Two Questions to Help You “Unstick” a Group Decision

My family recently moved into a new home. Part of our new home is a room with an unclear purpose.

This has sparked quite a few conversations. Because I favor options that don’t also include moving walls or fixtures, I have certain opinions.

My wife, however, has other opinions.

So, how do we decide?

In so many ways, this domestic conundrum is similar to what happens between leaders.

A decision needs to be made. A non-decision is still a decision. There is no right answer. So, how do we choose?

Not all decisions are the same.

It seems obvious but it’s often overlooked: Not all decisions are the same.

In fact, most decisions have flexibility built into them. There are two questions you can ask which significantly help your ability to make decisions – particularly decisions that require the support of others.

• Can it change/How easy is it to change?
• What are the qualities that we all want?

We get stuck when we treat changeable decisions as true/false tests.

We get stuck when we don’t know what we want, but we are sure the other side is somehow coming out on top. Or we know what we want, but have never communicated it.

Can it change/How easy is it to change?

Many decision-making conflicts get stuck because they use an approach that assumes the decision can’t be changed.

In fact, leaders often spend far too much time debating the pros and cons of something that can just be tested. Something that can be changed.

I sometimes provide mentoring for people starting out in their careers. A young woman once asked me, “How do I know which career path to choose? Should I choose A or B?”

The answer is, “I don’t know.”

I didn’t know. And it didn’t really matter. She could do one, then the other. In fact, one could easily lead to the other.

Some decisions are malleable. You can experiment, try things out, change course as you go. You aren’t always stuck to one course just because a decision was made.

The young woman’s fear is that whatever decision she chose now, she’d be stuck with forever.

But the issue wasn’t which decision she should make. The issue was her assumption of “needing to get it right or everything was going to be wrong.”

What are the qualities that we want?

Whether the decision is a changeable one or not, it’s also helpful to think through the qualities that you want before you try to answer it.

For example, with the young woman I was mentoring, I asked her questions about her goals, preferences, and passions in life.

Getting some clarity around that helped define not only where she wanted to end up, but shed light on the path needed to get there.

In her case, it didn’t single out one path. But it did help her see how to best approach either path so that she achieved her desired outcome.

When I’m helping parties negotiate, I often help them identify what they are looking for out of a good or acceptable solution.

What is interesting is that there is often very little disagreement at this point in the conversation. In fact, it’s common that they want very similar or at least non-competing results.

Once they know that, it becomes much easier to identify options that meet their desires.

Free yourself.

Both of these options can be enormously freeing when there is a need to make a decision but you are wrestling with uncertainty. Particularly when this occurs in a group.

If a decision is changeable – don’t allow very much time to be wasted on deliberation. Make a decent (not best) decision and pursue it.

For any decision you might pursue, decide in advance: What are the characteristics of success?

Don’t get stuck when you don’t need to.

I decided that most of what my wife wanted would be pretty easy to change. So really, nothing was at risk to try it her way.

We took the time to discuss what we both wanted and what made those options important to us. In doing so, we found that while there were different priorities and ideas, there really wasn’t much disagreement.

Our sticking points were over false perceptions: That things couldn’t change, or that “if they get what they want, then I won’t get what I want”.

Make your decision and then act.

Take good care,

Christian

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