A Glimpse.
Look closely at any virtuous mob - and you will get a glimpse of how Jesus ended up crucified.
Admitting Our No Steps.
“We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is to learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.”
— Aldous Huxley, Island
Here’s the reality.
We will rarely follow the Five Steps to a Good Decision.
The Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman has said that even as a lifelong researcher of bias, he still experiences the same biases — he is not less biased, just better at recognising bias in others.
So how about we just learn from spotting the Five Steps, or the lack of them, in others’ decision making?
The Book Test.
A good way to confirm whether you think alike to someone else is to gift them a book you love and tell them so.
If they never mention it again, your assumption was wrong.
Cause to Be Made.
William the Conqueror is credited with the first Royal Commission in the 11th Century.
He “caused to be made a great survey throughout England… what land each man held, in land and livestock, and how much it was worth.’
The first job of a leader is to define reality.
Step 2 of the Five Steps to a Good Decision: Define the Issue.
Just Imagine.
GEORGE: You know what you oughta do. You should go to her office and heckle her.
JERRY: Yeah, right.
GEORGE: You know, like all the comedians always say, 'How would you like it if I came to where you work and heckled you?'
JERRY: Yeah, that'd be something.
GEORGE: I'm not kidding, you should do it.
JERRY: But wouldn't that be the ultimate comedian's revenge? I've always had a fantasy about doing that.
GEORGE: Well, go ahead! Do it!
JERRY: Why can't I?
GEORGE: No reason!
JERRY: You know what? I think I'm gonna do that! She came down to where I work, I'll go down to where she works!
GEORGE: This is unprecedented!
JERRY: There's no precedent, baby!
Just imagine if teachers arrived at parents’ homes uninvited and dictated to them how to parent.
Refused to leave until the parents stopped what they were doing and met.
Just imagine if Principals brought a doctor or psychologist or social worker along to critique the parenting.
Just imagine if the school business manager emailed the parents and said she and the Principal hated each other and therefore the school wasn’t funding their child’s education.
Cha-Cha-Cha.
“The effort to stifle a hard emotion almost always fails, and causes it to fester and breed. The only true way to endure [it] —is to move toward it. To listen to it. To try to understand it.”
Daniel Smith
We step back to step toward the emotions triggered by a decision to be made - four steps later.
Joy Over Loss.
Watch children playing basketball or any game that stops if the ball goes over a boundary.
They will try so hard to keep the ball in play, even if it means flicking it back towards an opponent.
In that mad scramble, children instinctively choose the joy of the competition over the risk of losing possession.
Expertise.
Be good at something everyone else has forgotten.
When they remember - you’ll be the expert.
Dog Paddling.
Most organisations are dog paddling to keep from being dragged downstream by the current.
Stationary.
Dodging the bodies floating by.
Something Bigger.
“With the Bulls I’ve learned that the most effective way to forge a winning team is to call on the players’ need to connect with something larger than themselves. Even for those who don’t consider themselves “spiritual” in a conventional sense, creating a successful team—whether it’s an NBA champion or a record-setting sales force—is essentially a spiritual act. It requires the individuals involved to surrender their self-interest for the greater good so that the whole adds up to more than the sum of the parts." - Phil Jackson
