The Art of Deciding: Unveiling the secrets of successful people’s choices

The Art of Deciding is a new weekly podcast where host Bruce Whitfield asks people who spend their lives making big decisions to tell him more about how they do it. We caught up with Bruce to find out more about the show, his guests and what he’s learnt so far…

Who are you and what is your podcast about?

My name is Bruce Whitfield. I am a nosy sod who has worked as a financial journalist and broadcaster for 25 years challenging business leaders, founders and policymakers live on radio about their decisions.

It struck me that if the world was to have just one more podcast, it should be about learning from those who successfully make complex, high quality decisions from which I distil key lessons for my audience to help them make better choices.

We all make thousands of decisions everyday ranging from the mundanity of what to wear, what to have for lunch, the words we utter, the ideas we act on, to what brands we consume. Plus of course, there are those life-altering calls around our relationships or where we should live, work and spend our lives.

Why did you decide to start The Art of Deciding?

I am fascinated by brilliant people. I have a deep curiosity about what makes those who are the most successful in their fields great at what they do. I have learned that it all boils down to the quality of their decision making, the trade-offs they are prepared to make and the risks they will take in order to bring an idea or project to fruition. The Art of Deciding is about drawing lessons from those people and challenging ourselves to think more deeply about the decisions we make.

The Art of Deciding host, Bruce Whitfield

What was the first podcast you ever listened to?

The News Quiz! It was hosted by Sandi Toksvig who uttered the immortal line: “…and the Tories who have put the ‘n’ into cuts….” I was hooked. I know it was a radio show that became a podcast but it was the first time that I became aware that there was a new way of sharing audio content via smartphones on demand and that it was going to change everything.

Which podcasts do you take inspiration from?

I love great storytelling – I found Stephen Fry’s Seven Deadly Sins captivating. I enjoy Dan Snow’s approach to history, the depth of “The Rest is…” series and the choreographed madness of No Such Thing as a Fish. There is so much really good, focussed work by specialists in their field available, but those are great examples of professionals sharing their brilliance.

Which episode would you say is the perfect introduction to your podcast?

That depends on what you want. and no, that is not a cop out.

The content on The Art of Deciding podcast is massively diverse and each episode is connected to the others via the single golden thread of decision making.

In episode one, the Jack Reacher creator Lee Child explains why he moulded his hero in the way that he did, why he chose to “write a bestseller” instead of following his ex TV colleagues into new jobs doing the same thing as they always had. His is a story of courage in the face of disaster. It also contains a vital parable around the myth of job security. His biggest decision was to create his own income stream without being beholden to the vagaries of corporate life.

Sharmadean Read is also all about self belief and the power of implementing your own ideas and your ability to execute those in a unique way.

Former Bank of England chairman Sir Brad Fried’s desire to expand his global horizons and how the decision to pick up the phone to the most respected man on Wall Street at the time, changed his life. What is the worst that could have happened if he had asked for help and had been rejected?

Lee Child at Bouchercon XLI, 2010. Photograph: Mark Coggins (CC by 2.0)

Lord Karan Bilimoria’s decision to break with a long family tradition of joining the Indian army led to the creation of Cobra beer. He is a big believer in serendipity. Some might call it luck; but his definition: “Serendipity is seeing what everyone else sees, but thinking what no one else has thought,” is a key differentiator between those who always seem to be in the right place at the right time and those who wonder how they do it.

So often we make decisions from a position of fear or insecurity, and invariably that makes us more risk averse than perhaps we can afford to be. Having options, and calculating the odds in the knowledge that no decision is ever likely to be perfect is preferable to leaving our lives to chance.

As former world poker champion Liv Boree tells us, it is all about rational decision making – she describes rationality as a dance between intuition and logic – and what is intuition but the result of our experience which shapes the way we approach new situations?

We’ve all watched police dramas with interrogators hammering their fists on a table with paper cups of half drunk “coffee” as they have sought to badger confessions out of suspects. Former police superintendent Asbjorn Rachlew, charged with overseeing the interrogation of mass murderer Anders Breijvik is revolutionising the way police question suspects – insisting they take nothing at face value. Ever. “What if the opposite is true?” is his mantra. It’s an approach all of us can use when making a big decision. We vote for our favourite candidate based on their campaign promises – can we live with our call if they prove disappointing?

Any one of the episodes is a perfectly good entry point to the series, and series two, poised for the new year, includes one of the most successful West End producers of this generation, a world leading expert on how to decide who does and does not remain within your inner circle, and a wonderful discussion about whether AI is going to make it easier or harder for us to make decisions that will serve us well.

Are there any decision-making tips or skills mentioned by your guests that have particularly stood out to you?

Brad Fried: Never allow yourself to be in a position where you are forced to make a decision, which if it does not work out, can break you, financially, emotionally or reputationally.

Lee Child: Be wary of being timid. His biggest regrets stem from being fearful about taking big decisions as a younger man. Ironic, considering his biggest was sitting down to write a book he hoped would be a bestseller rather than find a safer, salaried job.

Sharmadean Reid: Back yourself, but also never launch anything new until you have done proper market research. Never stop asking questions. You do not know everything, no matter how smart and connected you think you are.

Karan Bilimoria: Fortune favours the brave. Trust serendipity, provided of course you are able to think what no-one else is thinking when presented with an opportunity, using precisely the same dry facts.

Liv Boree: Suspend emotion. Focus on the facts. And never, ever, allow your emotions to get the better of you at critical inflection points in life.

Asbjorn Rachlew: Keep an open mind. Mind your own incentives, emotions and beliefs, they can often cloud your judgement.

What do you hope listeners will gain from listening to your podcast?

They will learn that there is no such thing as a perfect decision. Everything worthwhile requires a trade-off of some kind. They will also learn that it’s perfectly acceptable and even essential to own up to a bad call and deal with it sooner rather than later. They will learn to keep an open mind at all times and realise that the moment you make a decision, every assumption and piece of information you used to reach your conclusion, is already out of date. It doesn’t provide an opt-out and leave critical outcomes to chance, it just means that you should never allow yourself to be boxed into a corner where you are forced to choose a least-worst outcome rather than what is best for you. Lee Child speaks about decision making as a writer: “When you have a blank sheet in front of you, you have endless possibilities, the moment you write a single line, you have reduced the number of potential outcomes considerably.” The same is true for any decision you make. Your viable options reduce each time you make a decision.

Who would be your dream guest for The Art of Deciding?

Give me a break! I have had six, but if there was to be one more…it seems too easy to say Elon Musk…how about Salman Rushdie on forgiveness…but also Richard Shotton, Nuala Walsh, Annie Duke, Adam Grant, Gary Kasparov, Brené Brown, Steven Levitt, Dan Ariely, Angela Duckworth, Malcolm Gladwell…right now, just one? Would have to be Rushdie, followed by all the others and I wouldn’t be picky about the order.

If you could go back to just before you recorded the first episode of your podcast and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be? Are there any decisions that you would change?

Trust the process. The concept is strong. The guests are brilliant. Stay insanely curious…That’s lots of one things…Trust the process, understand it will take longer than you hope, cost more than you want, but that the end result is non-negotiable. It’s a massively competitive landscape. You are asking potential listeners to give you some of their most valuable and finite commodity: time. Respect that. One thing: Focus on making it great.

Where can the Pod Bible readers find out more about you/the podcast?

www.brucewhitfield.com is the central repository for all information into the World of Bruce.

Listen to The Art of Deciding on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other popular podcast apps >>

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