Ori Brafman asked on Linkedin: What are your best examples of irrational decision-making in the workplace?
I answered thusly, though not to his point:
I believe, perhaps irrationally :-), that we all make two kinds of decisions regularly in our life. Well-founded, data-driven and reasoned decisions are the most common and form the first kind. The much rarer second kind is driven by instinct, gut feeling and perhaps no more than a deep sense of passion and belief in the long-term success of what appears, on all immediate counts, to be unfounded.
Interestingly, as I say in my blog blurb on Scrabble, Idealism and Careers, the former kind of decisions (well-reasoned ones) leads to steady incremental success with high likelihood. This decision-making process is just a calculus. We learn it in business schools. Every CEO should be at least competent in it. On the other hand, the latter kind of decisions (instinctive ones) is what leads to major revolutions and fundamental game changes in the playing field. It takes vision, and is often perplexing and hard-to-explain to most. This is what distinguishes true visionaries from the rest.
The flip side of this equation, of course, is that like all laws of Nature, the high yield of the latter kind of decision making tends to be balanced with a correspondingly diminished likelihood of success. But yet, if not for these, what excruciating tedium life would become to bear! In science and art, at least, there is some evidence that beautiful and penetrating insights often come from instinct rather than by "treading the groove", as Robert Kanigel says eloquently in his biography of a mathematician.
I have certainly made irrational decisions in my life. I look forward to and welcome the opportunity to make each one. I savor their taste and bask in the warmth of the fire in my belly that fuels them. When successful, these are the kinds of decisions people write about, and in the end, we ourselves might look back at and treasure.