Happy First Birthday to The Decision-Making Studio!

Today, the advisory firm I founded The Decision-Making Studio turned one year old.

?It’s not been easy, but we got through Year One.?

It still feels incredibly precarious, but according the “Lindy effect”, this means we have another year of remaining life expectancy, at least. And by the end of Year Two, we will have two more.

In the very near future, I will share a bit of what I’ve learned about organisations and how they approach decisions based on my interactions on the topic.

Today, however, I thought I’d share a few thoughts about what I’ve learned from Year One about myself and the whole starting a business deal. There are two big things:

Lesson One - This is beyond ‘difficult’.

Starting your own firm involves a real-world education that serves up harsh lessons daily.

And, for those who have started a business and ‘failed’ or are in the midst of their own journey and are experiencing inevitable challenges, I look at it this way: regardless of what happens, very little that you do starting and running a business is “wasted” time, even if it isn’t yielding the results you’d ideally like. You are learning skills and lessons that will serve you far into the future.

Lesson Two - Practice What You Preach

If you look around, you will find a million and one ways in which we as humans and organisations don’t make quality decisions. However, there is very little available on what quality decision-making looks like and how to practice it. That’s why I share thoughts on this regularly here and why I pulled together the “FOCUS” framework. ?

However, as a young firm with a limited, albeit slowly growing track record, it’s important that I practice what I preach.

FOCUS is simply a way of grouping proven decision practices memorably. I use it, and it works. Here’s how it’s helped me in the past year:

Framing – When times have been difficult or a course of action wasn’t clear, I’d go back to my rationale and the purpose behind starting the firm. The way forward would typically get a lot clearer.

Options – I get very tunnel-visioned and while that can be helpful in terms of getting stuff done, it leaves alternatives unexplored. The simple question of “is there another way of achieving this?” has been incredibly helpful in pivoting when needed and finding solutions I never knew were out there.

Cognitive diversity ?(and other “human” factors) – As a company of one, I’ve found it so valuable to cultivate a set of people who can provide alternative perspectives on some tricky issues. They’ve helped me see things I wasn’t. You know who you are – thank you! Similarly, taking care of both my mental and physical health has been critical.

Uncertainty – This one surprised me the most because as a “recovering” risk professional, I’ve forgotten more ways to think probabilistically than most people have learned. The biggest lesson for me here is that while probabilistic thinking is invaluable, it can also a blocker. That’s because there are uncertainties that defy it. Probablising the shit out of everything is unhelpful. There are things we can only learn via experimenting.

Selection – Once you decide, you then have to actually do the thing. I’ve found it so helpful to simply set some time when it’s appropriate to take stock so that I can just get on with stuff. Checking the “scorecard” every day is a recipe for rumination and thinking in unhelpful loops.?

To clients – thank you! To those who have offered helpful advice or simply cheered me on – thank you as well!

And, if you are curious as to what I do and how I can help you, please just get in touch. I’d be happy to have a chat. We could chat through a big decision you or your team might have coming up, or explore your organisation's decision-making practices. If nothing else, I am sure we’d both find it insightful.

?