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I had a meeting with a client and they are facing a situation where they are gonna have to work on something hard. They got two avenues that can go down and both of them produce outcomes that they don’t want and they’re going to have to choose one or the other.
I know that with what’s going on right down that many of you are in situations where you having to cut back, you are having to do more with less and you’re having to fight really hard to make things work and that you placed in situations where sometimes things are difficult, they’re complex and you’re going to have to make a really quick decision.
One of the definitions of leadership is choosing between two right options, let’s say you’ve got a scenario where you’ve got to choose between what’s right for a person or what’s right for your organisation. Your ability to hold those polarities and see your way through is kind of what leadership is. So what I’m going to share with you today is a framework to be able for you to really quickly do that for yourself.
Now if you get this right you don’t get stuck, so you know when you’re thinking about what you’re going to do and in the moment you get stuck in your head and you kind of go back and forwards in the past and in the future and you ruminate on stuff. If you get this right you’re able to quickly see through and not get stuck.
If you get this wrong when you are called upon to make a decision in a meeting in that moment you kind of freeze. So what I’m going to do is show you a way to kind of antifreeze yourself.
Four Things You Need To Ask Yourself
When we choose between right and right sometimes there’s not a simple answer. The problem is how do we see through one where it’s complex and it’s not straightforward. It’s not a simple answer and we’ve got a way multiple things up, I want you to think about four simple questions that you can ask.
1. The first one is the plus-plus (++) question. If we do this what will we / I or the organization gain? So if we kind build out from there, if you think about the fact that there’s three levels of benefit or those three aisles that you’ve got in terms of thinking about where you’re at.
There’s a benefit to you, there is a benefit to your team, there’s a benefit to your organisation and then beyond that is a benefit to the ecosystem. Ecosystem not in the sense that it benefits necessarily the natural ecosystem but the broader ecosystem that your organisation or your team is sitting, including the community and the stakeholders that rely on you. When I say if we do this what we’re going to gain, I mean gain in that broader sense of those four areas.
2. The second is the plus-minus (+-) question – so if we do X, you got XY what will we lose? So what will be taken away if we do it? How will it remove a problem? How does it make things clearer? How does it give me clarity?
So these questions enable you if you think about the plus- plus question and plus-minus question they really get you to think about if this was in place what are you going to get and what are you going to lose, first part of this.
3. Now the third question is the minus-plus (-+), so if I don’t do this what will I gain? So you think about if we don’t do that, what’s going to be the benefit to all those stakeholders, to you, the team, and the organisation and the ecosystem? It almost reverses the logic because most times we think about what we are going to do and let’s think about if we don’t. What’s going to happen?
4. The 4th question is the minus-minus (–), if we don’t do that, if we don’t do this what will we lose? So we call it law firm condition, but the way I framed it up is many people have a problem of making really quick decisions in a world of complexity which are in right now and they get stuck and they are unable to see a way through free of themselves or their team or the organisation and what’s expected of them in the world right now.
Summary
If you’re having to choose to make difficult decisions between what is right and right, think about these four questions:
- If we get it, what we get?
- If we do it, what we lose?
- If we don’t do it, what do we gain?
- If we don’t do it, what we lose?
If you can quickly answer those four questions you can commit to one or the other or a third way through. It helps you get unstuck and make a quick decision and for those stakeholders, you know you’re adding a whole heap of value.
Leave me a comment or Get in Touch
I hope this has been useful for you as always if you’re a leader right now or group of leaders or a leadership team you need to make a decision and you need help and you can’t participate yourself you need someone else to help you through that, to do that virtually over a series of sessions just drop me a lot let’s talk about how it works for your team.
Talk to you soon!
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