What do you do when you face a decision that is finely balanced and with no easy answer? This is the question my coaching client brought to our session recently. She had been weighing the pros and cons of two very clear options and had yet to come to a decision.
Checking in with her gut instincts she already had an answer. I invited her to rehearse the reasons for her choice as a way of grounding her decision. She did and they seemed clear and compelling. It was interesting, then, to hear a “six out of ten” when I asked her: given all the reasons you outlined, what mark out of ten would you give to reflect your level of conviction that this is the right decision? It was clear that something more was needed.
I invited her to try each option on for size. She tried on the first option, noticing all the likely outcomes from this decision in the near-, medium- and longer-term, together with the implications for her – the work involved in following through with her decision. This gave her new insights into the benefits and limitations of this option. Then she tried on her second option, going through the same process.
One issue came up when she thought through her second option: the amount of time she thought it would take in the short term to follow through with this option. We discussed the resources she could call on so that the weight of this short-term follow-through could be spread out a little, leaving her free to focus on another – key – area of her job. Once she had identified these new possibilities, this second option looked much more attractive in the longer term.
As a result of this process her decision – which was not the decision to which her gut instinct had initially led her – was one she could sign up to with a full conviction. What’s more, she was clear that her next steps needed to include making a plan and gaining support in order to access the resources she needed for her short-term follow-through.
My satisfaction came from knowing that my client not only had a decision she could approach with conviction in what was, without question, a difficult situation: she also had a process she could return to when making decisions in the future.
I wonder, what’s your process for making the tougher decisions you face?
Hi Dorothy
Great case study that highlights to me that we sometimes still think that a particular decision is the one that we SHOULD adopt, in the eyes of others for instance.
For me, the triangle of 'perceptual positions' works most of the time – how do I really think / feel, what might the other person[s] think / feel – and crucially, what might an impartial observer think / feel.
Thank you for your comment. I also value the perceptual positions, especially as a way to find new learning. For anyone who wants to learn more about this approach I offer a couple of postings: http://dorothynesbit.blogspot.com/2010/10/thinking-of-all-mirrors-in-my-bedroom.html and http://dorothynesbit.blogspot.com/2010/05/as-meta-of-fact.html.
In the age of emotional intelligence, both my original posting and your comment highlight, in my view, that the range of information that leads to a sound decision goes beyond what is simply logical. Another way of looking at this is that a good decision recognises that the range of information we draw on goes beyond what is simply logical, whether we intend it to or not. Better to recognise this and to become skilled at using the wide range of information available to us than to be the servant of impulses of which we are not aware.