Snap Judgment: Exuberance and Discouragement

Have you heard it said that “the early bird gets the worm”? That might be the case in your backyard, but it’s not true in the sales profession. In sales, “the late bird gets the worm.” That means you’re unlikely to make a deal if you’re the first salesperson a potential buyer encounters. You might have a truly outstanding proposal, but the customers just aren’t tired enough yet. They’ve still got the energy to focus on price, payment terms, free delivery, and anything else they can think of.

When you’re “the late bird,” however, you deal with people who have had enough shopping around. Their feet hurt, they’re hungry, and they’re thirsty. They might not want to admit it, but they just want to get it over with. When buyers reach that point, they find all sorts of reasons to justify their feelings. They feel drawn to you personally. They like your product or service. They deeply appreciate the deal you’re offering them, although they might have been extremely skeptical about that same deal when they were in their early bird phase.

In a strange way, these late bird have put themselves in a “snap judgment” situation – not because there’s any real time constraint, but because they just can’t take it anymore. They may tell themselves that they’re making a rational decision, but they’re actually driven by emotional and even physical stresses. They literally don’t know what they’re doing.

The economist Alan Greenspan has referred to this behavior as “irrational exuberance." It can sway the entire New York Stock Exchange or it can affect just one individual. It’s a kind of euphoria that can feel good at the time, but its real purpose is to simplify complicated situations. As a decision maker, the lesson for you is this: be careful about creating a “snap judgment” situation, and then further creating an emotional escape from it.

It’s hardly surprising, by the way, that irrational exuberance also has a flip side. Let’s call it “illogical discouragement.” It may come from fatigue, or a headache, or a bellyache, or a cellphone call from your mother-in-law, but every glass in the world suddenly looks half empty. I once had a client who was an extremely analytical personality. He was always demanding more information before he made even the smallest decision. But while he was busy gathering more information, many windows of opportunity were sliding shut. This person simply could not make a proactive, optimistic decision no matter how great the opportunity actually was. He was afflicted by what economists call “status quo bias” -- the tendency to keep things just as they are, even if things are pretty lousy. Hee-haw! He had turned into Eeyore.

The most important element of these surges of emotion is how convincing they can seem in decision-making situations. They can completely overwhelm your ability to make effective judgments.

Stress is inevitable in the contemporary world. Human beings have always had reasons to feel insecure, but things are different now. Not only has change sped up, but decisions are being made that will affect every person now alive and for many generations to come. Sometimes you are called upon to participate in those decisions through a political process, but even if you are not personally making decisions you are directly affected by living in the high stakes environment where they take place.  Nineteenth century farmers didn’t have to choose between nuclear power plants and burning coal, nor did they have to make judgments about paying for their children’s college.

Both irrational exuberance and illogical discouragement eventually transform into an extremely painful question:  “How could I have so stupid?” At that point, there’s an opportunity for some authentic self-assessment. There may also be a temptation toward a victim mentality and a sense of personal powerlessness. Victims tend to react as if they have no control over their circumstances or even their own emotional reactions, as if life is something that happens to them, rather than something they are co-creating.  Victim consciousness is a downward spiral, in contrast to the empowerment that results from taking responsibility for what you create in your life. And what you create, of course, is simply the sum total of all the decisions and judgments you make. Onward.