Do or Dally? How Your Thinking Profile Affects Your Decisions

By: Jay Canning (CEO)
Category: Thinking
On: 4 September, 2023

Regardless of whether they are big or small, decisions shape every moment of our lives.

Your decisions determine the entire trajectory of your life, from your career path to what you will eat for lunch today.

So in short, we can definitely say that decisions are important. For that reason, it’s worth you analysing how you make decisions every single day.

Any adjustments you can make to your decision-making process could change your life monumentally. Can you think of any other activity with a higher return on investment?

Let’s get started.

The Two Critical Components of Decision-Making

The science of decision-making can be analysed at incredible levels of detail, but I find it most helpful to look at decisions in a much simpler way.

Essentially, decisions have two critical components: Speed and Quality.

You need speed in your decisions because life is full of deadlines. If you leave it too long and dally over options and details, the moment might pass you by, perhaps never to return.

There’s nothing worse than regretting not pulling the trigger when you should have.

Then there’s quality. Without this, your decisions are likely to be wrong and might cost you dearly. If you apply speed alone without the quality, you can get yourself into big trouble.

Most poor decisions have an imbalance between these two components. They are either high speed/low quality or low speed/high quality.

Which one are you guilty of most often?

The crazy thing is, with just a little bit of information about you, we can predict the answer to that with surprising accuracy.

That’s because the answer is hidden inside your Thinking Profile.

Your Thinking Profile Affects Your Decisions

Through over four decades of research and work inside many companies large and small, Effective Intelligence has been lifting the lid on the hidden thinking preferences that exist inside the mind of each individual.

The Rhodes’ Thinking-Intentions Profile is the tool that can show you the secret forces inside your mind that determine what kind of decision-maker you are.

At its simplest level, the Effective Intelligence model operates using three Colours: Green, Red and Blue. Here’s a diagram:

 

 

As you can see, Green is the Colour of Realising; imagination and coming up with new things.

Red is the Colour of Describing; Looking at what really exists in the real world, the indisputable facts.

Blue is the Colour of Judging; Drawing conclusions and making decisions.

That might make it sound like Blue is the only Colour that matters when we are looking at decisions, but that is not the case. In fact, for fast high quality decisions, you need all three!

Each individual person, including you, has an innate preference to use one of these three Colours. This is what we call your Driving Force Colour.

This thinking profile tool has multiple levels of detail, and the inner workings of your mind are a lot more complex than these three simple Colours.

Having said that though, this is a great place to start and is still tremendously insightful.

How Your Driving Force Colour Impacts Your Decisions

 

Green

Generally speaking, if your Driving Force Colour is Green, you have an active imagination.

You likely enjoy the creative process, and brainstorming lots of possibilities would be something that you would take to easily.

This can be a risk for Decision Speed, because you might spend too long on generating and considering a myriad of options.

It can be an asset for Decision Quality, because you are able to generate so many options that you are more likely to find the best one, provided that you can move your thinking into Blue when necessary.

 

Red

If your Driving Force Colour is Red, you are most likely an analyser.

This means that you are very good at considering the options and data you have at your disposal, in order to assess its relevance and scope. Detail is your thing.

This can also be a risk for Decision Speed, because you can suffer from ‘paralysis by analysis’. You might spend so long on the details that you lose the opportunity that the decision presents.

Red thinking is of course an asset for Decision Quality, because proper attention to detail results in lower-risk decisions, provided you can actually get them to the finish line.

My own personal Driving Force is Red, so I’m speaking from the heart here!

 

Blue

If your Driving Force Colour is Blue, you are most likely a rigorous evaluator who has no problem committing to action.

There’s a great chance that you are quick to judge and act on things. Many times this can be a great thing, because getting things done is really what counts.

This is a great asset for Decision Speed, because you have what it takes to get things over the line.

However, there is also a risk when it comes to Decision Quality. Your speed of judgement and action can lead to key details or even better options being completely missed.

How To Make The Best Decision

The best decisions are both High Speed and High Quality.

How can you achieve this when, just like everyone else, you have your own subconscious thinking preferences that push you towards only one of these two components?

The answer is through awareness and conscious thinking!

By completing your Thinking-Intentions Profile, you can find out your innate Driving Force.

This will show you where your strengths and risks are when it comes to decisions, so that you can then consciously drive your thinking out of its comfort zones at the most impactful times.

Fast, high quality decisions depend on you being able to move your thinking between the three Colours at the appropriate times.

According to our data that spans decades, only 4% of the population is able to do this unconsciously. That means there is a 96% chance that using Effective Intelligence can transform your decisions and your life.

Our Key Strategic Insight video course gives you access to your Driving Force, as well as other vital info from your own profile. Don’t miss out.

See you soon!