Simplifying Complex Decisions: What First, Then How

When it comes to being deci­sive, mas­tery of mak­ing the com­plex sim­ple comes in handy.

Essen­tial questions

I was just in a meet­ing where an exec­u­tive, who need­ed a deci­sion from the CEO, made a pre­sen­ta­tion about an impor­tant project to test a new ser­vice line for customers.

The pre­sen­ta­tion was so detailed that it took a lot of brain pow­er, for those of us in the room, to under­stand all the dynam­ics of what was required.

I felt for the exec­u­tive, who was pas­sion­ate about the project, but there was too much detail and no con­text of the impor­tance to, and impact on, the busi­ness. They ​“lost the room” and weren’t get­ting buy-in.

So, we took a break to talk about what real­ly mat­tered and were able to boil it down to two ques­tions, which we asked the exec­u­tive to answer the fol­low­ing day.

“I would have writ­ten a short­er let­ter, but I did not have the time.”

- Blaise Pascal

Stuck in the Weeds

You can’t make smart, per­cep­tive and strate­gic deci­sions when you’re stuck in the gran­u­lar weeds of an issue — when you are so deeply focused on the nuances and all the ideas of how to exe­cute something.

Many incred­i­bly smart and capa­ble peo­ple make deci­sions more com­pli­cat­ed than they need to be.

But major deci­sions don’t need to be com­pli­cat­ed if you go to 30,000 feet, and focus on the ​‘what‘ rather than the ​‘how’.

Think of plan­ning a vaca­tion. The most impor­tant ​‘what’ deci­sion is where you want to go. Then the ​‘how’ details can be worked out: how to get there, where to stay, how to get around, if you have cell phone cov­er­age, what to pack…

Sep­a­rate Exercises

Once the exec­u­tive returned the fol­low­ing day to answer our ​‘what’ ques­tions, we quick­ly made a deci­sion, know­ing all the tac­ti­cal ​‘how’s’ could be fig­ured out and reviewed later.

Anoth­er client was chal­lenged with a deci­sion to keep or cease work­ing with a long-term part­ner of the business.

While there were com­plex dynam­ics of the rela­tion­ships and con­trac­tu­al terms to sort out, there was only one ques­tion to answer first: Based on every­thing we know, would we like to can­cel the con­tract with this ven­dor or renew it?

Only then could we do the sep­a­rate exer­cise of debat­ing and think­ing through the high-lev­el pieces about how to do that.

The Chal­lenge

• What lin­ger­ing deci­sion, in your orga­ni­za­tion, might be eas­i­er to make if you just focused on ​‘what’?

Oth­er Blogs

• Spa­tial Dis­ori­en­ta­tion: When You Think You’re Mak­ing the Right Deci­sions but May Be Hurt­ing Your Company
• How to Make Peo­ple Decisions
• Get Your Team Mak­ing Deci­sions on Their Own

Old­er Podcasts

• Using the Sand­box to Stop Dumb Deci­sions in the Lead­er­ship Team