FEATURED! What are some of the ways YOU gain CLARITY on complex decisions/problems?

[TreyAllDay]

I am curious to hear from some of my fellow fastlaners. As the business has been growing and I am facing more complex issues and decisions, I find it harder to sort through the various problems and choices I face. IE: our software isn't being built fast enough and we cannot find a good contractor/part time employee to help. Aside from the weighted decision matrix, what are some ways you clarify the cause of your problems and figure out the best decision?

 

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[Tiago]

Strategy Circle by Dan Sullivan

 

[The Abundant Man]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO6XEQIsCoM

 

[The Abundant Man]

Brainstorm ideas and go through Pros/Cons.

 

[ApparentHorizon]

I am curious to hear from some of my fellow fastlaners. As the business has been growing and I am facing more complex issues and decisions, I find it harder to sort through the various problems and choices I face. IE: our software isn't being built fast enough and we cannot find a good contractor/part time employee to help. Aside from the weighted decision matrix, what are some ways you clarify the cause of your problems and figure out the best decision?

By studying up.

Refreshing the fundamentals.

Exploring opposing opinions.

Looking at seemingly unrelated industries, and how they solve similar problems.

At the end of the day though, I'm the bottleneck.

Something is a problem b/c of my lack of understanding, ego, or some other nonsense excuses I tell myself.

It rarely has to do with systems not working, or employees/contractors.

I've never had a problem with hiring a programmer, b/c that's just replacing what I already know.

I couldn't hire a sales person to save my life though.

 

[sparechange]

Get one of those huge white boards with an erasable marker and build a decision tree.

#1 Write down all the options

#2 Go through them extensively analyzing the benefits & cons

#3 Compare them to others

Go for the optimal choice/process of elimination

Decision tree - Wikipedia

 

[socaldude]

Looking at things from a principles of sufficient reason perspective. Often times you have to inverse things or take a contrarian approach. If you are stuck well then there has to be a reason why you are stuck. Not easy but it works.

• For every entity X, if X exists, then there is a sufficient explanation for why X exists.
• For every event E, if E occurs, then there is a sufficient explanation for why E occurs.
• For every proposition P, if P is true, then there is a sufficient explanation for why P is true.

It's kinda like how we discovered atoms and molecules. Somebody asked what if we took something and broke it down until we couldn't anymore. It's called first principles reasoning.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JQXoSmC1rs

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Great topic, MARKED featured! Look forward to hearing some thoughts!

 

[socaldude]

I think we should first start off by defining what confusion and clarity is. Then work up from there.

I'm no expert and don't claim to know it all but in my opinion confusion is when our mind doesn't have the totality of casual relationships involved in whatever event say X or has misattributed or wrongly labeled causes.

So in other words our own thinking has to be the #1 problem. The outside world doesn't confuse us, our poor thinking and lack of self-awareness does.

Clarity in my opinion is mirroring the casual relationships that exist "outside us" or in reality.

So I think it always makes sense to be more self-aware the more confused we are.

Which is extremely difficult because a big part of whatever problem you are facing is it's intrinsic striving to be hidden from awareness.

 

[ZCP]

deep work by cal newport has helped
rpm planning by tony robbins has helped
creating roadmaps has helped

getting two 55" monitors on top of my two 27" monitors has helped a lot.
can get the problem 'big' and in front of me, can bring my leadership group together and talk it through on the screen, updating our erp has helped for tasks/deadlines/manpower

 

[Johnny Bravo]

I have discovered over the years that people tend to adopt biases which blind them to a wider perspective. As such, we can rarely see an issue from enough vantage points to adequately solve it. The best solution I have found is to bounce off of my team. Everyone tends to see things from a slightly different perspective and I cannot tell you how many times something has been brought up which probably would never have crossed my mind. As mentioned above, there are countless processes out there which can help list and quantify your issues, but until you know of what these issues actually consist the process you use is pretty much irrelevant.

 

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[TreyAllDay]

Get one of those huge white boards with an erasable marker and build a decision tree.

#1 Write down all the options

#2 Go through them extensively analyzing the benefits & cons

#3 Compare them to others

Go for the optimal choice/process of elimination

Decision tree - Wikipedia

I've actually used this before without realizing it haha

 

[eliquid]

All great info shared.

I don't want to sound like I'm beating the same drum, but this is what I use...

Even though the title is about depression, there is a lot of "decision making" breakdowns in it:

Not Fulfilled? Depressed? Maybe You Need An Alignment

.

 

[socaldude]

I don't want to sound like I'm beating the same drum, but this is what I use.

I read a theory on depression that I thought was very fascinating.

It basically said depression was actually a survival mechanism of our of mind created by evolution.

It said because rumination was a hallmark symptom of depression it actually is a form of problem solving.

Maybe rumination is actually a good thing when laser focused on a problem?

Maybe it's our minds way of shutting off other parts of us to laser focus on something in survival mode?

Just food for thought I guess.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

I would caution you against doing only pros and cons. I use a system that is reproducible, so we make decisions the same way every time. You could (and should) read the whole book, Decisive, by Dan and Chip Heath.

Or, to save time, post this up on your wall and make a decision:

Also, I run a values-based business, so every decision option has to go through that filter too.

Give it a try and see what you come up with!

 

[Gepi]

Thank you all for the great ideas!
I'd like to add something I found really helpful:
posting an upcoming decision in this forum and get the best responses from multiple perspectives, from people who often seem to really know what they're talking about.