It’s a common misconception that great decisions should feel smooth, obvious—even easy. But in our experience working with thousands of learners across industries, the most effective decisions often feel exactly the opposite: slow, awkward, and filled with tension.
Why?
Because high-quality decisions often challenge our certainty, disrupt our assumptions, and surface competing perspectives. In short, they push us out of comfort and into cognitive discomfort—a necessary ingredient for sound thinking.
The neuroscience of discomfort
Research by Daniel Kahneman and Tversky on decision-making reveals that our brains favour speed over accuracy. We rely on mental shortcuts—what Kahneman calls “System 1 thinking”—to make fast judgments. This works well for routine choices, but it often backfires in complex, ambiguous situations.
To counter this, teams need to deliberately activate “System 2” thinking—more deliberate, slower, and effortful. That effort can feel uncomfortable. But it’s in that discomfort that teams do their best thinking: weighing trade-offs, challenging confirmation bias, and confronting the blind spots that McKinsey shows so often derail strategic choices.
Psychological safety: the underrated variable
Discomfort alone isn’t enough. Teams need psychological safety—the belief that it’s safe to speak up, ask questions, and challenge prevailing logic. Research from Amy Edmondson shows that psychologically safe teams are more likely to catch errors, surface better ideas, and engage in productive conflict.
Without that safety, discomfort leads to silence. With it, discomfort becomes fuel for better decisions.
Making this real
In the Problem Hacking methodology, we build in deliberate “pause points” between phases for this very reason. These moments encourage teams to slow down, synthesise diverse input, and confront ambiguity before racing ahead. As Amy’s HBR article puts it, better decisions require better framing, not faster answers.
So if your next strategic conversation feels messy, uncertain, even frustrating—that might be a sign of progress, not failure.
