Chip and Dan Heath (2013). Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work. New York: Crown Business.
I was impressed with this new book by the Heath brothers, a very helpful guide to decision making. It does not offer any formal tools to evaluate options, but a process with powerful ideas that are easy to apply to any personal or business decision.
They call their approach the WRAP process, an acronym standing for (1) Widen your options, (2) Reality test your assumptions, (3) Attain some distance, and (4) Prepare to be wrong.
Here’s a sample of some ideas that I’m finding very effective with clients as well as for my own decisions:
For widening your options, they propose the “Vanishing Options Test”: what would you do if the current alternatives disappeared? This question forces us to think creatively, oftentimes bringing better solutions to mind than the ones that seemed most obvious at first.
Also, consider opportunity costs: if I didn’t do this, what else could I do with the same resources?
Always think AND, not OR. Can you follow multiple paths at once?
For attaining some distance, they suggest the simple but powerful question: “What would I tell my best friend to do in this situation?”
For preparing to be wrong, they introduce the idea of a “tripwire”: set a date or trigger for revisiting the decision. This will not only prevent you from getting stuck on a bad track, but it will give you a certain period where you will have the permission and peace of mind to fully commit to your current action plan, without tormenting yourself about whether this was a good decision or not.
Chip and Dan Heath also offer a great resources page on their website, with free cheat sheets and worksheets summarizing their process.
by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR