Welcome to the SOAR! Newsletter
This issue introduces Ascendi's new look and new service offerings, along with valuable insights and resources that can help you and your colleagues live happier, healthier, more productive lives.
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In This Issue: How to Make Better Decisions
Judgment is an important ingredient in leadership. Leaders are often remembered based on the productive or unproductive decisions that they made: Kennedy's deft management of the Cuban missile crisis, James Burke's responsible approach at Johnson & Johnson during the Tylenol poison scare, and Ken Lay's allowing of unethical practices at Enron. Individuals and organizations can make significant contributions to their productivity by improving their ability to make better decisions.
There are two important aspects to decision-making that we broadly categorize as external and internal. External means doing the due-diligence: researching the pros and cons and using the logical, analytical side of our brain to weigh and play out the consequences of each approach. This is necessary, but insufficient. Using external aspects exclusively in our decision-making is akin to using our minds as a metaphorical cognitive knife to cut away at unproductive solutions until only one remains. The root meaning of the words "homicide", "suicide" and "genocide" also allude to this "killing-off" the undesirable parts of the whole. What is left over is often life-less.
Sound decision-making must also include internal aspects: our intuition and our values. A colleague illustrated this beautifully when she described work that she performed with the United States military, specifically with members of a Special Forces unit. As she explained it, a significant portion of each soldier's training is grounded in American history and American values. The reasoning here is that, when these men and women are deployed in remote environments, often with little or no communication with their commanding officers, they must be able to make critical decisions that reflect well on the United States of America.
This brings up an important question: are you crystal clear on what you value? Has each member of your team internalized what your organization values so that they can make sound decisions "when no one is looking"? We invite you to become very clear on what you and your organization value, and to integrate sound research/analysis (the externals) with intuition and individual/collective values (the internals) in order to achieve more productive decisions.
Would you like to learn more about how Ascendi can help you make better decisions and achieve more peaceful productivity? Connect with us anytime - we would love to talk with you.
Warm Regards,
