Read the room for sticky decisions

When you’re at the head of a queue in a line of locals buying take away coffee, you’ve got to think fast.

Large or small? Large.

Sugar? No thanks.

Cow? Soy? Almond? Cow.

Skinny or regular? Normal!

I’d missed breakfast. Banana bread? Croissant? Carrot cake with too much icing?

“That’s a lot of decisions to make before you’ve even had a coffee,” the server said with sympathy.

Take away coffee isn’t normally a minefield of conundrums. But normal feels like a long time ago.

None of the clients I talked to while drinking my coffee sounded ‘normal’. All seemed exhausted and it wasn’t even 10am.

They were all public servants, making decisions that would impact all of us. Decisions about our justice system, our health system, our schools and our transport systems.

I facilitate the conversations with stakeholders and communities that inform these decisions. Before, during and after the pandemic. Where these conversations take place has changed. Completely virtual in the midst of Covid19, I reckon it will be a blend of virtual and face-to-face in the future. 

Observation of these conversations, and the people having them, is the first step in making the decisions that these conversations inform. Regardless of whether they are face-to-face or online. 

Observation is the first of the five tenets in the widely-used OODA decision-making framework developed by military strategist John Boyd and used extensively in business, the law and other sectors. OODA stands for observe, orient, decide, and act. ‘The first step is simple: what do you see?’  as Frank Partnoy, Berkeley Professor of Law, wrote in the Harvard Business Review.

It sounds a little odd, but this is why I believe that photography can help our ability to make decisions. It’s all about observation.

Street photography, in particular, can strengthen our observational skills. To look for opportunities, to find new angles and to practise how to wait. Patiently. So that you can respond when the decisive moment arrives. It also teaches us to work with what we’ve got – the weather, the available light and what’s around us.

How we see can change what we see. How we read a room – or Zoom – affects whether the people in the room will support a decision. If we can’t read the room, conversations are not productive and if any outcomes are achieved, they are unlikely to stick. If we read the room, conversations are more productive, decisions -and the process for getting to them – are supported and outcomes are achieved.

The implications for unsupported decisions are huge. Reputational damage. Wasted time and costs. Delayed projects. Having to do it all over again.

To get better at reading the room – at looking, noticing and observing – there’s no better tool than the smartphone in our pockets.

Rather than dumbing us down, the much-maligned mobile phone can contribute to our ability to observe, to read a room and make decisions that stick.

Have a go at being a street photographer with this week’s #Facilitography exercise. Here are your instructions:

?? Step outside and walk for 5 minutes.

?? Take one photo of anything that captures your interest.

?? At the 5 minute mark, turn around and walk back the way you came.

?? Take a second photo, of the same thing, from the opposite direction, as you walk back.

Compare your photos, on your own or with friends or colleagues. Are the two photos different? How? What aspects of the same subject do they highlight or reveal? Why did you take a photo of that subject – what appealed to you?  

If you’d like to learn how to look deeper to read the room better, and get decisions that stick, join me at a Virtual #Facilitography Walkshop on the last Tuesday of every month. Link to book below in comments.