Shipulski On Design

Archive for the ‘Decisions’ Category

As professionals we get paid to think. But unlike professional athletes, we’ve forgotten the importance of mind and body.

Clearly, mind is connected to body. (I’m not talking about a metaphysical connection, I’m talking about a physical physical connection.) There are electromechanical connections (nerves) that pass information between the two and hydromechanical connections (blood vessels) that pass chemistry (oxygen and glucose, among others). The coupling is clear – what happens in one influences the other, then the other retorts. This back-and-forth ringing is complex and real. From the outside, our system architecture is highly coupled, yet from the inside we forget.

Professional athletes want high performance, and they get it through hard work, good food, regimented eating schedules, and rest. From the outside it seems they’re all about body, but on the inside they’re all whole system optimization – mind and body. (Yogi Berra – baseball is 90% mental and the other half physical.) They know food and rest influence the body, but they also know it influences the mind. They remember, we forget.

As a professional thinker, I urge you to do all you can to think well. Eat well, eat regularly, and get rest. The cost of a bad decision is high, and they’re more likely when blood sugar is low and you’re tired. If you don’t do it for your career, do it for your company – remember, they’re paying you to think.

(Image credit: iStockphoto)

There is no progress without decisions. More strongly, decisions are unsung heroes of progress.

Decisions are powerful – things are different after a decision. (You are different after a decision.) Before a decision it’s one way, and after, another. And once a decision is made, the follow-on actions are clear, straightforward, transactional. In fact, the follow-on plan is justification for the decision. Decide this, do that. Decide the other, do something else. But decision is the hard part.

Progress is born from decisions and follow-on actions, but actions get attention and Gantt charts and decisions get short-suited. There is no project plan for deciding, no standard work. And it’s often unclear when a decision is made. Rarely is a decision documented. And once the organization recognizes a decision has evolved to stand on its own, the rationale and ramifications are unclear. And it’s unclear who birthed the decision. (The genetics of the parents define the status of the decision.)

There are two types of decisions: made decisions and unmade decisions. Made decisions are the ones we know, but it’s the slippery unmade decisions that are the troublemakers, the devious gremlins. Unmade decisions have a life force – they want to live, to remain undecided. (When unmade decisions are decided, they die.) That’s why it’s so hard to decide.

Over the millennia unmade decisions have developed natural defenses. Their best trick is camouflage. They know if they’re recognized, there’s a good chance they’ll be decided, and it’s over.  When they go to the meetings they hide in plain sight. They blend in with the wood grain of conference table or the texture of the ceiling tiles. They’re there, but hiding.

Unmade decisions know when they’re about to be decided – much like migratory birds sense gravitational fields. When they’re almost snared, they create complexity and divide into many, small, unmade decisions (think cellular division) and scatter. The increased complexity requires more decisions and enables at least some of themselves to live to fight another day.

But there’s hope. Unmade decisions get their life force from us – we decide how long they live; we choose not to see them; we choose to create complexity.

We must learn to spot unmade decisions, to call them out, and help our teams decide. At your next meeting, ask yourself if there’s an unmade decision hiding in plain sight. If there is, call it out, and decide if it should be decided.