9
Death by Decision: Stop Deciding and Start Choosing

What is it about making decisions that seems so darn difficult? You know as well as I that even simple decisions on the home front about where to go to dinner or what movie to see can become crippling:

“Want to go to dinner tonight?”

“Sure. Love to.”

“Great. Where would you like to go?”

“Oh, I don’t care. You choose.”

“Wait a minute—I chose last time.”

Sound at all familiar?

As you read through this chapter, consider situations in which you were stuck in a difficult decision-making process while various team members were trying to find the perfect solution. The pursuit of perfection can often get in the way and lead to participants arguing what’s right or wrong with any particular set of options, all the while striving to arrive at a perfect, durable, neverchanging decision.

Even if your team somehow managed to settle on that timeless, durable, perfect decision, I’ll bet circumstances eventually arose that caused that initial decision to be scrapped. To avoid playing out these losing hands, what can you do when your team gets bogged down in arguing about perfect solutions or perfect decisions? In Chapter 3, I cited two critical questions for senior teams when my company begins a new assignment. The first question: “What is the vision, mission, or purpose of this organization?” The second question: “What are the top three strategic objectives for the coming 12 to 18 months?” When I work with teams to clarify purpose, vision, goals, objectives, and metrics, and we finally reach alignment on both direction and outcomes, I then ask one more critical question: “What will you have to be good at in order to succeed?”

That means both “you” personally and “you” as the executive team. I’m not asking what the direct reports, departments, teams, or units will have to do well; I’m asking what the executives themselves will have to be good at in order for the larger organization to succeed. In virtually any size of organization, many of the same issues seem to arise again and again. Communication, information sharing, and timely decision processes usually top the list. While other concerns typically are voiced as well, such as risk management and staffing, the need for streamlined decision making is almost always near the top. Knowing how agonizing it can be to make even inconsequential decisions about dinner or movies, it’s not hard to account for decision avoidance in the workplace. However, anything that impedes decision making can have ripple effects all over the place.

Sales can’t take to the field without clear direction on strategic product lines to emphasize; operations can’t gear up to manufacture without specs and forecasts; marketing can’t launch campaigns if targets aren’t clear; HR can’t recruit and train without guidance on resource needs and constraints. Leadership must not only be decisive in selecting its strategic directions but also be decisively clear about the directions in which it is not going. Dave Logan, author of Tribal Leadership, told me, “Leaders need to kill off alternatives” so that the organization is clear about where it is going and not going. That way, you’ll avoid second-guessing yourself and revisiting the same decision repeatedly. It’s a straightforward process: define your purpose, clarify your outcome, pick your direction, and get going. However, you should also allow for the fact that sometimes things don’t go as planned.

There is a subtle difference here between choosing an option and killing off the others. As Dave Logan points out, many organizations choose an option and then keep revisiting the others. In the kinds of situation he references, decisions keep being revisited because some people refuse to accept the decision and wish to keep rehashing it. That endless loop can be debilitating, and in that sense, he is correct in advising that leadership “kill off the alternatives.”

Once a choice has been made, let’s all get behind it and start implementing the chosen solution. In this instance, “kill off the alternatives” means stop the endless debate and get busy. It does not mean kill them off in the sense of labeling them wrong or invalidating their possible advantages in the future. It simply means having the clarity to declare a choice and implement it.

If the chosen alternative proves not to work, then the previously discarded options can be brought back into the discussion— not because the decision is constantly being second-guessed, but because data or events show that something different is needed.

WHY DECIDING IS SO PAINFUL

What follows is a glimpse into what passes for decision making in many organizations, an approach that rarely is as bold and decisive as it is negative. There is a great difference between choosing an alternative and then moving forward versus declaring alternatives wrong and limping along with what’s left.

Decision Scenario 1: Analytically Impossible

Imagine you are in a meeting, the goal of which is to make a decision. The group has in front of it three options from which to decide a future direction. The moderator asks the group for thoughts about option A. Mary starts to extol the virtues of option A, when Bob jumps in and points out its flaws, limitations, and other inadequacies. The moderator duly notes that there are certainly some serious concerns about option A and turns her attention to option B. A similar pattern emerges, with a few comments in favor and another deluge of critical comments about why option B will never work.

All right then, how about option C? There are two categorically different types of groups that could be present in this meeting. A technically oriented group may devolve into deeper analysis and ever more data, offering a few arguments in favor and another host of reasons why option C won’t work either. At this point, the group may become paralyzed and conclude that there really isn’t anything that can be done. (Someone in this instance is likely to mutter, “I told you there isn’t anything to be done. What a waste of time.”)

Decision Scenario 2: The Last Choice Standing

Again, a group has convened to make a decision with the same three options to weigh. A similar pattern emerges, with options A and B being proposed, supported, and then shot down.

This group knows it must do something, and the first two options have already been dismissed. That leaves only one standing. If you have ever been in this scenario, you know what comes next. The moderator says something like: “Well, team, with A and B already dead, it looks as if the only thing we can do is enact option C.” And everyone agrees. Option C does not get the same scrutiny as A and B because, after all, we have to do something.

If the team members pick the last remaining option and try to force it into action, what will they do if the option shows signs of not working? “Try harder!” “Get committed.” “Focus!” These are the common admonitions of the leader who “decided” that the last remaining option was the only way to go, especially if this leader had been among those arguing why A and B were inadequate. Just think about it: what would happen if this leader acknowledges that option C isn’t working and returns to option A or B instead? This kind of about-face could be seen as admitting weakness, that the leader was “wrong” in the first place. Definitely career limiting in some organizations!

The problem in both scenarios lies in what the participants were asked to do—they were asked to decide rather than to choose. What’s the difference? Let’s start with decide, or de-cide. Do you know any other words that end in cide? How about the following list:

Sui-cide

Homi-cide

Patri-cide

Matri-cide

Fratri-cide

Geno-cide

Insecti-cide

I’m sure you can see the pattern. The suffix of these words derives from a Latin root that basically means “to cut, kill, or tear apart.” Another meaning is “to stumble accidentally into a snare.” No wonder people avoid decisions! Who wants to be involved in killing things? Even more frightening, who wants to risk stumbling into a snare or being torn apart? As we noted, if you just spent hours killing off options A and B, thus leaving you with either no way forward or plowing ahead with C, you may be in a real pickle if C doesn’t prove itself to be workable. The more energy we invest in declaring what’s right and what’s wrong, the more debilitating reality becomes if we turn out to have missed something along the way. It’s pretty hard for most people to do an about-face, admit their mistakes, and take back their strenuously made arguments.

It’s even more challenging if the decision process involved tearing apart ideas submitted by team members. If you are obliged to revisit the decision, you may also have to revisit the team members who have been torn apart. You don’t have to be especially astute to have noticed that a good number of people operate out of “don’t-stick-your-neck-out” kind of thinking. Once someone has been torn apart for his or her brainstorming ideas, it’s not a stretch to imagine that person staying in the background.

Decision Scenario 3: Choosing Toward Your Desired Outcome

If asking people to decide isn’t such a dandy idea, what’s a better one? Asking them to choose. The word choose comes from the Latin word meaning “to taste,” and current definitions include “to have a preference for,” “to select freely,” and “to take an alternative.” Have you ever asked for a taste at the ice-cream store or the wine bar before selecting something? Tasting first can help you figure out if you want to go that route or perhaps try something else instead.

I like to think of choice as implying a sense of freedom and direction while moving toward something, whereas decide suggests moving away from something (cut out, avoid the snare, kill off). It’s a whole lot easier to get somewhere by moving toward the target than by moving away from something else. If we ask the team to choose, rather than to decide, the discussion might be slightly different. “Let’s examine these three choices—how might each of them help us get to our desired outcome? How well equipped are we to successfully implement each choice?”

As the team considers each option, it will come up with a choice that appears most likely to result in success for any number of positive reasons, rather than the negative reasoning of what is wrong with each choice. Imagine that the team members have selected B because they feel best equipped to implement it. A or C could work, although both would require resources and skills that aren’t as well developed as those required for B.

Suppose they discover later on that B isn’t working as they hoped. Now what? If they had decided that A and C were hopeless, there is no turning back; they either push on or declare defeat. However, had they simply chosen B without having killed off the other options, it would be possible to revisit A and C to check if one of them now makes more sense. Or, having learned something from implementing B, the team may regroup and discover elements of A or C that could be incorporated into B or discover other options that have become apparent along the way. You could think about this approach as something similar to continuous improvement.

Most decision processes ask people to argue vigorously for “the right way forward.” Those arguments often contain elements of attack directed at options. The real goal of decision making, what we are calling “choice” here, is not about being right; it’s about being effective. If you can choose toward a desired outcome rather than kill off all other possibilities, you may then have the freedom to learn, to course correct, and to keep making progress as new data and experience are acquired.

ONCE YOU HAVE CHOSEN . . .

It’s important to be abundantly clear about not only which direction you are taking but also which directions you are not taking. That doesn’t mean you have to kill those alternatives in the sense that they are down and out forever, but you do need to be clear that those alternatives are no longer on the table.

Here’s a simplistic example of the difference between deciding and choosing: if you have three flavors of ice cream from which to choose, and you choose vanilla, does that mean you can never, ever choose chocolate or strawberry? Or imagine you’re serving fish tonight and choosing between a chardonnay and a pinot noir to accompany it. Let’s say that you are of the mind that the chardonnay will go better. Does selecting chardonnay mean that you can never choose pinot noir from this day forward? What if you find out that it doesn’t work quite the way you like? Should we argue about which is the one and only right choice? If you “decide” that chardonnay is the one and only “right” wine, do you then destroy all the pinot noir? (By the way, many sommeliers will point out that pinot noir, a red wine, goes extremely well with salmon, despite the conventional wisdom that white wine should be served with fish.)

If you have a clear purpose and intention, supported by a defined set of outcomes, you can gear up to achieve your mission. Clarity around intended outcomes and a pathway forward should then provide you a way of measuring progress and help you assess possible detours along the way.

If you keep marching forward, and the results fail to materialize, you may need to revisit alternatives that were left behind. However, that is not the same as constantly revisiting discarded alternatives while trying to make progress on the one selected.

Some people will keep raising alternatives even as the team tries to move ahead. If you are part of a consensus-driven organization, this kind of “what if” questioning is guaranteed to grind things to a halt while every decision is revisited and then revisited again. As time passes, progress toward the desired outcome loses any glimmer of hope, and the “what if” member of the team gets to claim a Pyrrhic victory—the solution agreed-upon no longer works, and he or she gets to tell everyone, “I told you so.”

Another version of resistance raises its ugly head after a decision has been reached and a choice made with no apparent disagreement from those attending. People congratulate one another on the productive meeting and good outcome, and they begin to take action. It’s only then that a dissenting voice rises, challenging the course of action, claiming nothing had been approved. As with the “what if” scenario, a consensus-driven organization will grind to a halt at this point, replaying the meeting and decision, often with the same result.

Both of these cycles can be replayed as though on a continuous loop until someone exercises a handy workaround, one that will work for either scenario: documentation. This workaround is both preemptive and responsive. Whether it is your meeting or not, send out clear meeting notes afterward documenting decisions made, following a regular format. If you provide clarity of purpose beforehand, and then document the outcome, you may be able to put the constant raising and reraising of issues to bed.

The best practice is to review what will be going into the meeting summary before everyone leaves the meeting and to ask for dissenting opinions at that time. A recommended meeting summary should include:

• Date of meeting

• Purpose of meeting (issues discussed or resolved)

• Those invited

• Those attending

• Alternatives discussed

• Alternative(s) selected

• Any metrics in place, goals, etc.

• Any specific projects agreed upon

• Who has what roles, rights, or responsibilities going forward

• Next actions

• State that absent dissenting opinions, these stand as the agreed-upon outcomes of the meeting and the decisions taken

You can always take the lead, share your answers to the questions above, and then ask for any additions or corrections right then and there.

THE INSANITY CALAMITY

We have all heard the definition of insanity as doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. One reason we see so much apparent insanity in day-to-day life could be traceable to people making decisions from a negative stance (away from something) rather than the more positive act of making choices toward desired outcomes.

Negative decision processes as described in scenarios 1 and 2 earlier in the chapter can lead to endless loops of “trying harder” coupled with defensiveness or the need to prove someone “right” by trying to force a previous “square peg” decision into a “round hole” issue. In scenario 1, everyone killed off the ideas on the table, and so the team was left with “business as usual.”

In scenario 2, the team selected option C because it was the only one left standing after A and B were assassinated by the process of de-ciding. If the team moves downstream and option C proves to be even more problematic than the other two, the team leader often goads the troops to try harder or get committed, desperate to pull off an unlikely success. But that’s only because other options have already been killed off—there’s nowhere left to turn.

Both scenarios 1 and 2 give way to differing versions of the insanity calamity—people trying to produce meaningful results from already failed options.

Workaround: Choose Toward Your Desired Outcome

If you find yourself or your team mired in a difficult issue, struggling to come up with an effective decision, why not abandon your agenda for deciding and go about choosing instead?

When faced with a difficult decision:

1. Determine your desired outcome, and clarify your intention for getting there.

2. Assess your capability to implement each of the available choices.

3. Make the best choice you can toward the desired outcome.

4. Remain open to new data that may cause you to reevaluate your choice.

Now, as long as you know the general direction, are committed to getting there, and have some decent ability to notice what’s going on along the way, you can always choose to go with a version of an old joke, “Ready, fire, aim.” Obviously, “Ready, fire, aim” is likely to get you into even more trouble than you started with. A better formula is the updated version: “Ready, fire, steer.” In today’s “smart weapons” technology, “Ready, fire, steer” is the operative concept. Part of “ready” means clarifying the purpose or desired outcome (destroy the mobile device that is firing on us), “fire” means launch the “smart weapon” with sufficient data about the intended target, and then let the weapon system “steer” toward the moving target.

All too often, we start with only limited information about our purpose and intended outcome, and then we become frozen in place by our desire to map out all the contingencies and action steps necessary to get there. Perhaps what we really need to do in those circumstances is to remain homed in on the goal, take the next step in that direction, and reassess as we notice the results en route.

Human beings have accomplished some impressive results with a form of this thinking. When Kennedy engaged the nation in putting a man on the moon, much of the required technology did not yet exist. The same was true when NASA turned its attention to launching the International Space Station, an endeavor that was predicted to require 30 years to complete.

“Ready, fire, steer” may be one way of thinking about the process that culminated with the space station in orbit. Initial clarity about the objective kept people on course, even though numerous technologies were tried, found wanting, and redeveloped. No one option could possibly have been mapped out in advance with precise detail. Instead, directionally correct thinking was the required mind-set, even though rocket scientists favor perfection when given a choice.

No matter where you are, there’s always a next step, even if it appears more like backtracking. I know that backtracking can seem like a complete waste, but what are you supposed to do when you come up against a bridge that’s out or when the weather grounds your flight?

IT’S A LOT EASIER TO STEER SOMETHING IN MOTION

Much as with driving a car, once you get something moving, it’s a whole lot easier to steer. Of course, you do need to know something about your destination, or you’ll just be driving in circles, wasting a lot of gas, getting nowhere.

Endless meetings with the aim of arriving at a perfect decision are a lot like driving in circles, burning a lot of gas and getting nowhere. If you get stuck trying to make a decision, the workaround I recommend is to let go of the need to get it right or perfect, and instead just get it moving. Most restaurants and icecream stores figured out the decision problem a long time ago. When confronted with multiple flavors of ice cream or multiple wines by the glass from which to choose, some customers get flustered and resort to old standbys, or they take the risk of picking something that they may not like.

Clever providers encourage the customer to ask for a taste, even several tastes, in order to facilitate the choice. No need to get it right up front—just choose something to sample, and if that doesn’t work, pick something else. This kind of opportunity to sample first and choose later has allowed me to discover tastes that I never would have tried before. My wife at first found this tendency of mine to ask for tastes embarrassing. Now we both enjoy the experience, have learned a lot, and have broadened our frontiers.

WORKAROUND QUESTIONS

Whether or not you choose to reframe decision making as choice making, there are a few questions that may be helpful in making your choice or decision. Here’s a good starter set of questions many people have found useful:

1. What is our purpose or mission as a company?

2. What is the issue that we are trying to solve?

3. How does this issue impact our customers?

4. How does this issue impact our unit, group, or team?

5. How does this issue impact other units, groups, or teams?

6. What outcome are we trying to achieve? What is our goal? Objective? What results will we produce?

• How will we know if we get there? How will we review progress along the way?

• Are there critical time lines, milestones, or due dates to be met?

7. What options do we have to get there?

• How well equipped are we to execute the various options?

• Which option makes the most sense based on current capabilities or capacities?

• Do we have any current or anticipated conflicts, either internal or external?

8. What projects will we have to put in place to execute the preferred option?

• What do we need to stop doing in order to proceed effectively and efficiently?

• What do we need to continue doing, either in direct support of the project or because of good business practice?

• What do we need to start doing as a result of this new direction, project, or goal?

9. What next actions will we have to take?

10. How will we know if we are on course?

11. What will we do if we find ourselves off course?