Rational Decision Making:
Maybe the Other Person is Right

By: Robert F. Abbott

Article Summary: When it seems other people don't use rational decision making or common sense, don't jump to the conclusion that they're not being rational. Something else, something logical, is going on in their minds even if we can't see it.

I see there's another controversy about bottled water, following a report that found its quality no better than tap water. For skeptics, it's another reason to doubt the rational decision making of bottled water buyers.

Meanwhile, the vice-president of a high tech company wonders about the rationality response of his employees, who just can't seem to grasp the importance of customer relations. No matter how often he explains it, he can't get them to understand that unless they take customer feedback seriously, their jobs are at risk.

Issues like these raise the question: Are the people around us rational, or at least as rational as we are? It's tempting to think they're not, that they just don't use logic or rational decision making sometimes.

However, as communicators, or people who use interpersonal communication to achieve our goals, we should always assume others are exercising rational behavior. It's the communicator's equivalent of "The customer is always right."

There are several reasons why others might appear to act or think irrationally, but in fact are being rational, given their assumptions. These reasons include: different time frames, different contexts, different priorities, and different values.

Different time frames: Stock market gyrations provide lots of examples of short and long-term thinking. If you're a long-term investor who buys and holds each stock for years, you probably wonder whether short-term traders are using rational decision making.

Different contexts: A friend and I often argue about marketing strategies and tactics. Yet, our disagreements mostly reflect differences in target markets. For example, we may both talk about business-to-business markets, but he's thinking about owners of small businesses and I'm thinking about managers in corporations. We start out with different assumptions, and those assumptions lead us to think of marketing principles differently.

Different priorities: Let's go back to the high tech manager, in the example above, the one who's frustrated that his staff won't take customer relations seriously. Yet the company gives bonuses for timely completion of projects, not customer relations. So, it's quite rational for them to focus on getting projects done on time, which may logically lead to less attention on customer inquiries.

Different values: Why do some people insist on bottled water, even though the water coming out of their taps may be just as safe and tastes no different? We also might ask why some people buy expensive cars when a much cheaper model would provide perfectly adequate transportation.

These are usually cases in which some value other than plain practicality is at work. Drinking bottled water may be a way of signalling affluence, of belonging to a particular group, or of seeking security in a world full of allegations about unsafe food and drink.

In summary, rationality and rational decision making builds on individual assumptions, values, contexts, and time frames. If we don't share those characteristics, we might jump to the conclusion that others aren't acting or thinking rationally. That would be a mistake. To paraphrase an anonymous sage, rationality is in the eye of the beholder.

Next, read 10 Reasons to Market with Postcards, go to the general business communication page, or visit our home page Communication Skills .

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Rational Decision Making Copyright Robert F. Abbott 2009