Three Tips on Choosing More Wisely
In Decisive, the Heath brothers describe a framework for wiser decision making. They cite examples where people faltered with big choices, such as Quaker's Snapple acquisition and Kodak's hesitation to adopt a digital format. Both companies had convinced themselves they took the correct stance. Making good decisions doesn't come simply from a thorough list of pros and cons, an adequate wait time, and advice from close friends. Rather, the authors discuss principles anyone can use to avoid the most common psychological traps. Their formula involves the acronym WRAP.
W: Widen your options. When you find yourself waffling between two choices, maybe there's a third or fourth choice you aren't considering. Avoid decision paralysis by limiting yourself to six possibilities to keep perspective. For instance: if you find yourself wondering whether or not to fire someone, consider if adjusting the person's role or environment would solve your problem.
R: Reality-test your assumptions. Why guess when you can know? A company I previously worked for would contract new hires for thirty days before committing them to payroll. They did this to see if a candidate who interviewed well would actually produce satisfactory work. However, a trial run isn't appropriate for something which requires a long-term commitment from the start, like a marriage or a degree.
A: Attain distance. Haste never leads to good decisions. Whether you shift to a third person perspective or a bird's eye view, zooming out may lead you to new realizations. When Intel's CEO was debating whether to shift the business focus from memory chips to processors, he asked himself, "What would my replacement do?"
P: Prepare to be wrong. Understand the limits of having a reliable process in place. Being immune to failure doesn't mean dodging it altogether. Rather, failure immunity means squeezing setbacks for lessons applied to your next step forward, a la John Maxwell. The best preparation can't guarantee desired results, but you can spare yourself needless waste if you fail and learn quickly. You can move on with only a bruised ego. You may have all the confidence in the world how much people need your product. That doesn't mean they will buy it.
Takeaways:
Use tripwires. Having a midpoint check-in or a soft deadline for bigger projects helps evaluate if I'm happy with how much progress I've made, or if I need to write off any more effort. They also help me adjust strategy and resources to make sure I meet a particular goal. For instance, I set a tripwire by Oct 1, 2019 to see if I was still committed to writing a book. After deliberating, I decided to shift my focus to blogging about books instead. Doing so helped me avoid the sunk cost bias, where I initially struggled to let go of all the chapter drafts I might never publish. That said, I could still set another tripwire to revisit publishing later on.
Check your confirmation bias. I've become much more aware when I do things backwards, like having a decision in place before evaluating evidence. No one likes to admit the consequences of their personal biases, but we all have them. The focus needs to shift to accounting for it, not shaming people into eliminating it. For instance, I've read more books supporting Christianity than contesting it. The challenge for me, then, would be to read a book supporting another religious paradigm, such as Islam or Hinduism.
Address the opportunity cost. An example which resonated with me was the guy who couldn't decide between two CD players. The salesperson asked him if he would rather have a pricey CD player, or a buy a slightly cheaper one and use the remaining money to buy CDs. Realizing what he could do with the leftover funds made the choice clear. When we say "yes" to something, we don't think about what we're saying "no" to. Take time to think about what trade-off you might be making. Turning down solicitors' phone calls becomes easier once you realize you'd rather spend your time talking with loved ones instead of listening to a sales pitch. I tend to jump too eagerly at service opportunities. During my recovery from volunteer burnout, I asked myself what else I could be doing with my time. Once I realized I would rather read, blog, or sleep, I became much more selective in donating my time.
The Heath brothers have several nonfiction bestsellers, such as Made to Stick, Switch, and The Power of Moments. I've generated useful ideas to experiment with from each of them, and Decisive was no different. By providing a process, this book helped me become more assertive with difficult decisions. Even if something I planned didn't go the way I wanted, I could breathe easier having done my due diligence. Too often, I would rationalize my choices strictly by emotion, lacking measures to check my blind spots. The sooner we account for the tricks our minds play on us, the better off we'll all be. As Bill Burnett and Dave Evans say in Designing Your Life: there are no good choices - only good choosing.
