Get the Emotions Under Control Before Making Decisions!-week 10

In their book “Judgment in Managerial Decision Making” Bazerman and Moore indicate that in order to make better decisions we should follow this steps “decision analysis tools, acquired expertise, de-bias your judgment, reason analogically, take an outsider’s view, and understand biases in others” (Moore, 2,009)
I found this section particularly interesting because it give me an starting point to make better decisions. I personally feel that acquired expertise, debias your judgement, take an outsider’s view and understanding biases in others are steps that truly can help in the process of decision making. However, there is an important area that is not mentioned as part of the steps and I think it should be included: walk away of a situation and get control of your emotions before even starting the process of making a decision.
Through out the “Ethics and Decision Making” course we have been hearing that the area of the brain that reacts intensively when making decisions is the area related to emotions. In other words, emotions play an important role in the decisions we take. Before we can reach the point where we remember to use Bazerman’s and Moore’s steps we need to be aware of our emotions and get them under control.
Last night, for example, I let my emotions guide my decisions and I totally disregarded anything also. I received an e-mail that I did not appreciate. I replied expressing my mind without debiasing my judgement, nor did I took an outsider’s view, and I honestly did not care to understand the biases in the other person. In fact, I purposely choosed to answer the way I did. Perhaps I felt that my reaction was justified, but the reality is that I am in the communication’s program to aquire expertise and apply that knowledge to every area of my life, including personnal relationships.
I look forward to apply the skills I am learning in this course, but I realize it is not an easy task. It takes a serious focusing to detect our own biases, and also to understand other people’s biases. I only can hope that by acquiring expertise we move one step forward into the process of better decision making.