A few weeks ago, Oracle laid off thousands of employees via email. Recently, Meta announced restructuring and job cuts. Decisions like these make headlines because they expose something uncomfortable: organisational choices are rarely just about individual judgement. They are shaped by hierarchy, incentives, timing, and what people think can be said in the room.

That is why the better question is not simply, “What did they decide?” It is, “What made that decision more likely than the others?” There is usually a person making the call, but there is also a wider system shaping what they see, what they value, and what they feel able to say. In practice, the decision is never made in isolation.

Imagine you are in a budget meeting. Two options are on the table. One protects a high-performing team that consistently delivers results. The other redirects resources to a struggling team that has been underfunded for years. The data supports one choice. The politics of the room support another. Someone says, “We need to be fair.” Another adds, “We cannot afford to lose momentum.” You know what the numbers say. You also know what the decision will signal.

That is the tension at the heart of organisational decision-making. It is not only about choosing between options. It is about how systems shape the choice before it even reaches the table.
Before we get into the theory, it is worth pausing here. Most decision advice focuses on the person making the call. That matters, but it is only half the story. The other half is the system they are making the decision in, because the environment often shapes the choice before the choice is even conscious.

The science

Decision-making is often framed as a cognitive act, but decades of research suggest something more constrained and more contextual. Herbert Simon’s work on bounded rationality is a useful starting point. His argument was not that people are incapable of good judgement, but that real decisions are made with limited information, limited time, and limited cognitive capacity. Under those conditions, people do not optimise in the abstract. They satisfice: they choose an option that is good enough for the constraints they are facing.
That matters, because it changes the question. Instead of asking whether people are always rational, we should ask what makes rational judgement possible in the first place.

Daniel Kahneman’s work helps here too. Under pressure, people have less capacity for slow, deliberate reasoning, and are more likely to rely on faster, more intuitive processes. That does not mean intuition is wrong. It means the mind adapts to constraint. When the load is heavy, we simplify.

John Sweller’s cognitive load theory strengthens this point. As cognitive load increases, our ability to process information, weigh alternatives, and challenge assumptions declines. In other words, pressure does not just make decisions harder in a general sense. It changes the quality of thinking available in the moment.

But this is only part of the picture. Decisions do not happen in isolation. They are shaped by what is rewarded, who has power, how much time is available, and what information is visible enough to matter.
In that sense, the system is never neutral. It shapes what feels safe to say, safe to defend, and safe to repeat. A decision may look irrational from the outside and still make sense to the people inside it, because they are responding to pressures the outcome alone cannot show.

Key findings

A few patterns show up consistently.
1. Decisions are constrained before they are made.
The options on the table are already shaped by hierarchy, incentives, time pressure, and available information.
2. Under pressure, people default to what is easiest to defend.
Not necessarily what is best, but what can be justified quickly and publicly.
3. Fairness and legitimacy matter, not just efficiency.
People judge decisions by outcomes, but also by whether the process feels credible and equitable.
4. Silence is information.
When people do not speak up, it is often because the environment has signalled that speaking may not help.

What this means in practice

If decisions are shaped by systems, then improving judgement is not just about improving individuals. It also means redesigning the environment in which decisions are made.
What signals does this environment send about what matters? Who is able to challenge, and who is not? What is rewarded here: speed, certainty, conformity, or sound judgement? Where might people be choosing what is defensible over what is right?

This also reframes how we think about bad decisions. Sometimes they are not mistakes in the usual sense. Sometimes they are adaptations. They are responses to an environment that rewards certain behaviours and penalises others.

Because in that meeting, you are not simply choosing between two options. You are responding to fairness, performance pressure, reputation, and future consequences. The system is deciding with you. That is why the more useful question is not, “Why did they make that decision?” but, “What does this system make easiest to decide, and hardest to question?”

A quote to reflect on
We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are. – Anaïs Nin

A question to reflect on
What in your environment is shaping your decisions before you make them?
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Further readings

  • Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
  • Simon, H. A. (1947). Administrative Behavior: A Study of Decision-Making Processes in Administrative Organization. New York: Macmillan.
  • Sweller, J. (1988). “Cognitive Load During Problem Solving: Effects on Learning.” Cognitive Science, 12(2), 257–285.