You can attempt to push through by sheer will alone. In fact, you can do so for a surprisingly long time. While it might work as a strategy in the short term, it is rarely sustainable in the long-term. What you think is in your circle of control is very often at best open to influence, and might be entirely dependent upon luck. Recognizing that is the first challenge. Knowing what to do about it comes next.
Getting To A Decision Of Sorts
We like to think of deciding as an act of deliberate intent. In actual fact, decisions often simply happen. They emerge and evolve, or arrive at a point where they are simply accepted. All appearances to the contrary, it can be difficult to point to when a decision was actually made, how it was arrived at and by whom. This doesn’t have to be the case. There are ways to improve not just the quality of decisions, but also clarity in the decision making process.
The Building Blocks of Decision
If we care about making a good strategic decision, then we need a capable process to get us there. In my last article, I made the argument that if we try to move normal meeting structures online, we are likely to fail. Partly that’s a product of attention span and inadequacies in online meeting technologies. […]
Kill Your Darlings
There is a lovely phrase that most writers know: “Kill your darlings.” When editing, throw out everything that doesn’t serve the story you are telling, no matter how in love you are or how clever you thought you were being. That’s true of writing, and it’s even more true of projects. We need to cut out everything that doesn’t serve the project. And sometimes we need to cut the project itself.