Making Decisions

June the first is “Flip a Coin Day” – who knew?! 

While flipping a coin is one way of making a decision and sometimes seems like the only way, it’s clearly not always the best way of choosing the best way forward. 

For me, one of the most useful ways of approaching making a decision is to regard it from different perceptual positions. 

What does that mean? 

Some of the following positions are assessment positions while others are information ones but using them all allows us to consider the full picture and leads to quicker decisions that we can be confident are the best solutions. 

The first position is to examine the facts and figures associated with the situation. What are the best and worst-case scenarios? Whose facts and figures are they? How reliable are they and are they based on truth or beliefs? 

The second position is to consider the feelings associated with the decision. Are they positive? Negative? Mixed? Imagine yourself taking each potential decision and really feel the feelings. 

The third position is to point out everything that’s wrong with a potential solution. 

Number 4 is to look for the value in a potential solution. What could be brilliant about this? This is trickier than it sounds because our unconscious mind naturally looks for danger rather than benefits but making the effort to look can really pay dividends. The key question here is “What if…?” 

Position number 5 sees us looking for alternatives. We need to get creative here and seek out even more possibilities without judging them. 

Finally, position 6 is where we pull together the threads of the other 5 positions and create a plan. Now is the time to get detailed and define success parameters that we hold ourselves to. 

You can use this process on your own but it can be super-powerful if we can enrol people to support us in a mastermind or team situation. 

So, ditch that coin and try the perceptual position approach next time a big decision is needed. To find out more, read “Six Thinking Hats” by Edward de Bono. 

Caro x