Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work

Dr. Timothy MitchellRapid City Area SchoolsSystems Change 2013

tim.mitchell@k12.sd.us

www.rcas.org

Contact Information

Decisive

Our decisions will never be perfect, but they can be better,

bolder and wiser.

The right process can steer us towards the right choice.

And the right choice, at the right moment, can make all the

difference.

Rapid City Journal-Front Page

“The Snow Day That Wasn’t”

What could be your “Crossing

Guard” dilemma?

Decisive

Decisive

“Leadership is about going somewhere. If you and your people don’t know

where you are going, your leadership doesn’t matter.”

Ken Blanchard

Decisive

The hardest part of leadership is winning the support for the bold and necessary decisions that define where you want to lead your organization.

Why is it so Hard?

“There is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor

more dangerous to manage than the creation of a new order of things…Whenever his enemies have the

ability to attack the innovator they do so with the passion of partisans,

while the others defend him sluggishly, so that the innovator and

his party alike are vulnerable”Niccolo

Machiavelli

Normal Decision Making Process1. You encounter a choice2. You analyze your options3. You make a choice4. Then you live with the choice

The Four Villains of Decision Making

1. Narrow Framing makes you miss options2. Confirmation Bias leads you to gather self-serving information3. Short-term Emotions will often tempt you to make the wrong one4. You are often overconfident about how the future will unfold

Decisive

What’s in our spotlight = the most accessible information +

our interpretation of that information . But that will

rarely be all that we need to make a good decision.

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Core Difficulty of Decision Making

What’s in the spotlight will rarely be everything we need to make a good decision, but we won’t always remember to

shift the light.

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Researchers have found “process matters” more than analysis – by a

factor of six

Superb analysis is useless unless the decision process gives it a fair hearing

It is not the WHAT – It is the HOW

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Our decision track record is not great – trusting our gut or conducting rigorous

analysis won’t fix it.

The pros and cons process won’t correct these problems -- But the

WRAP process will!!!

A better decision process substantially improves the results of the decision.

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The WRAP ProcessTo make better choices, we must avoid

the most common decision-making biases. Being aware of these biases isn’t sufficient to avoid them, but a

process can help. The WRAP Process can help us make better, bolder

decisions.

WRAP

Widen Your OptionsReality-Test Your Assumptions

Attain Distance Before DecidingPrepare to be Wrong

Widen Your Option

Avoid Narrow Framing Often our options are far more

plentifulWe need to uncover new options

What if our current options disappeared?

Widen Your Option

MultitrackingConsider options simultaneously

Beware of “sham” optionsPush for “this and that” rather than

“this or that”

Widen Your Options

Find someone who has solved the problem

Try Laddering: Local, Regional and Distant

When you feel stuck-Look Inside/Look Outside

Reality-Test Your Assumptions

Consider the OppositeSpark constructive disagreement

Confirmation Bias-self-serving information

Ask Disconfirming QuestionsForce yourself-takes discipline

Test a deliberate mistake

Reality-Test Your Assumptions

Zoom Out, Zoom InInside view-our evaluation of the

situationOutside view-how things generally

unfoldOutside view-usually more accurate

Helps you to gather the best information

Reality-Test Your Assumptions

OOCHRunning small experiments—rather

than jumping inCommon hiring error– interview—

predicting successWhy predict when we can know?

Attain Distance Before Deciding

Overcome Short-term EmotionEmotions tempt us to make decisions

that are bad long-termAttain Distance

Look from an observer’s viewWhat would I tell my best friend to do

in this situation?

Attain Distance Before Deciding

Honor Your Core PrioritiesAgonizing decisions are often a sign of

conflict with your coreIdentify core to resolve present and

future dilemmasGo on offense against lesser priorities

Prepare To Be Wrong

Bookend the FutureConsider a range of outcomes

Prepare for the unforeseen— “safety factor”

Anticipate problemsPrepare for adversity and success

Prepare To Be Wrong

Set a TripwireWe can go on autopilot—leaving past

decisions unquestionedCan snap us awake and make us

realize we have choicesConsider deadlines and partitions

How to Escape From Bad Decisions

It is remarkably difficult to cut our losses and walk away.

The consequences of escalation can be disastrous!!

To understand:Sunk costsego threat

Trusting the Process

How can you ensure a decision seems fair?

WRAP – contributes to that sense of fairness

It allows people to understand how the decision is made and gives them

comfort that decisions will be made in a consistent manner.

Trusting the Process

The goal is to inspire you to use a better process for making decisions.

The process need not take a long time to be effective.

What a process provides is confidence.

It will not make it easy or always make it turn out right but it will empower

you to make bolder results.

Next Steps

http://heathbrothers.comResources:

Overview-one pageDecisive Workbook12 Decision SituationsDecisive PodcastsDecisive Book Club Guide

Decisive

Our decisions will never be perfect, but they can be better,

bolder and wiser.

The right process can steer us towards the right choice.

And the right choice, at the right moment, can make all the

difference.