Why Your Safest Decisions Are the Most Expensive Ones

Hosted by Dr S Shah

Wed, May 20, 2026

5:30 PM UTC (1 hour)

Virtual (Zoom)

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Strategy Under Fear: Why Defensive Decisions Backfire
Dr S Shah
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What you'll learn

Spot defensive decisions in yourself before you make them

Through a real example, a self-diagnostic, and a framework you'll apply to a decision you're carrying right now.

Diagnose the fear-driven patterns shaping your decisions.

Through three diagnostic questions you can apply to any high-stakes decision, including the one you're carrying now.

Leave with a structural countermeasure you'll use this week.

Through one specific change to how decisions get made — not a mindset shift, a structural change you can apply now.

Why this topic matters

Most leaders pride themselves on staying calm under pressure. The harder truth is that calm doesn't catch defensive decisions — and defensive decisions, made by smart people optimising for safety, are how good companies quietly slip into mediocrity. In one hour, you'll see the pattern in your own decisions, learn one diagnostic that catches it, and leave with a change you can make this week.

You'll learn from

Dr S Shah

Decision Strategist | Speaker | Founder-Educator

I spent years researching a single paradox: why defensive decisions made under pressure so often create the very outcomes leaders were trying to prevent. This became the foundation of my decision-making framework, the Defensive Decision Paradox.

Since 2016, I’ve run my own education company, Learning Brains, where I’ve taught, built programmes, and made real business decisions under pressure. I’ve also experienced the cost of fear-driven choices firsthand, giving the framework both academic depth and practical relevance.

As a PepTalk speaker, I share ideas on fear, pressure, and judgment at work.

I also live with a metabolic condition that creates physiological anxiety without cause, teaching me that the urgency of fear is rarely reliable evidence of the true stakes.

University of Bath

University of Bath
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