Fear is ruling many an office right now. How should managers make decisions in such a nervy climate?

Professor Baba Shiv of Stanford Graduate School of Business is a specialist in the science behind decision-making. He believes senior managers can weather a downturn by emulating Star Trek’s emotionless Mr Spock.

In a new FT Management podcast, he says one way they can unleash their inner Vulcan is to stop watching TV news - or, to be more precise, to get someone else to watch it for them - in order to avoid doom-laden and emotive images that might cloud their judgment.

Prof Shiv uses the example of a private equity boss trying to invest a fat chunk of cash to illustrate the weakness of the “sequential” approach to making decisions, in which options are evaluated as and when they come up, as opposed to the “simultaneous” approach of just choosing between the best options that exist at any one moment.

The latter strategy is also a good one to follow if you are single and trying to find a mate, he adds, as I lure him off-topic at the end of our 9½ minute chat.

Previous podcasts can be found here and include: a 3-part interview with Tom Peters; IMD’s Peter Killing on setting strategic priorities; Weber Shandwick’s Leslie Gaines-Ross on corporate reputation; plus Rotman’s Roger Martin on leaders who avoid false either/or choices.

July 16th, 2008 in Managing in hard times, Podcasts | Permalink