Aviv’s Blog
To Lead is to Transform
Decision Making – What’s Better?
What’s better than making decisions?
What is more fun, more powerful and more creative than getting up in the morning and thinking that what you’ve got to do today is to make decisions?
Making decisions is great but even more fun, more energizing and more creative is to have the mindset that today you don’t need to make decisions – that today your endeavor is to GENERATE OPTIONS.
What’s my point? Decision making is overrated. The bigger art in business and in living is to generate options. Great leadership and smart strategy is generating options. When you create options and clarify your vision, your values and your principles, you really don’t need to make many decisions. Instead of you having to make each decision, you let the decision present itself and come to you. I don’t mean which brand of toothpaste to get; the industry has done a very good job in that area and we are presented with many (some might say, too many) options. Therefore, which toothpaste to use is indeed a tough decision. What I am talking about are the bigger, more important directional things in life.
I asked our son who is now in his third year in college, what he wanted to do after he graduates. His reply was, “Right now I am creating options for myself. The best thing I can do at this time, is to do well both academically and in everything else I am involved in whether at school or personally. By excelling in what I do I create more options for me.” Here is his self briefing:
- Do what I do well.
- Discover what I am succeeding at.
- Discover what I am interested in, what energizes me.
- Meet interesting people and have interesting conversations.
- The four points above will bring the widest range and best options.
This is a smart mindset.
You don’t see the tree in the forest needing to make decisions. It grows in all possible directions. The roots find the best path to deepen and the branches follow the optimal path for sunlight exposure, depending on the competition and density in the forest canopy.
How about this as a mindset? How about growing in all directions? How about generating a wide range of options? How about letting the environment tell you which are the best options?
Decision then is a confirmation of the obvious. A “yes” to what presents itself as the best option. I agree, sometimes you need to make tough decisions but a good seven or eight out of ten decisions need not be more than confirming the obvious best option. You can then get on with generating options up the path you are pursuing. It’s a different way of thinking. A more energizing way to live. A smarter strategy and a better way to run your business.
© Aviv Shahar
