Did you know?

A very interesting, insightful and inspirational video on preparing students (and everyone of us) for the challenges of the XXI century.

The presentation is filled with interesting insights on the value of information and it’s rate of adoption, which is fundamental for all of us, who are fundamentally knowledge workers, to understand.

• Did You Know?

Decision Process

Before making a decision, first decide on how to decide.

We often tend to forget many of the tools or frameworks available to us when we have to make decisions. We end up procrastinating decisions just because we haven’t defined what the decision making process is.

I was recently reminded of this point as I sat in a meeting where no one could reach a decision because it had to be consensual, so everyone ended up discussing small and irrelevant details that added absolutely nothing to the topic at hand and consensus was reached only after a lengthy and mostly unproductive discussion. Have you ever been on a meeting like this?

After the meeting I had to ask myself why was it necessary for the decision to be consensual? Was it that relevant for everyone involved? I don’t think so. Was there any other way to make a decision and move on? I believe there was.

Situations like this often happen because there is no clear understanding about how decisions are to be made. So, before you have to make a decision first decide on how you’re going to decide. There are basically four ways to make a decision:

Commanding – Having all the information you need you make the decision yourself and communicate what it is. You find this decision making process in law enforcement and in the military, for instance.

Consulting – You need additional information so you consult whomever you need to get it. After having all the information the responsibility of making the decision is still yours and yours alone.

Consensus – The topic is relevant to everyone involved so everyone has to agree before moving forward. This model is usually the most time consuming of the four.

Voting – The quintessential democratic method. Everyone votes on the topic and a decision is reached based on the ballot (there are many ways to tally the votes).

Experience

In a previous post I mentioned the speech J.K. Rowling gave at the Harvard annual Alumni meeting. In her address, Rowling talks about the virtues of failure. It reminded me of a quote I heard once (I keep a little black book of quotes I find particularly insightful):

Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.

Here’s my interpretation. A goal is a destination. Experience is the path that leads you to your goals. By following this path you gain experience and even if you end up not reaching your goal, there are still lessons to be learned from simply trying.

Insights In Unsuspecting Places

Isn’t it strange how sometimes you find answers and insights in the most unsuspecting places?

A while ago I was in Jamaica on holiday and I took a bus to go sightseeing. In the bus was a poster of the Jamaican bobsleigh team (a rare story in itself) and just below it was a sticker with the following words:

Together

Everyone

Achieves

More

I made a mental note of it, not only because of the content, but mainly because it was so unexpected to find it where and when I did.

The lesson I learned here was to be receptive and open-minded. Life sometimes provides us with the answers we need in the most unsuspecting places.

A Helpful Advice

A while back, a friend of mine told me about GTD. At first, I was skeptical about the whole thing, but as I have a high regard for his opinions, I decided to investigate this issue some more.

I did some research on the web and ended up borrowing the book for some light reading. I have to admit that I really enjoyed the simple advices and the straightforward, lightweight approach to actionable execution of tasks.

Filtering your inbox is just the first step. To be truly effective you have to make the triage actionable, i.e., you have to understand what action or actions are required to follow up on a given issue (should you address it immediately? Should you delegate it?). This is where GTD or Inbox Zero come in.

These approaches are somewhat common sense, so I think that most people who have already invested some time thinking about these issues have already come up with similar practices. Approaches like GTD and Inbox Zero are still helpful in the sense that they provide integrated, structured frameworks for these common productivity practices.