Is the way your organization approaches its decisions working? Who's involved in your side conversations, conferences, or meetings when a new idea comes to the table or a deadline is fast approaching?

Decisions affect your workplace daily. And everyone in your company has their own process of coming up with solutions. Some people take more time than others—others consult more people and have more conversations before moving forward. 

Understanding Decision-Making Styles to Improve Teamwork

Knowing different perspectives and how people process information helps you understand them and make better decisions together—making it easier to collaborate and achieve better results. This is especially important in business where your choices could impact both your performance and the whole organization.

The LivStyle Assessment—the primary tool used for Story & Style Coaching—gives you two key spectrums of decision-making: Careful vs. Rapid and Internal vs. External.

• Careful vs. Rapid shows how much time you typically take to make decisions.
• Internal vs. External shows how much you rely on your own processing versus your relationships to make decisions

However, for most people, this isn’t fixed. You make decisions based on various factors—things like your upbringing, culture, and past experiences.

So, when you think about your own process—whether you’re more careful or rapid, more internal or external—consider how it affects your environment.

• If it’s beneficial, take time to figure out how it makes your workplace better.
• If it’s causing problems, explore new ways of decision-making that can better support you and your team.

LivStyle identifies four different ways people tend to make decisions. These aren’t boxes to put yourself or others in—they’re tools for understanding yourself and your coworkers so you can support one another and collaborate more effectively.

As you look at the list below, remember these two things:

1. Every blend of decision-making has both strengths and weaknesses.
2. The goal is to be more balanced—there’s always a need for rapid, careful, internal, and external processes.

4 Different Approaches to Making Workplace Decisions

Careful/Internal

Making decisions with a Careful/Internal personality means you take longer periods of time to process using your inner resources—either informational or emotional. You give yourself space to consider your own understanding of possible outcomes. Oftentimes, your imagination leads you to perceive how different choices will affect you and your environment.

Pros and Cons

Careful/Internal decision-makers benefit others with their thoughtful, independent ways of thinking. Their solutions are well thought out, considering factors many people overlook—because they've spent much more time reflecting on different possibilities.

But Careful/Internal decision-makers may have difficulty seeing blind spots in their own thinking—mainly because they’ve become accustomed to relying heavily on their internal resources. 

Sometimes they assume they don’t need others, while other times their past experiences taught them to only trust their own process—making it challenging to collaborate. 

Others may perceive them as disengaged or indecisive, leading to impatience. But in reality, their careful nature causes them to second-guess themselves, which makes them slower to speak or act when needed.

How to Improve

You’ve spent most of your life developing as an independent thinker—someone who knows how to take many different factors into consideration. People need to know more about what you’re thinking, because your slower, deeper process adds value to others.

Tip: Be generous with your thoughts and take time to process them with others. You’ll often find that people make your ideas better with their insights. You’ll also begin to second-guess yourself less, because others will validate your thinking—which gives you more confidence.

How to Relate

Working with a Careful/Internal decision-maker requires patience and curiosity. It’s important to give them time and space to process what they’re thinking. If you have a deadline coming up, give them as much advance notice as possible—this allows them to feel more confident and less pressured.

Also, instead of asking impromptu questions like, “What do you think about this?” try saying, “Let me know what you think about this.” This gives them the space to think things through and offer you their best ideas.

Careful/External

Being a Careful/External decision-maker means you consult the people around you to make the most collaborative decisions possible. You value consensus and use your network to gather information and move forward with plans—often supported by a variety of external perspectives. You want to know other people’s thoughts and perspectives to strengthen your decisions—whether they’re personal or team-related.

Pros and Cons

Careful/External decision-makers thrive in environments where teamwork and collaboration are needed to get the job done. They know how to have multiple conversations and consider other people’s thoughts and opinions before following through with a plan. This makes their decisions well-informed and highly supported by others in their network.

However, sometimes their process slows down when there are conflicting opinions. They may forget to use their own internal resources—placing more value on others’ thoughts than their own.  Some people think they either ask too many questions or avoid making commitments.

How to Improve

Your questions are valid—they help teams collaborate and make well-informed decisions. But sometimes, you wait to be more certain before acting, and your external process becomes a form of procrastination. 

Tip: Trust yourself more. Learn to value others’ input while staying confident in your own perspective.

How to Relate

If you’re feeling worn out by a Careful/External teammate, remember that their questions are helping them make the best decision possible. Be patient. Listen to their questions. They’ll often mention something you’ve missed and give you a new perspective.

Rapid/External

These types of decision-makers are quick, decisive, and directive in their approach to tasks. Rapid/External people bring efficiency—they know how to meet deadlines and push others to complete tasks and achieve goals. They act on instinct while also involving others by asking questions and gathering just enough information to move forward.

Pros and Cons

Rapid/External decision-makers know how to gather information quickly and have fast-paced conversations to get what they need to take action. This makes them highly effective in fast-paced environments where many tasks or meetings are needed to accomplish goals.

But sometimes, they move too quickly. Others may struggle to keep up, and feel unsupported—especially if they need more time or clarification than a Rapid/External person is willing to offer. This leads to decisions lacking depth or missing important details.

How to Improve

Start asking more questions—and if you already do, ask a few more. This helps you slow down and consider additional perspectives—improving the depth and quality of your decisions.

Tip: Whenever possible, prioritize short, focused meetings over side conversations. Even a quick 5- to 10-minute meeting is worth it if it leads to more informed decisions.

How to Relate

If these people move too fast for you, ask them for more space to contribute your thoughts. At the same time, remember that their efficiency is their strength. When deadlines are approaching, ask them what needs to be done ahead of time. This helps you stay up to date and reduces feelings of being rushed.

Rapid/Internal

Rapid/Internal decision-makers act instinctively and independently—they rarely need others to make decisions and move forward without consensus. These individuals thrive in autonomous environments and have little trouble managing multiple tasks at the same time.

Pros and Cons

Rapid/Internal decision-makers are dependable and produce results quickly. They use the resources available to them and trust themselves to handle challenges—making them confident and effective in roles with high amounts of responsibility.

However, when others are involved, they can appear impulsive or unpredictable. When decisions impact multiple people or the broader organization, they forget to get feedback from others. This leaves others feeling unsettled or excluded.

How to Improve

Talking to others about your thought process makes you more trustworthy and stable to work with. Plus, feedback from others adds quality to your decisions.

Tip: Let people know what you’ve decided—especially when your decisions impact others. Even when your choice is right, it won’t make sense to anyone else unless you explain your reasoning.

How to Relate

Check in regularly with a Rapid/Internal teammate—they’re often 10 steps ahead. Let them know it’s helpful to hear what they’re thinking, while also respecting their need for autonomy to do their best work.

Conclusion

So, what did you notice when reading those descriptions? Do you see yourself in any of the four quadrants listed above? How about someone you work with?

Whatever insights you have, it's always helpful when you have validity and reliability to back it up. 

Livstyle gives your workplace the clarity it needs to understand different personalities and styles of working—And coaching through this tool gives your team the tools for better collaboration and communication.

Schedule a free consultation with me to explore how to make your team produce better results by understanding your unique style of working.