I’m continuing off the post a few days ago and our discussion of how to make great decisions: How Great Decisions Get Made – Day One – Fired to FIRE (fired-to-fire.com)
Enlist Everyone!
- Think about all the people that care about, or have skin in the game, on a certain decision, and the repercussions
- Enemies are made, not hired
- Leaving people out erodes trust
- Draw people and ideas into your working group
- Build shared ownership
- Focus on how you can encourage all persons with a stake or useful information to participate in the process
- Include group members who can’t attend a meeting
- It’s better to go to a meeting and then think that you don’t really need to be there than to feel left out from the get go.
- This also applies to social interactions too. If you know someone can’t attend invite them anyway and build goodwill with that person.
- Count on everyone: the sum is greater than the parts
- Focus on 100% sharing of information. This reduces divisive debate to null and brings out participants’ best ideas
Discover Shared Hopes
- Ask two questions to build hope
- What are your hopes?
- Why are they important to you?
- Use hope to break through limiting expectations
- hopes will free participants from limiting preconceptions
- I can’t tell you how many times I’ve experienced this and seen this in other people. Personally the greatest example of this was through real estate acquisition. I used to think that there’s no way that I could acquire lots of houses, “that’s for rich people”, with little to no money down (a limiting preconception). Once you start researching and studying people that have done this you start to question what is possible. Use the hope of becoming financially free, or whatever your goal is, to figure out what one can do to get there.
- Use hopes to unify diverse interests
- Let people share their hopes and their why’s
- Use hopes to uncover solutions where none existed
- By keeping to ask “why?” one can start attacking the root issue
- By digging deeper, one will start manufacturing ideas/solutions. Once again I think back to my start in real estate with house hacking and then exploring ways to acquire properties with little to no money down.
- Use your hopes to take the agony out of the details
- To become financially free (hope and deep desire), removes agony of living with roommates and working a job that I don’t necessarily “love”
- Connect with your deepest hopes
- In our culture we are often driven by fear and greed. Connecting with our deepest hopes can be difficult
- Go from fear to hope
- Ex: Go from “I’m scared my customers will find my product too expensive” to “I will think of new opportunities to serve the needs of my customers”
- Appreciate what you have
- Say thanks to current customers
- Think about what you have and how far you’ve come
- This is a practice that I used to do every morning while preparing for the actuarial exams that I’ve gotten away from. This practice definitely helps one’s perspective on life and how they’re progressing
Business savvy skills are something I’m definitely trying to build. This book has been surprisingly enjoyable and I’m looking forward to implementing some of this in my life.
HOW GREAT DECISIONS GET MADE: How Great Decisions Get Made: 10 Easy Steps for Reaching Agreement on Even the Toughest Issues: Don Maruska, Margaret J. Wheatley: 9780814473986: Amazon.com: Books