant. So that was the first dimension of change. The second dimension of change in leadership was what was going on inside of him. So what happened is he wasn't able to be flexible in the moment he saw what was happening, he kind of panicked. But another thing is he had decided that he had to be this sort of tough guy and hide his caring. So in reality he was a very caring person. So that third dimension of leadership he actually had screened out of the interview rather than brought it in. And when he did, he showed up the next day not thinking about what is it that I have to say but how can people absorb, how can I create an environment where people feel safe and interested and safe with me at the helm. And by making space and thinking about those things, the board was able to see that they would be in safe hands with him.

[Kurt Nickish]

Well, it's good he had a two day interview. Right. So he was actually able to step back. Right. He had that time to reflect and then make space. A lot of leaders have time for this. Like problems may come up or crises come up, but it's not like it has to be done right away. We often have more time than we realize. How many options do you need to come up with when you're facing something and you're trying to just get beyond what you would normally do?

[Carol Kaufman]

Yeah, when I work with my leaders, what I want them to do is to be able to have four options available to them. What I say is, I don't care which option you pick, but I want you to be able to do any of them. Let's say you're at a meeting and somebody sneers at you during the meeting. Okay. That sneer is the stimulus. And your response may be whatever. But what I want a leader to be able to do is have four responses. And we call this waypower. So someone makes a snide remark, do you kind of lean in and talk to them about it, confront it, take it on? So that's one option. It may be someone makes that snide remark and you may be aware that if you don't cut this off at the pass, things are not going to work out. So you want to be able to make that choice, but you don't want it to be driven by anger or frustration. Now the other choice you could have would be to kind of lean back and perhaps think, okay, what's the data here? I don't think this is going to be really impacting anyone. I might just make one comment about the information and move on. But you also may want to lean with what's going on with this person, that he or she is being snarky. And remember they're having a really bad day or things going on in their life. So you can actually be empathic to that person and perhaps say something supportive. Or the hardest one is to not lean at all. So you can lean in and engage, lean back, go to the data, lean with and connect or worry about the emotional personal consequences. Or not lean, which is the hardest. And not lean is your capacity to truly be able to not be triggered. Pause for a moment and then see what comes to you in the moment. And that is the equivalent of creating the aha. In the shower moment, how can you pause enough so that you can receive knowledge? And neurologically, that's how can you activate your default system of the brain? So all of these have a lot of science underneath them.

[Kurt Nickish]

Yeah. Well, thinking about Viktor Frankl, talking about the emotions that you have right after you receive a stimulus and how you have to almost give it time to fade away before you respond to something, it's tricky. It's hard. Right. You really have to be self aware.

[Carol Kaufman]

And so that reminds me again of the second dimension of leadership. Who do you want to be? And he is such a paragon of that. Part of that is like really knowing your inner resources and a real powerful support is your sense of purpose and the meaning you're making. So let's say you're running that meeting and someone does something sneering, are you going to let your ego get in the way? Are you going to remember, wait, my purpose here is to be of service right now. And our organization needs to do XYZ and somebody throw in a lobbying complaint in real time. That really doesn't matter. But it's your sense of purpose and mission that can keep you moving forward and can help create that space that you need.

[Kurt Nickish]

How many options do you need to come up with? You know, four is a lot, right? If you're stressed or doing something that you're unfamiliar with or trying to get away from how you would normally handle.

[Carol Kaufman]

Something, I'd say you should pick your top two. I mean, the research is four or even more, but I think it's like, know your default. So for example, for me, if I'm going to default, I'm going to do something. And so what I often say to.

[Kurt Nickish]

Myself, you have the bias for action.

[Carol Kaufman]

Totally bias. And then under stress, it's like even more so. What I do a lot is I say to myself, carol, downshift, just downshift. And I try to get myself to either a lean back or a lean with, because I know that I'm fast and under stress, I'll go faster. So I would say get two of them down and then try to add the third. And usually the one of don't lean is the fourth. That is the hardest to do.

[Kurt Nickish]

Yeah. Some of these options have to be better in some situations, right? Does this just come with experience?

[Carol Kaufman]

What's interesting, I was talking with a seasoned CEO last week. She's been a CEO three times and she read the book and we were talking. She was really saying, the reps help. It's in the reps. So I would say two things is one, you practice small. So if you keep one of these in mind. When I first came up with the idea of who do I want to be right now? I actually asked myself that question 80 times one day. And it is amazing how many of these split second choice moments we have that we see if we make ourselves a tiny bit of space. So those kinds of reps for the who do I want to be right now? That one actually works better, I think small and instant as well as on the larger decision side. So that could be again, you're at the end of a day and one of the people that reports to you, like you're really tired, they report you and they have done a shoddy job. Who do I want to be right now? Do I want to be the person who just is cranky with them and says something contemptuous? Do I want to be someone who lets it slide? Do I want to try and just lean in in a caring way? So this is like, who do I want to be right now? Who does this person need me to be right now? But it also works like when you are at cashier and the person in front of you is really slow. Okay, who do you want to be right now? How can you kind of course correct in the moment? And the neurology research is those little dings during the day that create the most cognitive wear and tear. So who do I want to be right now in these small moments matters? And then if you can really slow down in the bigger moments, it can matter then too.

[Kurt Nickish]

That's interesting. Reps matter. You can put on training wheels for this.

[Carol Kaufman]

Yeah.

[Kurt Nickish]

Are there other ways to develop those muscles, you know, besides starting small and practicing with smaller moments?

[Carol Kaufman]

Yeah, I think they're small. There's getting the reps and there's really getting who are you meant to be as a leader? Like, what is your identity in this moment? And one of the things people don't tell you about leadership. Leadership sucks. I mean, it's really hard. You're sacrificing all the time. There's all these things you want to do and you are not allowed to. It doesn't serve your company. And what we talk about is how does a leader go from individual identity to entity identity? You are the embodiment of your organization and it is your responsibility to have way power, to have choices in the moment. You know, you're at a news conference and somebody lobs something at you, you can't answer as you. You have to embody the entity and that Takes you back to a sense of your purpose and your mission. And it can be incredibly supportive if you live there. So on one hand, the reps, the micro behaviors, and the other one, your sense of purpose and all these macro behaviors.

[Muriel Wilkins]

Unlike any class, book or podcast, Strawberry Me personal coaching gives you something unique. A professional partner who's 100% focused on your success. It's not about advice. Your coach will ask you the right questions, helping you uncover hidden strengths, break through obstacles, and move forward with confidence. If you're ready to unlock your full potential, Visit Strawberry Me HBR for 20% off your first month of membership. That's Strawberry Me HBR.

[Kurt Nickish]

What are some of the biggest places that people have trouble adopting this mindset?

[Carol Kaufman]

Well, definitely under fire. One of them is there's the V in validating your vantage point. And I read a fabulous HBR article. It said 75% of small business failures were the result of over optimism. So one of the big areas to practice this is validating your vantage point. And in some ways, the more powerful you get and the smarter you are, you are the most vulnerable to believing yourself. And how do you start thinking? Well, what is an ideal vantage point? How do I know that I'm seeing clearly? What gets in the way of my seeing clearly? And that's where a lot of the unconscious bias work comes in. And what's your own cognitive style and how does it impact how you think and what you do? So that whole area we find is very important for people. The big enemy is ego. You really need to be a great leader on one hand, have a super powerful sense of self, and I can have an impact. But to also be able to be humble and be an open system so you're able to be wrong.

[Kurt Nickish]

This also makes you less predictable, right? Because you are more dynamic. And especially with CEOs or really any leader, sometimes people only have so many interactions with that person and it's helpful for team members to know, oh, this is the way this person likes to receive information. When they've said this before, that means this. And here's a situation where CEOs may be acting differently in different situations and that might make them harder to read.

[Carol Kaufman]

Well, it may take getting used to. I think what we're talking about though is ideally somebody operating from their core. And it also doesn't have to be so radical. It may be that I gently kind of lean in with you at the beginning of a meeting when I want to get things going, and when they do, I lean back and let people bring in the data, then, you know, be aware of sort of the people issues and then be comfortable with silence. So you've just done lean in back with. And don't lean, but it can be subtle. The core is your capacity to make space, and I think that's what brings it together. It's like this leader. It's not going to be wild and jerky, but this leader is able to be agile and to respond to what's coming their way rather than always like a cookie cutter leader.

[Kurt Nickish]

So you can do this without being hard to read or coming across as wishy washy.

[Carol Kaufman]

Yeah, yeah. Or as you said, sort of jolting people all the time. Because the toughest leader is the one that's deeply unpredictable, but it's emotionally unpredictable, whether they're sort of nice and supportive one time and then really caustic another. Better to be caustic all the time than caustic and then nice. So I think you're picking up on that in a way I hadn't really thought of. But it's like, how do you be sort of centered and agile rather than this sort of unpredictable, which reduces psychological safety.

[Kurt Nickish]

You want to be consistent and agile.

[Carol Kaufman]

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[Kurt Nickish]

Is this completely an individual leadership thing or is this. Can this be part of a leadership culture or system at an organization?

[Carol Kaufman]

Oh, I love that question. So your question is how do you make it part of the culture and kind of the core leadership capabilities that you want to flow through an organization, which basically is this scalable?

[Kurt Nickish]

Yeah, A culture of decision making. Yeah.

[Carol Kaufman]

One of the things we do is we also have a couple of sort of meta tools. And one of them is something I called Coach by numbers or the 10 of 10 conversation. That one ripples out very quickly. 10 of 10, that's basically, you know, you've heard this in positive psychology, et cetera, but it makes it really very specific, which is, if you wanted to accomplish something outside or inside, if you were a 10 out of 10, what would you look like? So what we would start out with, you know, is I would say if you were a 10 out of 10 on this, what would you look like? What would you be doing? And we would really spell out not what the problem is, but if you were really good at it, what would it look like? Yeah, what would it look like? Paint the picture. What would people be seeing? If I had a video camera, if I was listening to you, what are you thinking, feeling, doing? And really paint that picture 10 out of 10. And that's not easy. Then the second question would be so on a scale of 1 to 10, what number would you give yourself now? What would you rate yourself? We'll pretend that you said a six. Okay, the next question, which I think of as the question that counts is, what are you doing right that you are a 6 and not a 5.5? And really make you think cognitively, it's much easier for you to describe what you're doing wrong. It is much easier for you to be critical. And we would really, really unpack that with the same intensity of something that went horribly wrong and say, well, what else did you do wrong? What else did you wrong? So that same energy, but a positive confrontation and truly make you map it out. And it's hard. Only then would we go to, okay, what could you do over the next eight weeks to get from a 6 to a 6.5? So this is a conversation you can have with yourself. It works really well with the team. Any interaction, it works well at home. And it's like a fractal conversation. It's a pattern of a conversation that can just ripple out through a company. Even just the 10 out of 10 part. You know, just say, we once did a strategy consultation, David Noble and I, and they came up with their 10 strategies. And this guy walked up and said, okay, if this strategy, okay, we know strategy meetings, what do you do? We tear things apart. That's what fun is. Instead, he said, if this strategy was a 10 out of 10, what would it look like? And in that moment, that orientation basically fractaled out through the entire company. So now in every business development conversation, what would a 10 to 10 look like for you? So that question alone is very powerful. And the what did I do right? Conversation is very powerful.

[Kurt Nickish]

When people do this, what are some of the surprising and great things that can happen?

[Carol Kaufman]

One thing that surprises them a lot is it helps to put their ways of being and operating into a larger context and to realize their choice. A lot of times they realize the things that they are doing right and it surprises them that that's an area where they can grow. Very often the big surprise for them also is in this vantage point of really getting. There's lots of choices in how I'm going to look at a situation. So some of the things we think about are how clear are you? Do you have on rose colored glasses, charcoal colored glasses, or are you nearsighted, Are you firesided? And just think about, okay, what does that mean with this decision I'm about to make? Then the other one is, do you need to be super Precise or is a grainy picture going to work? Like, that's a choice. The other one I really like is Rosabeth Kantor talks about this sort of zoom in, zoom out, and I think of it, do you want to be a hawk or a hummingbird? Or my personal favorite is do you want to be adult fan? A lot of people think to really have a good vantage point, you need to see everything like an eagle, but a lot of people don't operate that way. But they're more like dolphins.

[Kurt Nickish]

They're swimming in it. Yeah.

[Carol Kaufman]

Yes, exactly. You're underwater and you're pinging with echolocation, and then you're able to kind of be opportunistic, and then you burst above the water now and then to take a look out. What makes me personally feel the best about this work is when I see people valuing themselves and getting like, oh, yeah, I'm a dolphin. I thought that wasn't okay, you know, or someone saying, gee, I often do that, like, stop and pause thing. And I didn't know that was okay. So I find something just incredibly satisfying when people feel like they can really be them and the best leader they can be and that they have these choices available to them.

[Kurt Nickish]

It's just a richer way to be if you have more than one MO to draw on. Right.

[Carol Kaufman]

You're actually making me realize something for the very first time, which is on one hand, you talked about people have this modus operandi, and now we've circled around to people being able to appreciate themselves. But what if the modus operandi they've been having isn't really true to their core self? And maybe that MO isn't really who they're supposed to be. And maybe this kind of approach can help them develop their true organic modus operandi rather than what they've been inculcated with or taught.

[Kurt Nickish]

That's a hopeful place to end the conversation. Carol, thanks for coming on the show to talk about it.

[Carol Kaufman]

Thank you.

[Muriel Wilkins]

That was Carol Kaufman in conversation with Kurt Nickish on HBR IdeaCast. She's an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and the founder of the Institute of Coaching. She's co author of the book Real Time Find you'd Winning Moves when the Stakes are High. We'll be back next Wednesday with another handpicked conversation about leadership for from the Harvard Business Review. If you found this episode helpful, share it with your friends and colleagues and follow our show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. While you're there, be sure to leave us a review. And when you're ready for more podcasts, articles, case studies, books and videos with the world's top business and management experts, you'll find it [e-mail] this episode was produced by Mary Dew, Ann Sanny and me, Hannah Bates. Ian Fox is our editor. Music by Coma Media and special thanks to Maureen Hoch, Erica Truxler, Ramsey Kabaz, Nicole Smith, Ann Bartholomew and you, our listener. See you next week.

[Carol Kaufman]

SA.