How to Frame a Decision
Begin by Asking and Answering the Following Questions:
- Make your Decision Statement (last week)
- Determine if the Decision is part of a bigger decision that should be addressed now.
- Determine whether you are covering too much ground with your decision if so reexamine the decision statement and make adjustments
- Ask why is this decision difficult to make? What factors are involved that make it difficult?
- Are you taking anything for a given? (e.g. are you depending on someone to react in a certain way?)
- Whose choice is it? Is the decision yours alone to make? Is there a customer, business, supplier, protester that needs to be involved to make it feel right?
- Is there anything that would keep you from acting if you saw the answer clearly? (e.g. a risk of the business closing if that option was the clear choice)
- How would someone you trust frame this decision?
Traps to Avoid:
- Jumping into the decision without framing the “picture”.
- Being limited by fears, peer pressure etc.
- Framing the problem too narrowly to bring it into your comfort zone or too broadly to make it difficult to address
- Making wrong assumptions-taking things as given that aren’t so or are not known for sure
Week Four: Begin to Build the Decision-Clarifying Values
Begin by Asking and Answering the Following Questions:
- What do I (company) really want out of this decision? What are my or the company’s objectives in making the decision?
- Is there any one value I am willing to give up to get more of another value? For instance, would I give up salary for the position or how it contributes to the community?
- How do the my (company) overall goals apply to this situation? For instance, the business wants to keep making money, how does this relate to the protestors?
- Can I explain why I am giving up one value for the other if the alternatives require that I do so?
- Do the values I choose to exchange take into account the people who are most affected by the decision?
- Are the values I am expressing consistent with my ethics or those of the company?
Traps to Avoid:
- Thinking in the short term-only choosing for today.
- Not including all those affected by the decision.
- Being attached to sunk costs-
Overreacting to risks or ignoring them
