Today I attended a talk at the RSA by Steven Johnson about ‘How we make the decisions that matter’. By this he refers to so-called full-spectrum decisions, or those that have implications on many levels.
My main take-away is that many decisions tend to be “whether or not”. These generally fail though regardless of which option was chosen, because neither was fully satisfactory.
Those who turned the question into “which one”, identifying a whole set of alternatives, were much more successful.
As coaches, this is something we typically do with our clients when we are looking at possible ways forward. We are a sounding board and also a prompt for generating new ideas.
What decisions are you making right now and what could be some yet uncovered alternatives?
Get in touch if you want a thinking partner to help you with this process.