Tag: choices

Categories
Coaching Leadership

Go with the Gut

Person standing thinking in front of a door
Photo by Paola Aguilar on Unsplash

It’s easy to fall into the trap of Analysis Paralysis, endlessly reviewing decisions and never actually doing something.

If you find yourself doing that, then you can break out of the loop by trying to go with your gut.

Don’t spend forever building the decision up, but think about what feels good, and go with that.

It’s best to use this approach for smaller decisions, especially in areas that you are familiar with or that give you an option to undo if really necessary. It’s a topic I’ve written about before, but it’s really useful to remember that there are very few decisions that are truly irreversible.

If it feels a bit overwhelming, break up choices into smaller decisions. One thing that often drives the paralysis is the scope or the implication that you feel of the decision. Don’t get hung up on the colour scheme of your entire house, just paint a room in a colour you like the feeling of. If it looks good, great! If not, it’s a smaller investment to correct than having done the whole building.

When we look to our gut, it’s good to run a few checks before really trusting it. Is this an area that you are confident in? Is it really a familiar space for you to make a decision? Is there a way to make it smaller or easier?

Finally, check your bias. Especially in cases where it’s a decision related to people not things. If you like a particular way of doing things, or are comfortable with an approach, make sure you aren’t layering that bias onto the decision. Challenge this with a quick checklist or a way to score performance. Sometimes you break the paralysis by having the tools in hand to make the decision before you are called to think about it.

So, if you find yourself getting stuck, find some opportunities to make quick decisions and measure the outcome, and use this to hone your approach to make a choice faster.

No decision is still a decision, and don’t let Analysis Paralysis force the non-choice upon you by default!

Categories
Coaching Leadership

Assuming the Solution

Terracotta rooves fading into the distance

It’s super easy to fall into the assumption trap. You hear about a problem, assume you know what the right solution is and leap to the implementation phase.

It’s especially easy to do this if you’ve got some expertise in the area, or in a space that’s very adjacent. If you’ve got a preferred tool, approach or way of working, then it’s even easier still.

The most difficult times are when your solution is almost certain to work because it’s a big thing. You will fix a specific design issue in a system by tearing it down and starting again. You will fix a leak in a roof by stripping it down and redoing the felt, batons and tiles.

However, you might well cause some new problems. It may cost a lot more than another option you could have pursued. The opportunity cost can’t be ignored, you might have been able to do several things with that effort.

So instead of seeing every problem as a nail and jumping to your trusty hammer, what can you do?

Pull in your coaching mindset and explore a bit. Ask some questions and gather some options. Set your criteria for what success looks like. If you are planning to extend into the loft in a couple of years then the big job might not be necessary and annual maintenance might be more effective.

When people grab quickly at a standard approach or preferred solution then it’s an indication they are not staying curious enough for long enough. Help them lift up the carpet and get a real look at the state of play and open up to other options.

There’s never just one good choice, there’s always trade-offs and there’s certainly more than one way to do it.

Explore, validate and choose, don’t assume!

Categories
Coaching Leadership

Make your choice

Photo by Jonas Verstuyft on Unsplash

I recently joined a webinar discussing Effective Engineering Leadership. One of the questions was around remaining current as an Engineer when making the change to a management role.

My advice here is to think about the job that you want to do, and focus on that. You need to make a choice between the Individual Contributor role and the People Management role, as they are different jobs with different skillsets.

You can trial one or the other for a period of time, but if you try to do this for a long time, you’ll just end up doing two jobs badly, which is not a great outcome.

On either path you can still be a leader, and in fact that’s expected as you progress and grow your career. Good organisations will support this and have development paths for both tracks. Bad ones will force their best ICs to management. Choose where you want to focus your efforts!

Nothing is also a choice, but in your career doing nothing and just drifting along is likely not a good one.

So pick a role, understand it, learn the skills you need to be successful and deploy them. Don’t do two things badly.

Categories
Coaching

This or That?

Photo by Pablo García Saldaña on Unsplash

A few days ago, I was observing a coaching practice session. The coachee was very generous, they would answer any question with a long and extremely complete answer. The coach was keen to probe into these answers and focus on the areas that were most important to the coachee.

“Do you want to do this or that?” – A common mistake from a novice coach trying to bring focus to the conversation.

When you use this approach, you are limiting the coachee to a couple of options that you have selected, and you are using your words to channel the conversation.

Imagine you ask the coachee “Do you want to go left or right?”. You have closed off the possibility of them continuing straight ahead, pausing for a while or maybe even turning around and taking another route!

When you present a binary choice, then the usual answer is one of those options, even if that wasn’t the best choice for the coachee, or it loses a lot of nuance in the answer.

Instead, gain the focus you seek by asking the coachee to tell you what’s most important to them. You can summarise back the various options they’ve provided, and use words like specific or one to build the focused response.

  • Which one of these is most important to you?
  • What specifically is the area you’d like to focus on?
  • You’ve mentioned five things, which of those is your top concern?
  • If you could only change one of these, which would it be?

All of these questions leave the power with the coachee to choose and provide the focus. You haven’t forced them to a particular channel, but you will move the conversation forwards!

Categories
Coaching

Recognising Choices

Photo by Letizia Bordoni on Unsplash

There is always a choice available to help you achieve your goals.

It might not be obvious to you, but it’s definitely there.

If you can’t see a way forwards, think about doing nothing. If you don’t change things, will you still get closer to your goal, or are you moving away from it?

How does that make you feel? If doing nothing is a good choice, maybe you need to revisit your goals, be more ambitious or find something else to chase. Nevertheless, nothing is a choice, and it’s a valid one to consider.

Once you’ve looked at nothing, wave your magic wand and cast aside everything that’s stopping you or holding you back. Does it make you feel awesome, energised and engaged. If it does, then this is a great goal.

Look at those things you’ve cast aside, discounted or stepped around. Which of them can you envision tackling successfully. What’s the smallest step, easiest or most valuable thing to do? Answer this, and you’ve just opened up a whole set of options to consider and choices you can make.

There is always a choice, you just need to recognise what it is. Empower yourself to make decisions and you’ll have a path to positive and long term change.