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One Door Down: Welcome to My New Office

Posted on by by Posted in Coaching Practice

Office of Ursina Teuscher, PhD: Decision Analysis and Coaching, at 522 SE 5th Ave, Suite 1118

– Or: My Office Is Now Also an Art Gallery.

I’m excited about my new office space. It’s only one door down from the previous one, and still the same size, but it did get nicer: I got moved to the center of the U-shaped Yeon building (still facing east, looking out at Mt Hood), which gives me a broader view with more window surface. And, I am now the proud owner of four Jean Wuethrich watercolors along with several of his smaller mixed-media travel sketches. One of the watercolors is an impression of the food carts just around the corner of my office.

Office of Ursina Teuscher, PhD: Decision Analysis and Coaching, at 522 SE 5th Ave, Suite 1118

Portland Foodcarts, Watercolor by Jean Wuethrich

Office of Ursina Teuscher, PhD: Decision Analysis and Coaching, at 522 SE 5th Ave, Suite 1118

(Meanwhile, my former space will be absorbed into a larger and finally wheelchair accessible bathroom. I know my building management will do everything in their power to limit construction noise at normal business hours, but we may experience some noise during evening appointments. If it gets uncomfortable, we can always move to the conference room though.)

Come visit!

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR


Summer Reading List 2019

Posted on by by Posted in Achieving Goals, Book Recommendations, Career Development, Financial Decisions, Procrastination, Productivity, Time Management, Risk and Uncertainty

Summer Reading List: Ursina's Book Recommendations on Creative Decision Making and Goal AchievementSomehow it became a summer tradition of this blog: here’s my latest list of book recommendations (you can see the lists from previous years here). As usual, they all have something to do with creative decision making and goal achievement. The first is a novel, the rest is non-fiction:

Wood, Benjamin (2016). The Ecliptic. A Novel. 

More than the plot, it was the premise and setting that had me hooked from the start: an isolated artists’ colony on a small island – its anonymous residents lingering for years, all expenses paid. Relieved of their own ego and the burdens of everyday life, they should be free to create their next masterpieces. Needless to say, it doesn’t work out quite so smoothly for everyone. You can start reading here.

Two excerpts highlight why this book fits this particular reading list and the topic of my blog. Here’s the voice of the protagonist Elspeth, a Scottish painter: “Any guest who could not wait to talk about the project he was working on was usually a short-termer — that was our evaluation. Anyone who proclaimed his own genius was a fraud, because, as Quickman himself once put it, genius does not have time to stand admiring its reflection; it has too much work to get finished. We never sought out the company of short-termers. We left them to work and find their clarity alone, while we got on with jabbing at our own unwieldy projects. None of us seemed to recognise the fact that our separation from the others was, in fact, a tacit declaration of our own genius — and, thus, it surely followed that we were the biggest frauds of all.”

And the voice of her mentor: “Actually, it reminds me of the work I did when I was drinking — heavily drinking. Your thoughts are leaking out of so many different places you can’t hold them. There’s no control, no discipline. Everything’s just streaming out of you and you can’t stop it. I understand what that feels like, believe me I do. Feels like freedom but all you’re really doing is shutting things out. It leads you nowhere good.”

James Clear (2018). Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones.

Of all the books on habit changes I’ve read so far, this might be the most practical yet. It focuses on small improvements and makes a compelling argument that in the case of habits, thinking small produces the biggest results over time.

Some of the take-home points:

  • Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement.
  • The most effective way to change your habits is NOT to focus not on specific goals. Focus on your system instead. “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”
  • Four rules to build better habits: (1) Make it obvious, (2) make it attractive, (3) make it easy, and (4) make it satisfying. (The opposite rules apply to extinguishing bad habits.) The book goes into many examples and methods on how to apply each of those rules.
  • The greatest threat to success is not failure, but boredom. As habits become routine, they become less interesting and less satisfying. It is therefore essential that we keep improving our systems. For that we need to remain conscious of our performance with reflection and review.
  • Success, therefore, is not to reach a specific threshold or goal, but to keep improving our systems.(Conveniently enough though, this is also the best strategy to reach any specific goals.)

You can look into the first part of the book here.

Annie Duke (2018): Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts.

As a former World Series of Poker champion, Annie Duke shares a convincing perspective of how important it is to cope well with uncertainty, if we want to make better decisions. As opposed to most of us, professional poker players are comfortable with the fact that great decisions don’t always lead to great outcomes and bad decisions don’t always lead to bad outcomes, and they are unafraid to scrutinize and review their own decisions (the processes, not the outcomes!) rigorously, because they know this pays off hugely in the long run.

Annie Duke’s advice is that we need to let go of our need for certainty, and instead make it a practice to accurately assess what we know and what we don’t. One way to committing to this practice is to find a peer group that can help you build a non-confrontational, non-threatening decision review team. If you want to read a sample, here’s a preview.

Vicki Lind, Tifini Roberts, and Leslie Yeargers (2019). Landing a Job Worth Having.

This is a new handbook written by three of my colleagues at Vicki Lind & Associates. It is full of very practical tips and resources, from searching for the right position to negotiating your salary. The authors guide you through all these steps:

  • Assessing what type of job you want
  • Using job boards and social media to find those jobs
  • Building a network of contacts to put you in front of hiring managers
  • Crafting resumes and cover letters to get you interviews
  • Interviewing with confidence and build great references
  • Negotiating a compensation package that matches your worth

Summer Reading List 2019: "Landing A Job Worth Having" by Vicki Lind, Tifini Roberts and Leslie Yeargers

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR


The Role of the Brand on Choice Overload

Posted on by by Posted in Intuition

I’m excited to share the publication of a new research paper from a collaboration with my colleagues Raffaella Misuraca, Francesco Ceresia, and Palmira Faraci in the journal “Mind and Society”:

Misuraca, R., Ceresia, F. Teuscher, U., & Faraci, P. (2019). The Role of the Brand on Choice Overload. Mind and Society. 

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11299-019-00210-7

[Full text available on request.]

Research Paper: The Role of the Brand on Choice Overload

ABSTRACT:
Current research on choice overload has been mainly conducted with choice options not associated with specific brands. This study investigates whether the presence of brand names in the choice set affects the occurrence of choice overload. Across four studies, we find that when choosing among an overabundance of alternatives, participants express more positive feelings (i.e., higher satisfaction/confidence, lower regret and difficulty) when all the options of the choice set are associated with familiar brands, rather than unfamiliar brands or no brand at all. We also find that choice overload only appears in the absence of brand names, but disappears when all options contain brand names—either familiar or unfamiliar. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
© Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2019.

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR

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Should You Become an Intrapreneur?

Posted on by by Posted in Achieving Goals, Career Development, Creative Thinking, Leadership, Procrastination, Productivity, Time Management

Could you make your job better by becoming an intrapreneur? Intrapreneurship means to think and work like entrepreneur, even though you are still a part of a large organization.

For example, you might have an idea of how to improve a product, and suggest those changes to your boss. Or, you might look for ways to make a specific service more profitable for your company. Maybe you discover a new opportunity to market a product or a service. You might find ways to communicate better within your team, and with that, speed up the workflow. Or you might go the extra mile to increase customer satisfaction. In other words: whatever your role within the organization, you actively drive innovation and keep looking for opportunities to improve your company.

Good employers realize how valuable intrapreneurs are to their organization, and a lot of research is being done in the attempt to understand how different leadership styles and company cultures can encourage intrapreneurship among employees.
Improving your Job Satisfaction by becoming an Intrapreneur
Now, we all know that not every employer encourages innovation. Maybe the company you work for does not foster intrapreneurs at all. Nonetheless, the good news is that being an intrapreneur also benefits you, as an employee. Namely, it seems to start a positive cycle of growth for yourself that gives you more personal resources, which in turn gets you more engaged and even more motivated to make a difference at your workplace.

So how can you do it?

Five tips on how you can become an intrapreneur and thereby increase your work satisfaction:
  1. Think like a boss or owner. Which improvements would add to the value of the organization as a whole, rather than just make your own life better?
  2. Find ways to make improvements yourself. Even if you think big, it’s often best to start with small changes that you can take on yourself. Eventually, when you need help from others to accomplish bigger things, they can see that you’ve already put in your work, and they’ll trust you to match their effort with yours.
  3. Find allies. Search through the organization for people who are passionate about accomplishing something and team up with them. Look for ways to make their job easier and better.
  4. Take risks. Don’t be afraid to experiment, and recognize that it is often necessary to explore many different paths in order to produce innovative breakthroughs. Some of those paths will fail, but recognize this as part of the process.
  5. Stop making excuses. Your boss might not support of all your new ideas, or you might be limited in your efforts by your workload or your environment. Nonetheless, within your realistic limits, keep searching actively for opportunities to make a difference wherever you can.

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR

Tags:

Beat Procrastination Habits With A Three-step Intervention

Posted on by by Posted in Achieving Goals, Coaching Practice, Procrastination, Productivity, Time Management, Resources, tools, Self-Assessments

Do you want to give your productivity a boost? This three-step intervention can help you diagnose and beat some of your most persistent procrastination habits.

Beat Procrastination Habits: Three Step Intervention

Step 1 – Assessment: Diagnose the Problems

Each person is different. What triggers your procrastination?

Procrastination is at its worst when we’re not aware of it. The first step in this intervention is therefore to increase your awareness of what’s tripping you up. You’ll want to get as much insight into yourself as possible, recognizing any problematic habits, or any patterns in your thoughts and behaviors that are getting in your way.

With that goal, keep a productivity journal to collect some data about yourself. You can download a template here and print it out.

Beat Procrastination Habits - Step 1: Assessment with Productivity Journal

Here is how it works: the night before your workday, write a to-do list and a schedule for the following day. Make sure to schedule realistically, including breaks and transition times.
Next to the planned schedule, have an empty column. As your workday unfolds, write into the empty column what you actually did.

– Warning: this may be painful! –

Throughout that day, take notes of what happened when you did or didn’t stay on track. Were there outside interruptions or emergencies? If not, what caused any deviations from your plans? Were you aware, at any moment, that you were procrastinating? What were your thoughts and feelings in that moment?

Keep this log for at least several days (more is better, but they don’t need to be consecutive days), then start analyzing patterns. Are there things that repeatedly throw you off?

This previous post lists some of the most frequent procrastination triggers I’ve observed in my own practice.

Step 2 – Treatment: Change One Thing

After analyzing your logs and seeking patterns, choose one issue to fix: what is the one thing you could do differently that has a potential of making things better? Choose the lowest hanging fruit first. Try an intervention, targeted at one trigger at a time. See it as an experiment you do with yourself. Whatever you try, do it for at least one week, or better yet, three weeks. Keep journaling throughout this time.

If you like the change you see, stick to it for another two weeks, even if it’s hard, because it takes a while for habits to form. By that time you will likely find it easier and will be able to keep the new habit, if it is making a positive difference in your life. If you find it hard to make the change, keep the mindset of a scientist: how could you make it work?

Step 3 – Repeat: Experiment, Tweak and Practice

Remember that this is an experimental approach. Whatever you try, see it as an experiment that may succeed or fail. Either way, you learned something important that will help you fine-tune your work habits.
After going through Step 1 (Assessment) and Step 2 (Treatment), you will likely observe some changes. If you don’t like them, or if you feel that there could be even more improvement, repeat both steps. If your assessment in Step 1 gave you a lot to work with, you may only need to repeat Step 2 by trying a new intervention, or by tweaking what you tried before, to make it work even better.

Also, remember that it takes a lot of time, grit and practice to become an expert, and to truly master a difficult skill. Managing our time (and yourself!) well is an inherently difficult skill to master, so be patient with yourself and don’t give up if things don’t improve right away. Take on your next obstacle and try the next intervention.

It is also a good idea to do the entire intervention with other people, such as with a friend, in a group, or with a coach. Not only does this give you accountability, which sometimes makes all the difference, but it also adds more creative thinking power to the process. When other people are helping you think about your problems, it will be easier to diagnose your triggers and design new solutions that may work for you.

If you would like my help with any of this, schedule your first coaching session or a brief phone call to discuss options.

Set up an appointment with Ursina Teuscher

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), Portland OR


Common procrastination triggers and fixes

Posted on by by Posted in Achieving Goals, Procrastination, Productivity, Time Management, Self-Assessments

What are some of the most common procrastination triggers? Finding out why you procrastinate will help you tackle each of your problems one by one.

Common Procrastination Triggers and How to Beat Them

There are many reasons we procrastinate, and it is important to first figure out what’s tripping you up, before trying to fix it. The problems I’ve encountered most frequently in my coaching experience (and in myself!) are:

Procrastination Trigger #1: Fear
This could be fear of the task itself, or it could be fear of the consequences of doing the task. For example, you might feel anxious about making a phone call simply because you don’t like talking on the phone, or you might be anxious because the phone call could result in failure or disappointment.
You might feel nervous about a presentation because you’re not used to speaking in front of an audience, or you might be afraid that your audience will be critical. You might want to apply for a job, but worry about not getting it –– or about getting it but then hating it or not being good at it. All those fears can hold you back from getting started. The good news is that even just recognizing the fear as such often takes the edge off. Also good to remember: it’s ok to be afraid –– it doesn’t mean we can’t act. Sometimes, reframing fear or nervousness as “excitement” can help us channel our energy into the task. Other than that, different tricks help for different people: some do best if they tackle the scariest thing first thing in the morning, maybe even before breakfast. (Mark Twain may have been of those people – or not.) Others prefer to divide and conquer, starting with the easiest part. If your perfectionism is paralyzing you, first set yourself the goal of writing “just a draft” of an email, for example, instead of the scary email itself.

Procrastination Trigger #2: Uncertainty or confusion about the task
From what I’ve seen, this is not only one of the most common, but perhaps the most under-appreciated procrastination trigger: not having a clear plan of what you need to do next. This uncertainty can lead to a vague feeling of being overwhelmed or anxious, even if there is nothing unpleasant about any of the actual tasks or consequences. What’s worse, we are often not aware that the cause of our reluctance is simply that we haven’t figured out the details of what’s ahead yet. Once you notice the problem, start writing a more specific list of what needs to be done. Schedule “figuring out what needs to be done next” as if it were the actual task – because it is.

Procrastination Trigger #3: Lack of purpose or direction
This problem is more fundamental: you may have doubts about whether you’re on the right track at all, or whether your work will lead to success. Maybe the project you’re working on has stopped making sense to you, or your work lacks purpose, or you don’t see where your career is headed. My advice in that case: reconnect with your values – figure out what truly matters to you in the long term. What are the things that will still matter to you in 30 years? What could make your life as meaningful and “good” (whatever that is for you) as possible? Are you on the best possible track to fulfill your most important values? If not, explore alternatives. Or, why are you doing what you’re doing? Maybe your work, as much as it sucks, is still your best option and you have good reasons to keep doing it. If so, you ARE on the right track. Own it. Even so, explore any options and actions you could take that would add meaning and purpose to your work (here’s a book for that).

Procrastination Trigger #4: Lack of urgency or accountability
Too much freedom with a task can be a big problem, in particular if there’s a lack of accountability, or if the deadlines are too far away. Some things that can help in that case: set earlier deadlines for partial achievements and make those deadlines real by scheduling a rewarding activity at the end of each. If you have a supervisor, talk to them about about your goals and promise results at different stages of a project. Otherwise you can announce your commitments to friends or colleagues, or find a partner to work with, a coach, or an “accountability buddy” who’ll check in with you on a regular basis.

Procrastination Trigger #5: Distractions or interruptions
Outside interruptions such as phone calls or people stepping into your office can be legitimate reasons for not sticking to your plans – they may or may not be avoidable, depending on your work. If you can, shield yourself during your most productive work hours by disconnecting and closing doors. If the interruptions are necessary, recognize that, schedule accordingly and adjust your expectations. Distractions can also come from within though. Being distracted by our own thoughts is a frequent reason to lose focus, whether we’re simply daydreaming, or planning dinner, or adding items to a mental shopping list. If your distracting thoughts are practical and useful (planning, thinking about things you need to do later), write them down to get them out of your head. Otherwise, recognize that staying focused requires practice. Stretch your ability to focus by redirecting your attention back to the task, in the moment that you become aware you’re distracted (as opposed to giving into the distraction and switching tasks).

Procrastination Trigger #6: Competing tasks and activities
Sometimes you’ll find yourself immersed in tasks other than the one you were planning to do – for example because the previous tasks take longer than anticipated, or because you’re held up by unexpected problems. For example, you may find that you write emails during the time you wanted to do something else. If you work from home, you may suddenly find yourself doing chores or running errands, rather than doing the work you intended. And then there’s all the fun stuff: pleasurable or entertaining activities, such as snacking or watching movies. Schedule specific times of the day to do those fun things in your breaks. If necessary, set an alarm clock to remind you when to stop your break. Games, TV series, social media or other kinds of on-screen activities can have addictive qualities and can take up tremendous amounts of time. People are often reluctant to admit even to themselves just how much time they spend with these activities. Start logging those hours, if you’re brave enough to face the truth.

So, the next time you find yourself procrastinating: try to figure out the true and specific reason you’re procrastinating right then. Do you find the reason in any of those triggers I described, or is it something else entirely? Once you’ve figured out what’s tripping you up, you can create a precise intervention to target your problem.

If you’d like me to help me putting these or other tactics into practice, let me know. I’d love to help you figure out where to start, and how to develop your own tricks that work best with your personal style and preferences.

"Get in Touch" Button to Schedule a phone call or coaching session with Ursina Teuscher

[Update – more context and tools in this post: What is procrastination and how can we overcome it?]

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), Portland OR

A shorter version of this post (by Ursina Teuscher, edited by Vicki Lind and Leslie Yeargers) was published 01/26/19 on aPortlandCareer.com


Ask Three Questions to Refine Your Career Decisions

Posted on by by Posted in Career Development, Leadership, Strategic Planning, Business Decisions, Organizational Development

[Guest post by Bruce Hazen.]

Whether a career transition is one of your own choosing or one that is done to you, beware of a premature rush to job search tactics. For most people this premature rush means updating their resume and starting to patrol the internet job sites. If they’re a bit more extraverted, they may start to network with colleagues, friends and acquaintances. But this is when they start to realize something strategic is missing.
No, it’s not the fact that they haven’t defined the bulls-eye that they’re targeting, although this step is going to be crucial. With a defined target they can move to the next critical step in a well designed search – the personal marketing plan. But it’s not yet time for that either.

There are three career questions that must be addressed first. They cause you to answer profound and fundamental questions about where you are now in your career trajectory. If you don’t know your current location along that trajectory, you may be trying to solve the wrong problem.
Let’s take a look at The Three Questions. They are mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive in framing your career:

  1. When is it time to move up?
    This doesn’t just mean promotion. It asks if it’s time to progress in your role, team, company or the profession itself. (You need a development emphasis in your search for new work)
  2. When is it time to move out?
    This doesn’t necessarily mean leave your employer. It could also mean move out of a role, a level of responsibility, a team or maybe even move out of a profession or industry altogether. (This calls for a transition strategy, commonly also known as a search strategy)
  3. When is it time to adapt your style for greater success?
    You may like the work and the people and enterprise you work for, but you’re not getting the success you want. You know you need to adapt and change something, but you may not be sure what or how. (This calls for a coaching strategy.)

Example: Julie was a skilled researcher who had Peter-principled her way into a leadership position running a research department within a high-tech company. She came to our first consultation convinced that she needed to move out of the company due to frustrations with managing her team. When I explain The Three Career Questions to anyone, I ask them to first talk about the two questions that they didn’t choose before we discuss the one they feel is most compelling. She described her frustrations as well as her distinct lack of training or coaching to take on her leadership role. I diplomatically suggested that she had a leadership style issue as a new leader and targeting a management role at a new company would simply relocate the struggle/problem to a new address without adapting her style for greater success. Our work switched to management coaching and she decided to turn her current position into a learning laboratory and more of a success before moving out.

Good questions embody values and insights that cause you to think and iterate your ideas and decisions to design even better ones. Use The Three Career Questions to refine your career decision-making and strategy early in the process.
Oh, there’s a fourth question too: When is it time to stay the course when the answer to all three question is: “not now”? Answer: Enjoy that ride when you can.

Bruce Hazen: Three Questions to Refine Your Career DecisionsAbout the author: Bruce Hazen is a career and management coach in Portland, Oregon. He has lead Three Questions Consulting for 20 years and is the co-author of the chapter on career coaching in the Sage publication, The Complete Handbook of Coaching (2018). 


How To Make Better Decisions by Asking an Open Question

Posted on by by Posted in Leadership

This or That? To Make Better Decisions, Ask a More Open QuestionOur most natural – and laziest – way to think about decisions is to see them as “either/or” questions:

“Should I do this, or that?”

In other words, we act as if we were in a game show, with only two doors to choose from. In fact, we often only recognize a decision once we see a specific new option, either as an opportunity, or as a solution to a problem. We then simply compare this new option to doing nothing.

That’s a very limiting perspective. If you want to think about your decision more creatively and find the best solution possible, you’ll want to open up your question.

How can we make better decisions by asking a more open question?

Try starting your question with:

  • “What would be the best thing I could do … (in order to achieve x, to avoid y, and to maximize z)?”
  • “How could I … (achieve x, y, and z)?”

This allows you to list and evaluate more possible courses of action, and will encourage you to look for more creative solutions. It also encourages you to think about what you actually want to achieve with your decision – again, surprisingly, not something we tend to do naturally.

The doors aren't real. To make better decisions, ask a more open question.

The doors aren’t real! Knock ’em down and open up your view.

To Make Better Decisions, Ask a More Open Question

 

Here’s an example of what this can look like in a career decision:

Initial question:
“Should I invest into this new training opportunity to get XY credentials?”

An open question instead could be:
“How can I improve my chances of getting promoted in this company?”

Or even more open:
“What steps can I take to increase my chances of a more fulfilling and better compensated career?”

A real example of a very different kind of decision comes from one of my students. This is what she shared with me:

Initial question:
“Should I terminate (or limit) my interaction with my mother?”
I should explain: when I was fourteen, my mother developed an opiate habit, making me the primary caretaker of her life (and my siblings) and kicked me out right after I turned sixteen. She then got clean, and we have since resumed a relationship; however, my role returned to that of caretaker, and her role has gone back to that of a dependent, while introducing a new level of acrimony. Though the question may sound harsh, questioning whether I need to terminate (or limit) my interaction with my mother for mental health reasons has been present with me for several years. However, it has been flawed. Rather than assuming I needed to either entirely eliminate my mother from my life, or accept our relationship as it is, I could reformat the question to allow for a broader range of solutions.

New open question:
“How can I reduce taking the role of the parent when dealing with my mother?”
The restructuring allowed me to realize which part of the relationship bothered me the most and what I wanted the question to help answer. It wasn’t simply about ‘fixing the relationship’: the main issue was the parent role on my shoulders that I wanted to eliminate.

This student’s example and her reflections show beautifully how helpful this simple thinking practice can be, even for very personal and emotional decisions.

Give it a try for your own next decision and let me know how it works out!

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR

 


How to Make Smart Group Decisions – Video

Posted on by by Posted in Coaching Practice, Group/Interactive Decisions, Conflict Resolution, Leadership

How to Make Better Decisions in Imperfect Communities
By Ursina Teuscher, PhD

Keynote talk presented at XII° Convegno Nazionale S.I.P.CO Palermo, June 7-9, 2018: Communita Imperfette – Dalle Dinamiche Disgregative al Decision Making Comunitario.

Summary

In communities that consist of diverse interest groups, it can be challenging to make decisions that are actively supported or at least accepted by all critical parties, despite their differing interests. Top-down decisions may face unexpected opposition, resulting in costs or delays.
This talk presents a process framework and practical tools to facilitate participatory decision processes. The suggested process is designed after a value-focused (Keeney, 1996) and multi-attribute model of decision making (e.g., Winterfeldt and Edwards, 1986, Anderson, Hahn, and Teuscher, 2013).
As a practical but broadly applicable model for interventions, the suggested process is structured into three stages. The first step is to determine the stakeholders and clarify what their interests are, and to involve the stakeholders in defining a measurable set of criteria. The second step is a search for innovative solutions that fulfill these criteria best. Unless the decision requires topic experts to draw up solutions, this stage may involve stakeholders and community members in a bid for innovative proposals. In the third and final step, the proposed solutions are evaluated along all criteria in a weighted multi-criteria decision analysis. An example of public involvement in a decision process in Oregon (facilitated by my colleague Sam Imperati) illustrates how to design a voting ballot in the form of a weighted decision table. In this case, the decision table served at the same time to inform the voters about the estimated facts associated with each option along all criteria. The example demonstrates that it is possible to evaluate even complex and controversial decisions in a democratic process, and that a democratic process can be quite different from a simple yes-or-no vote between unpopular options. Instead, it suggests a richer, yet efficient participatory process that is optimized for innovation, while being perceived as fair and transparent.
While the practical application shown here is a recent examples of a real public decision, rather than a research study, many previous case studies (reviews e.g., by Winterfeldt and Edwards, 1986; Anderson et al., 2013) show that participatory decision processes of this kind – following a value-focused and multi-attribute model – can lead to surprising amounts of innovation and agreement in challenging community decisions.

References:
Anderson, B., Hahn, D., & Teuscher, U. (2013). Heart and Mind: Mastering the Art of Decision Making. CreateSpace Publishing.
Keeney, R. L. (1996). Value-Focused Thinking: A Path to Creative Decision Making. Harvard University Press.
Winterfeldt, D. von, & Edwards, W. (1986). Decision Analysis and Behavioral Research. Cambridge University Press.

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR


Summer Reading List 2018

Posted on by by Posted in Achieving Goals, Book Recommendations, Career Development, Financial Decisions, Group/Interactive Decisions, Conflict Resolution, Health Decisions, Procrastination, Productivity, Time Management, Risk and Uncertainty, Strategic Planning, Business Decisions, Organizational Development

New Summer Readings: Books on Decision Making and Goal AchievementAnother hopefully long and beautiful summer is coming up, and my intention is to spend a lot of it productively: reading. Preferably in a hammock. If you feel the same, here comes my new list of book recommendations about decision-making and goal achievement.

Dan Ariely and Jeff Kreisler (2017). Dollars and Sense: How We Misthink Money and How to Spend Smarter. I’ve always enjoyed Dan Ariely’s self-deprecating sense of humor, and in this collaboration he found a great match in Jeff Kreisler. Even though I was familiar with most of the concepts they discuss, this book not only kept me entertained, but also highlighted very clearly (and sometimes painfully) the irrationalities around money that I still allow into my life. Read a sample here.

Chris Guillebeau (2017). Side Hustle: From Idea to Income in 27 Days. A practical step-by-step guide of how to create and launch a profitable part-time business. You can look into it here. Chris Guillebeau’s approach is very much no-nonsense, no fluff, no jargon – from brainstorming, shaping and selecting ideas, to launching, tracking and refining your game. While some steps would likely take more than his suggested hour per day, and while I’m not confident that I would have the discipline to follow all his steps in sequence, I do think it would make sense to do just that.

Bryan Dik and Ryan Duffy (2012). Make Your Job a Calling: How the Psychology of Vocation Can Change Your Life at Work. This book explores the powerful idea that almost any kind of occupation can offer any one of us a sense of purpose and thereby satisfaction. The authors define the idea of calling (both from a spiritual and secular perspective), review research on and provide tips for finding a calling at all stages of work and life. They also point out some dangers of pursuing a higher purpose. Here’s a preview.

Greg McKeown (2014). Essentialism. The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. Sure, we all know the importance of prioritizing and focusing, but here Greg McKeown reminds us that living and working as an “essentialist” requires sacrifices. It requires a willingness to give up a lot to gain something of much more value. The author shows how to apply this concept in work as well as leisure and family life, with a special focus on leadership. Mostly through my clients, I know there are too many high-achieving professionals at the verge of burn-out with too many tasks to juggle. For their sake, I hope the message of this book will be heard and will find the necessary traction in our organizations. Check out the beginning here.

Glenn Livingston (2014). Never Binge Again: Reprogram Yourself to Think Like a Permanently Thin Person. Stop Overeating and Binge Eating and Stick to the Food Plan of Your Choice! While I usually recommend books that are based more on data and science, this one is different: its arguments use simple examples that are nonetheless convincing. It makes us realize there are plenty of rules we are perfectly capable of following, where we don’t think of our will-power as limited. For example: I never eat food from a stranger’s plate in a restaurant; I never shoplift; I never pick a fight with strangers. Why, then, do I think that I am powerless over certain food choices in certain situations? Powerless to say NO to the free cookies on a tray, or to the unsupervised half-empty box of donuts? According to this book, it is a simple matter of getting total clarity of what you truly want, and what you don’t want (e.g., when, and it what situations, you want to eat certain types of food), putting those rules into writing, and then sticking to them. Because you know you want to, and you know you can. Friendly rules, but no more permission to screw up, ever again.
(“Trigger foods”? We’re not guns. It’s just a metaphor, and perhaps not such a helpful one, I’ve come to think. There is no actual trigger that has the power to release an uncontrollable sequence of actions in us. At any moment, we can – and will – change our behavior, based on new information and our new preferences. So we just need to get our preferences straight.)
Here’s a preview, but it’s actually a free e-book anyway. Written by a coach, it accordingly comes with some promotion of his coaching. Read it for the message, not if you’re looking for a literary masterpiece.

Laurence Gonzales (2004). Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why.
I’m not sure how long this book had been lying on our coffee table when I heard it was the 2018 winner of the Eric Hoffer Award Montaigne Medal. I admit this was the reason I picked it up again this year with renewed interest. I found it for the most part a captivating read, although sometimes frustrating with lots of names in personal stories, which were chopped up across chapters – starting, stopping and taking up again later with no transitions, punishing me for skipping earlier parts. (That may be my problem – I resent non-fiction that forces me to read it as if it were a novel.) More importantly: I took issue with the oversimplified message of “mind over matter”, which I find cynical in the light of those who didn’t survive. Many of his conclusions also suffer from quite literal “survival bias” – not a pun, but a serious problem in his reasoning, although with this topic admittedly a difficult one to avoid. At the very least it should be acknowledged as a limitation. That said, I did learn some interesting lessons about dangers in unexpected places and how to (not) face them. Start reading here.

Brad Borkan and David Hirzel (2017). When Your Life Depends on It: Extreme Decision Making Lessons from the Antarctic.
Also a book about decision-making in extreme life-and-death situations, this one takes a more systematic approach, and offers more substantial and original content, despite being based on an older history: it takes us back to the very first expeditions of early explorer teams to the Antarctic in the early 1900’s. The authors analyze the decisions made by several competing teams and discuss fascinating questions about leadership, as well as followership, under these extreme conditions. Look into it here.

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR


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