Ask a Decision Engineer

"At the heart of a company is the quality of its decisions. And it's rare that leadership programs teach you how to be a better decision maker." — SDP Conference Attendee Whether you're a CEO making strategic decisions, a data scientist analyzing choices, or someone navigating personal decisions, the field of decision-making offers structured approaches that can be scaled up or down for any situat...

"On some level everybody should learn this stuff. When you think about the fundamental principles underlying this, like ideas like that decisions and outcomes are not the same thing... those are things that could benefit everybody." — Jordan Stephens From boardrooms to family dinner tables, decisions shape every aspect of our lives. Yet formal decision-making education remains surprisingly rare. I...

"I tend to be more quantitative, just that's the way I'm wired. And one of the things that I'm seeing and I've learned through the years is that the qualitative side, the so-called soft skills, or as Audrey calls them power skills... honestly… I think they're more important than a lot of the quantitative and statistical skills." – Tony Kenck While decision analysis is often viewed through a techni...

"It's so fascinating to watch people struggle and struggle and struggle. And then you can come along with some simple tools to say, Hey, have you thought about this? Did you think of framing it this way? I've got a couple of little tricks in my large bag of tips and tricks that you can try and sometimes the magic happens and what looked like an impossibly complex decision simplifies, and then doin...

This season was made possible in partnership with the Society of Decision Professionals. __________ In this episode of Ask a Decision Engineer, Michelle Florendo takes listeners inside the Society of Decision Professionals conference to explore a fascinating question: What do you call the field that helps people make better decisions? Through conversations with practitioners from around the world,...

This season was made possible in partnership with the Society of Decision Professionals. __________ In this mini episode of Ask a Decision Engineer, Michelle Florendo takes listeners behind the scenes of the 2025 Society of Decision Professionals Annual Conference in Vancouver. After years of virtual participation, Michelle finally attended in person and was amazed by the diversity of attendees wh...

I told someone I'd just flown in from a Decision Professionals conference. Their response? "A Society of WHAT?" Most people have no idea there's an entire field dedicated to decision-making. It's like this best-kept secret that no one wants to keep secret. At the conference in Vancouver, I met fascinating people who traveled from around the world:  → A data analyst from Papua New Guinea seeking be...

"So remember, there are three components to every single decision. There are your objectives. What is it that you want? There are the options. What are the different ways that you can achieve those things that you want? And then there's information like how do those different options deliver against the objectives you have?" — Michelle Florendo Drawing from her background in decision analysis and...

“Risk has two components: magnitude—how big is the badness—and likelihood. A balanced view helps us make better decisions.” - Michelle Florendo Michelle reflects on the value of tools like decision trees and introduces the Relief-Regret Matrix, a framework she developed to evaluate future scenarios. Through this candid conversation, Michelle illustrates how thoughtful processes and clear prioritie...

By distinguishing between acting from emotion and being aware of emotion, Michelle equips listeners with tools to embrace emotions constructively. This episode dives deep into the nuances of emotions in decision-making, making it an essential listen for anyone navigating big life choices. S5E4 | Decoding Emotions in Decision Making The episode unpacks this tension by exploring how emotions can act...

Drawing on her decision-making expertise, Michelle used frameworks and emotional clarity to create space for constructive conversations with her family during this challenging time. Table of Contents Introduction [00:00:00] A Year of Pause and Reflection [00:01:00] Planning an End-of-Life Retreat [00:05:00] Facilitating Emotional Clarity [00:08:00] The Four-Phase Framework for End-of-Life Planning...

  "So if you've ever had that thought. Asking, ‘Why is this so hard?’ And wondering, ‘Am I the only one?’ I want you to know. You're not alone. And it's not your fault." - Michelle Florendo Decision-making is a fundamental part of our daily lives, yet many people find it increasingly challenging. In this episode, Michelle Florendo addresses a question from Jacob in New York about why decision-maki...

In this special episode, Michelle Florendo reflects on five years of hosting "Ask a Decision Engineer." Joined by her friend Shanice Webb, Michelle shares insights about the podcast's evolution from a maternity leave project to an international resource for decision-making advice. They discuss overcoming fears, measuring impact, and the journey of adapting content to fit a global audience. Through...

New episodes drop in Fall 2024 – subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. About Michelle Florendo Michelle Florendo is a Stanford-trained decision engineer and executive coach who is on a mission to teach people how to make decisions with less stress and more clarity. Over the past decade, she has coached and taught hundreds of leaders across tech, healthcare, and financial services, in organizat...

So often in the midst of change or the unknown where our mind goes first is what are we going to do?  But what if the key to being able to navigate change and uncertainty was less about doing, but rather a way of being?  Today, I'm in conversation with April Rinne, a futurist, speaker, and author of the book, Flux: 8 Superpowers For Thriving In Constant Change, where she shares what she has found...

Whenever I teach about decision making, inevitably, the comment comes up, "These frameworks are great and all, but what do I do about the other people in the room?"  Decision making in groups definitely adds a layer of complexity. That's why I invited Katherine Rosback, an expert decision and risk analysis facilitator and a colleague of mine from the Society of Decision Professionals onto the show...

In all my years of teaching about decision making, no topic generates more angst than the need to know. But how do you know what you know? How do you know when you know what you know? And how do you integrate this knowing into some of the most important decisions of your life? In this episode, I invited Dave Evans onto the show to talk all about these topics of knowing and discernment. Dave is the...

Risk. For some people, the very thought sends chills down their spines, yet for others, the topic prompts a sense of thrill. Why is that the case? And what does that mean for how we think about risk in decision making? To answer those questions and more, I turned to Michele Wucker, author of the books, The Gray Rhino, and You Are What You Risk. We chat about how the way we define risk matters, the...

Confidence is a critical part of decision making and being an effective leader. Not enough confidence and you won't move a decision to the action or be able to cultivate the support needed to move it forward.  Too much confidence and you could make decisions that unnecessarily put you and others at risk. So how do you walk the line of having just the right amount of confidence?  Today, I speak wit...

Decisions. They are the way we can steer our lives forward, yet how much thought do people give to how they are making them? And more importantly, what are the small things we can do to improve them? In this episode, I go back to basics with global decision making expert, Ralph Keeney. Ralph is a Professor Emeritus of Business Administration at Duke University and a Professor Emeritus of Industria...

Decision-making is not just a cognitive exercise; there are benefits to approaching it as a whole person.  To talk more about this, I invited Amy Day, decision educator and executive director of the nonprofit Clarity for Action, to my podcast. Amy likes to say that she grew up in a decision laboratory, surrounded by giants from the field of decision science. She's certified as a decision educator,...

How can you know you've made a good decision, even before you know how things turn out? It’s all about understanding decision quality. To talk about that, I invited award-winning decision quality expert, Carl Spetzler onto today's show. Carl is the co-founder and chairman of Strategic Decisions group, a leading strategy consulting firm, renowned for its expertise in strategic decision making for g...

Making decisions as an individual has its challenges, but having to make decisions as a group adds many other layers of complexity. To talk about that, I brought my friend, Alexis Gonzales-Black onto today's show.  Alexis is a Partner and the org design lead at August Public. Before August, she led the implementation of Holacracy at Zappos and helped shape an emerging org design practice for world...

When making a decision, we should seek out the "best" option, right? Turns out, seeking to maximize your outcomes is likely to leave you less happy and more stressed. On the show today I bring you one of my mentors, Barry Schwartz, who wrote the game-changing book The Paradox of Choice, Why More is Less. Barry shares why maximizing is a bad goal, talks about the benefits of constraints, and shows...

Decisions about what you want to do next in life feel big- they can literally change your life. That's why so many people feel stuck in the process. Today I'm speaking with my friend, Kathy Davies, the Managing Director of the Life Design Lab at Stanford University. She is also the co-founder of Designing Your Life for Women and a Master Trainer of the Designing Your Life process.  In today's epis...