Truth 33
Dig Hard for That Third Alternative

It was 10 p.m. and Matt and Chris were sitting at the conference room table exhausted and bleary-eyed. They were preparing for a presentation at 8 a.m. the next morning with the vice president of their division and were quickly approaching a panic state. They were staring at a Choices and Consequences slide they had created to evaluate alternatives for reducing costs in their organization. "These alternatives stink!" Matt grumbled. "We either have to forgo hiring five people we had planned to hire or spend a lot less on systems. Either way, we'll never meet our service agreement with our customers, because we'll be forced to do more with less. I feel like we're just choosing the least-worst alternative at this point." "I feel your pain, man!" Chris echoed. "Either way, we're screwed." They believed this was the best they could do and decided to go into the meeting, present the information, and let the vice president make the decision for them.

The next morning Matt and Chris went into the meeting and laid out their two choices and the consequences for each. The vice president asked whether they had considered renegotiating their service agreement with their customer so that they could reduce the number of people required to meet an agreed-upon level of service. By taking this approach, they could potentially forgo hiring the five additional people for the department and still implement some of their planned systems changes while still meeting their customer's expectations. Matt and Chris looked at each other sheepishly and admitted that they never considered that alternative. "Well," snapped the vice president, "how about you do some more homework to see if this alternative would work?" Matt and Chris hightailed it out of the vice president's office. They ultimately renegotiated their service agreement with their customer, which allowed them to cut their costs while keeping their customer happy. Ah, the magic of the third alternative!

Good, foundational mainstream thinkers can identify basic alternatives, outline the consequences of each path, and present information so that management can make an informed decision. However, it's the great, innovative, out-of-the-box thinkers who can see past the obvious, basic alternatives and come up with alternatives that may be a bit out of the mainstream but are a better solution than the basic alternatives. These are the types of solutions that spur excitement in an organization, because they're unique, innovative, and typically fun. Now, I'm not saying that every solution has to be a magical third alternative-type solution. If a basic solution solves the problem acceptably, by all means go forth and conquer. But if you find yourself not liking any of your proposed solutions and are faced with choosing a least-worst solution, it may be worthwhile to dig deeper to see if a third alternative exists.

One question that comes up in this arena relates to creativity. Not everyone is creative or innovative. Their strengths may be in other areas. Does this mean that you're forever trapped in basic-alternative land? Nyet! This is where the power of leveraging colleagues or others you know are creative is crucial. If you're not a creative thinker, find one you can tap to help think through alternatives and dig up some creative ideas.

Innovative thinkers can see past the obvious alternatives and come up with choices that may be a bit out of the mainstream.

To help find the third alternative, consider some of these ideas:

• Do a mini-brainstorming session to identify potential alternatives. If you need to generate some ideas on solutions, get a few colleagues in a room and do a mini-brainstorming session. Be sure to choose people you know are familiar with the problem and have a reputation for being creative and innovative.
• Dig for hybrid alternatives that take the best characteristics of the others, and create a new alternative. Take a good hard look at the alternatives you already have outlined, and think about how they could be combined or redesigned to come up with a new choice that contains the best characteristics of each alternative.
• Use a more experienced person or mentor as a coach. Some of my most creative solutions to problems came from reviewing alternatives with one of my mentors, who helped me come up with a more creative third alternative. Don't worry about appearing weak or inferior when asking a more senior person for advice. One of that person's responsibilities in the organization is to help those coming up in the ranks behind them be more effective employees.
• Ask around. Shop your alternatives around to a few colleagues, and ask them to help you think through other potential alternatives. Just as with minibrainstorming, pick a couple of colleagues who are both familiar with the problem and creative.

When fleshing out alternatives, you don't always need to choose column A or column B. Spend a bit of time looking in column C. Any digging you do might just be well worth the time if it yields a more creative, innovative, and effective solution.