“LBM Talks” hosts top professionals from different sectors of the lumber and building material industry to share their expertise, with a heavy emphasis on practical, tactical strategies to help you serve your markets and grow your business.
Join LBM Talks host, Thea Dudley, as she brings her razor-sharp expertise to dissect trends, regulatory changes, and offers real-world advice for credit professionals.
Thea Dudley and Tina Breen sat down together during the 2024 LBM Strategies conference to discuss the decision making process. Tina Breen has her masters in Industrial and Organizational Psychology, bringing a unique perspective to the topic.
In this episode, Thea and Tina discuss what cognitive fatigue is and how it affects the decision making process, how credit managers can be mindful of their mental state, and what they can do to prevent making poor decisions.
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Prefer to read about it instead? Take a peek at the transcript below for Episode 7: Becoming The Salesperson of Your Credit Manager’s Dreams
(Editor’s note: Transcript is AI-generated and may include some errors.)
Thea
Hey there, LBM community, welcome to another edition of LBM Talks: Credit I’m Thea Dudley, your host, also known as the Credit Overlord, and today we are diving into probably one of my best and worst subjects. It is the degrading of the decision making process. So I have a really cool friend who has a I don’t even know what you got your master’s degree in, but I know it’s impressive as hell. So for those of you that don’t know, Tina Breen, Tina, tell them what that degree is in.
Tina
Thanks Thea, and thank you so much for having me on this podcast. I’m really excited to collaborate with you. So I did, just recently get my Master’s in industrial and organizational psychology. And a lot of people say, Well, what the heck is that? Are you analyzing me? Are you a psychologist? Are you a clinician? Are you, you know, trying to be in my head every time we’re talking? Yes, yes, you are, because sitting with you is intimidating. Oh, don’t be intimidated at all. I am not in your head. I’m not a psychologist, I’m not a clinician. I’m not licensed. It’s so industrial and organizational psychology is using psychology principles in the workplace. So psychology at its core is understanding why people do what they do, and then harnessing that to build better organizations.
Thea
Okay, so the dumb-downed version for some of us is you look at the decision making process a little bit different than us. So let me take a step back for a minute. Tina also happens to be the Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Mrs. Manufacturer reserve supply. So wanted to at least though, yes, you do have an actual job outside of psychoanalyzing everyone you hang out with, but the decision making process is such a big deal, and it tends to degrade over time. Now I know that you’re an analytical person, so I pulled some statistics, okay, because I didn’t want to come unprepared and have you go. You’re basing this on what, well, my gut feel and experience from how my days go. So I came up with this particular study that was done online, it was free. Internet chess users and researchers took a look at 184 people, and a couple of things grabbed my attention, and I really like you to weigh in on this. Most accurate decision making happens between eight in the morning and one in the afternoon, regardless if you’re a morning person or not, which I find hard to believe, because some people, when you yell Good morning at them, do not respond in time.
Tina
So there’s that like me, I need my coffee in the morning before I can be nice, before someone can get you morning decisions are were most accurate, but took longer. So it took us longer to figure out that we were going to do something, but they were accurate. As the day goes on, decisions came faster, but were less accurate. I think of that as I have my have all my junk in my hand, yeah, to go home and you’re coming at me with something, it’s like, yeah, just, just ship it. I’ll deal with it tomorrow. And it’s always a bad idea, right? And then finally, in a study of judges, decisions were 65% more favorable right after lunch, but almost 100% unfavorable right before lunch. So food is a factor. Yes, so morning, give me a snack.
Thea
So what does that mean that when you’re coming at me in the afternoon, do you need to, like, throw chocolate at me from a safe distance to see if you’re going to get a better response?
Tina
In short, yes. And so let me unpack that a little bit. Okay, there’s a lot going on there. So decision making fatigue is a real thing, and it’s cognitive fatigue. So it’s your brain’s ability to make decisions. And if you think about it, your brain is a muscle, and when you use that muscle over and over, it gets tired and it needs a minute to recharge. So your cognitive decision making abilities do decrease as you feel fatigued. Also can be emotionally based, which can be driven from hunger. So if you’re hunger and you’re feeling cranky and you’re feeling frustrated, usually that’s not actually frustration, it’s fatigue setting in or hunger setting in. So decisions that are made right before lunch probably will be unfavorable, and I did check your statistics, because you gave them to me beforehand, and that does correlate with a lot of the psychology books that I’ve read that right before lunch people are are emotional because they’re hungry, so they’re making emotionally based decisions, not fact based decisions, and then as the day goes on, you’re tired, your brain is tired, your memory is going to revert to familiar patterns, because that’s what’s easiest. So like your example, you just said at the end of the day, you’re like, oh, just go ahead and ship it. Do whatever you want. That was easy, because your brain doesn’t. Have the power right now to really think through that strategically, so you revert to memory based decisions, which is, just ship it. I’ll deal with it tomorrow.
Thea
Well, I know, if I ask a lot of the salesmen out there, they’re like, Okay, well, that explains why at the end of the day, my credit manager is going, yeah, no, nothing’s happening. Get out. Just get out. How much of that decision making really impacts the data business when you’ve got credit and sales coming at it. So I feel like we’ve just taught all of the salesmen out there, look, go for the easy win. If you know that you can get a quick yes, go at 459 with your big order. That’s not a good way to go.
Tina
Yeah, that’s not a good way to go. And I hope that’s not what we’re teaching the sales people, because ultimately, that’s not what’s going to be best for the company. There are big financial impacts to decisions that credit managers or anyone in accounting that’s customer facing makes, and you want those decisions ultimately to be what’s best for the business. So if I was a salesperson, you know, it might be a short term gain, but a long term loss. So I think what we learn is that it’s better to make these decisions earlier in the morning, like your statistics have proven from the trust the chess example and the judges.
Thea
I know just looking at stuff, I see credit managers a lot of times that will they’ll wait a decision will come up, and they’re like, Oh, not this guy again. And then they keep putting it off, and they put it off and they put it off. And then you get to the end of the day and they’re getting ready to pack up, and they go ahead and release the order anyway. And you’re like, Well, if you were gonna release it anyway, why didn’t you release it at nine o’clock in the morning? Why did you wait till 430 in the afternoon? So was that just kicking the can down the road? Was that just you being lazy? And then it came with and then you get to the end of the day, it’s decision fatigue. You’re like, I just can’t fight this.
Tina
Yeah, I would say somewhere in there, their personality traits are coming into play. Maybe that’s not something. That’s a cognitive fatigue. I mean it because they didn’t make the decision. It turned into cognitive fatigue. But if they don’t have specific decision making abilities, in their personality traits, or they’ve not been trained properly how to handle their workflow. I could see where that might happen. So if you have someone who doesn’t have a high level of self-structure, they don’t know how to organize their day or prioritize their day or manage their time, that’s where they’re more likely to put things off. And I feel like that is part of the personality.
Thea
I’d have to agree with that. I think when you look at certain people, when they’re making decisions, they’re okay going, yep, no, yep, no, I’ll change my opinion if you bring me fresh information, but until then, this is what we have. So my question for you is, what can we do, knowing that that this is a real thing, what can credit managers do to kind of kind of level that out, knowing that they have these decisions coming all day? Would it be a restructuring of the day to approve things, and knowing that things are going to come through, some orders are going to happen. But how would you coach credit managers to deal with that fatigue?
Tina
Well, first self-awareness is the first step, so they have to recognize and understand that fatigue, decision making. Fatigue is a real thing, and does it impact them? Because it might not impact everybody, but the ones that it does impact, they have to realize, okay, this is something about me that I need to understand. I get tired more towards the end of the day, and I know my decisions are slower and maybe not as good. So what can I do to kind of course correct or restructure my day, which is exactly where you were going with that? I would recommend, once they get to the point where they’re like, Okay, I know this is something I need to work through, mindfulness, which I know is a huge buzzword everywhere, but it it is a great way to start when you’re protecting your mental health. Um, so, so figuring out mindful and intentional ways to restructure your day would be a good start. And I think what a lot of executives are doing now is time blocking in their schedules. I love that, so I just started doing it. I don’t do it all the time, but I do it when I’m feeling stressed out, and that’s what helps me to feel less stressed out, is When I’ve time blocked, and I time block in the morning projects or decisions or actionable items. I need to work on that have the most impact on the company. That’s what I do first, and then I plan in little breaks for myself, because you need to recharge your batteries during the day. So a 10 minute break, you just get up, you get a cup of coffee, you go for a walk, you stretch your legs, you know, go out to your car, grab something. You know, just being outside helps to recharge too. There are also studies where nature helps you to rebalance and recharge your batteries. And some of these things that we’re talking about, these statistics, we should link some research and science too, so we’ll provide everybody with the backup for what we’re saying. But so you want to take some breaks, you want to have snacks, because literally, the emotional part sets in when you’re hungry. So don’t forget to have breakfast, which I don’t do very well at all.
Thea
Okay, I’m a huge breakfast person.
Tina
I can eat that more early in the morning, but you know, my team will tell you, around 10 o’clock, Tina starts to get hungry, and then she’s not happy, and we’re looking for snacks at our desk.
Thea
Well, so that brings up something else, and this is something that is always perplexing to me, and I was guilty of it, and years ago, I would not carve out time for myself. It was I’m so busy. I’m so busy at work. You know, I’m Superwoman. If I leave the office, the place is going to fall apart. It’s like, you didn’t it’s like, okay, intravenous me to the coffee pot. Catheter me. I’m not leaving for the bathroom, because I felt like I was really holding up the world. And what was really humbling is that, yeah, you can be gone for 10 minutes and no one’s going to die on the table. This is, you know, we’re not saving lives, it’s building materials. So you can take a moment refocus. But why is it so hard to get people to do that?
Tina
That’s a great question. I think people have not embraced the need for mindfulness in business, you know, and sometimes when you say, I need a break, or I’m leaving this office for lunch today because I need to get outside, can be perceived as a sign of weakness, like, why does that person feel like they need a break to continue? Like everyone else is plowing through.
Thea
You’re all in there grinding it out, and you’re like little cogs. It’s like, okay, that might have been cool 30 years ago, but in today’s world, I would hope that we’ve, we’ve evolved to the point where it’s, Hey, let’s make sure we’re having a good balance with this. I want to make good decisions for the company. So when I restructure my day or do some blocking, I’m going to approve credit apps. You know from this, I’m going to try to release these orders. And I realize that orders come in throughout the day, and so I can almost hear a couple credit people out there going easy for you to say, I have to be watching my email well, you can, but you can also set up some logic with it. You can set, you know, everyone has an email box coming in, where you can have orders going into one, and you can pop into that. And you can do some things like you were saying, to structure your day, to make it not quite as overwhelming.
Tina
There are companies that are creating outdoor spaces for their people to work when they feel like they’re, you know, feeling boxed into their office, or they feel like they need to recharge their batteries, but still have to keep working. Okay, we don’t have that at my company, but we have a pavilion outside and every now and then, like if I’m just getting that feeling where I’m overwhelmed, but I have to keep working, I know I just can’t go home. Sometimes I’ll take my computer or I’ll just even take my phone out to the pavilion with a cup of coffee or a glass of water or something, and I’ll just sit outside for 10 or 15 minutes, clean up a couple emails, just take a couple fresh breaths, and then I feel a lot better when I go back inside. So there I actually a couple years ago, I put a beach chair in the back of my car, okay, and when it was nice out, I would throw my beach chair just in the grass at work in our little parking lot, and I would sit there for an hour. It was usually my lunch break, but I would still go through emails just to be outside, because I felt like it helped me to recharge.
Thea
So back to what you were saying about. Okay, before you go on, did anyone give you grief for that? Did you look like the No, because it’s an unusual thing to see. So immediately, most people tend to skew negative. Where, what are you doing out there? It’s like, I’d love. It’s like, well, you know, I’m going to make this commonplace. I’m, you know, I’m going to start a trend.
Tina
Yeah. So we had a prior executive who worked at our company who had a beach chair in the back of his car, and that’s what he. Did every day, but he took a straight up nap. I mean, he’d say he took a nap out there, but when he came back in, you know, that was his lunch. You know, it wasn’t like he was napping in the middle of the day. I thought that’s so cool. He would lay out there in the sun and soak up the sun and, you know, until it was too cold, because we’re in New Jersey to do that anymore. And yeah, some people were like, What is he doing out there in the parking lot? But it worked for him. He didn’t care. I mean, a lot of people that are in leadership positions, managerial positions where they’re making decisions, they have a tendency to not care what other people think about them. It is a personality trait that we look for in psychology for managerial positions. So I think if you’re in that kind of position, and you can go sit outside for a couple minutes, you don’t really care what anybody thinks about what you’re doing.
Thea
If you’re in credit, you have to learn to have thick skin, and you have to learn not to care that if someone’s upset with you, because at any given point in the day, somebody’s mad at you for something earlier, you talked about the need to feel like you’re always tied to your desk, plowing through, working so hard I can’t take a break. I’ve got too much to do, you know, almost like the murder situation.
Tina
Sometimes I think that’s generational, and those are value sets that we’ve learned from either our generation or our parents. That’s sometimes where we talk about the younger generations coming in, the millennials, and after that, they’re lazy. You know? You know, that’s the typical stereotype. Yeah, I am always quick to correct everyone and say, I don’t think they’re lazy. I just think they have different value sets than what we do. They value their mental health. They value their work life balance. They want to shut their phones off at 630 if they feel that they need to take a break in the middle of the day because they’re experiencing fatigue or decision making fatigue, they’ll take a break. And that has been normalized for them. That’s not normalized for you and me, no, because our parents and the people that we’ve worked alongside of, they work twice as hard than, you know, some of the younger generations, and that’s why they’re perceived as not wanting to work as hard. It’s just a different set of values.
Thea
Well, I remember back in the day, you know, worked for, you know, Guardian fiberglass and the president of that you came in that you had to, there was like, no valor in staying home. You had to come in if you were sick. It was a badge of honor. You were carrying your severed head in your arm, because you’re like, I’m at work, though, not realizing that. You know this isn’t, this isn’t awesome. You’re making everybody else sick now you’re not productive at all. I love that someone is like, Look, I’m not going to come in and infect everybody else. Or, you know, I need to take a break watch my queue. Or, hey, you know, I’m going to pop out and take a walk around. I really love that, that subsequent generations have gotten so much better about blending that so but to kind of kind of wrap us up when we’re looking at that credit community and those decisions, and they’re all tied to money, because every credit decision, whether you’re cutting off a customer because they didn’t pay, not just for fun, whether it’s trying to approve an account, whether it’s having a discussion with a salesman. What are some especially when they have no choice but to make those decisions towards the end of the day, what are some things that they can do to maybe take that beat?
Tina
Well, take the beat, meaning, take a break.
Thea
Recognize, I think self-awareness was one of the things you pointed out. And for some people, that’s easier than others, and to be able to look at that situation and realize I need a moment, and be able to articulate that without sounding like you’re having a new age thing, breaking my crystals, you know? And we’re going to do a prayer circle here, right? Yes.
Tina
So credit managers still have to make decisions at the end of the day. I mean, literally the end of the day, like four or five o’clock, they still have to make decisions. Even if they’re fatigued, they still have to make decisions. So what kind of decision do you want to make? Do you want to make one where you’re just, you know, feeling like you have to get it done, and you’re you know, okay, just go ahead. Ship it. Do it. Give them whatever credit they want. Or do you want to make a better decision? So if you want to try to make a better decision, something that I might recommend is making a checklist of your decision making process. So what are the things that you go through in your head when you’re making the good decisions at nine o’clock in the morning. Okay, make yourself a little checklist and just keep it and then if you have to make that decision at four o’clock, and you know, you’re feeling fatigued, look back at that checklist. Did I, I don’t know what the decisions are for a credit manager, but, you know, did I check their references? Did I consider, you know, have have they had an out. Ending balance over 90 days. Did I consider this? How big is the order? How is this going to impact my salesperson? You know, all the things, just so that their fatigue doesn’t cause them to miss some steps in thinking it through. I love and then they can. They can feel like they made the decision even though they’re tired, because we all have to keep working when we’re tired, but at least they feel like they had a little checklist to make sure they didn’t miss any steps.
Thea
I love the checklist ideas. So, you know, just to kind of recap, because I know this, we could go on with this conversation forever. I am fascinated by the whole psychology behind it, so I kind of geeked out on the numbers and stuff. Yeah, and they’re great, because you are so educated on this topic that I didn’t want to come like, Okay, I have a thought. Nice. It’s lovely.
Tina
The way that I’m approaching this topic is from the perspective of industrial and organizational psychology. So not so much as a psychologist, you know, a clinician, because that’s not what I am. But you know, in industrial and organizational psychology, we look at why people do the things they do, and how can we leverage that to build better workplaces, and recognizing that cognitive fatigue is a real thing and how it impacts businesses in different departments, specifically for you in this podcast, the credit department, and figuring out, what are ways that we can understand what that fatigue is. What does it look like? What are the feelings that come with it? What times of day is it typical and proven by your statistics? You know, we’re better performers in the morning, and then you know, you can make your better decisions. In the morning, make sure you’re having snacks, make sure you’re taking breaks every now and then and then. In the afternoon, if you’re feeling fatigued, have a little checklist that you can go through that can help you to feel like you’re making that the best decision you can even though you’re tired.
Thea
I love that. I love the tips and the resources, and I can’t thank you enough for spending time with us this afternoon. I always love hanging out with you. Me too, and I just think everybody needs to have a you in their company. So I think this was so much fun. Tina, thank you so much for joining us. And that wraps another episode of LBM Talks: Credit. Now, you know, we come out every other Tuesday. You never want to miss an episode. We’re always going to do something a little bit different, a little bit out of the box. We’re talking about trade credit, specifically in the lumber and building material construction industry. We are on Apple Spotify and Amazon music. Until next time, I’m Thea Dudley, keep watching that AR.
