Strategic Planning, Business Decisions, Organizational Development Archives - Decision Coaching – Ursina Teuscher, PhD

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Attention Span & Productivity – Book Recommendation

My main take-aways from Gloria Mark’s book: “Attention Span”
A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity

In her book “Attention Span“, Gloria Mark explores the impacts of today’s fast-paced technology on our attention spans, productivity, and happiness. She presents a lot of research done both by her own and other teams. Based on that, she offers advice, not only on how to gain more control over our attention, but also on finding balance between productivity and happiness.

Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity by Gloria Mark (2023). [1]

Here are just a few of the findings and insights I found helpful.

Fun facts about attention and productivity
Have our attention spans really decreased?

Maybe you are feeling it yourself? Or maybe you’ve heard humans’

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Bias and Noise in Hiring Decisions

How can companies reduce not only bias, but also noise, in their hiring and other decisions?

The problem of bias in corporate decisions, such as hiring, promotion and salary decisions, is well-known. However, there is another type of error that has not been talked about as much – perhaps because it is harder to see, and harder to fit into a narrative: noise.

What is noise in corporate decisions, and how is it different from bias?

Noise is a random error in our decisions. Research has confirmed that in many tasks, experts’ decisions are highly variable. Professionals often make decisions that deviate significantly from those of their peers, from their own prior decisions, and from rules that they themselves claim to follow. This is the case even when the stakes of those judgments are high,

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How to Deal with Regret

Do you have deep regrets about some of your past decisions?

A solid “No!” to this question should be much more concerning than a “Yes”. Regrets make us human, as Daniel Pink argues in his new book The Power of Regret. What’s more, regrets can help us become better humans, if we learn something from them along the way.

Drawing from his own research as well as previous studies, Pink claims that people feel regret quite often. He identifies four core categories of regret:

1. Foundation regrets
“If only I’d done the work.”
These are regrets where we opt for short-term gains over long-term payoffs, like not studying hard enough in school or not saving enough money.

2. Boldness regrets
“If only I’d taken that risk.”
These are regrets of inaction,

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Decision Support Tool: Instructions for Creating a “Value Tree”

Whenever you have a really big decision to make, the best place to start thinking about it is by identifying what really matters – that is, by clarifying your goals and values. To help with that, the exercise of constructing a “Value Tree” is a great decision support tool. Here you can download a set of instructions on how to create your very own value tree (written by myself and Barry Anderson).

The Research

Value trees (also known as “goal hierarchies” in decision theory) are an established method to support decision-making. Their effectiveness has been evaluated by several independent researchers with real career decisions. Those studies have shown that constructing a goal hierarchy leads people to process more information (Aschenbrenner et al., 1980, Paul, 1984), come up with more specific, rather than generic, goals (Teuscher, 2003), and be more satisfied with their decisions (Paul,

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Summer Reading List 2020 – Book Recommendations on Leadership and Career Development

Here are a few books about decision making and leadership that I found worth reading and still very relevant, regardless of how things have changed since they were written.

The first two are not only interesting if you’re leading other people, but also if you are running your own business as a solopreneur. Both books talk about value-driven business models, although in very different ways. I found Simon Sinek’s particularly inspiring:

Simon Sinek (2013). Infinite Game.

Seth Godin (2018). This Is Marketing: You Can’t Be Seen Until You Learn to See.

Aaron Dignan (2019). Brave New Work: Are You Ready to Reinvent Your Organization?

Brené Brown (2018). Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts.

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Ask Three Questions to Refine Your Career Decisions

[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.

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Summer Reading List 2018

New Summer Readings: Books on Decision Making and Goal Achievement Another 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.

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Employee Coaching ROI: Is It Worth It?

What is the return on investment (ROI) of employee coaching for an organization?

Offering coaching for employees – especially at the executive level – has become a widespread management tool. Companies often hire coaches with the goal to improve performance and develop talents, but also to keep high-performing people within an organization.

However, coaching is an expensive intervention: aside from the fees of the coach, there’s also the opportunity cost of the employee’s time spent with the coach during working hours. Therefore, companies who are paying for coaching for their employees will want to know whether it is a good investment. Does it improve the company’s bottom line enough to be worth the cost?

A look at the evidence

What effects does coaching have? I put together a selection of research articles investigating this question, including all the meta-analyses I could find that have been conducted in the past two decades.

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Where Can You Be Generous?

A Different Way to Look at Your “Unique Value Contribution”

In an interview with Chase Jarvis, Seth Godin gave me a lot of food for thought when he suggested that we all ourselves this question:

“Where are you being generous – completely selfless and generous – so that an organization or person is changed for the better? Can you do that again and again and again?” (44m 10s)

The question is big, and it is very relevant for career coaching and business development. Even without the – perhaps too high – standard of being “completely selfless”, it gives a beautiful angle to the classic and essential question of: “How can you contribute value?”

For example, with a career-coaching client we might explore the question:
“What skills do you already have,

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Upcoming Workshop: Business Vision

Workshop: Business Vision My next workshop is targeted to small business owners, solo-preneurs, people in private practice, or those interested in starting a business. It will be an intensive session to hone your business vision and mission.

The workshop is limited to a small number of participants to allow for a very personalized and interactive approach. We will work together to systematically explore your vision and purpose as a business, and to clarify your intention, values and goals.

As a take-home gift, you will receive a little guidebook for strategic planning. The guidebook goes beyond the contents of the workshop. It can serve as your own resource later on if you choose to develop a more detailed strategic plan based on your core vision.

If you know of people who are either thinking of starting a business or are running their own small business or private practice,

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“You Are on the Fastest Route”

Did you notice? According to the encouraging GPS voice, you are always “on the fastest route”.

It’s true though: as long as you know where to go next, none of the past detours, U-turns, or missed exits, change the fact that you are, NOW, on the fastest route.

FastestRoute

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

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Mission, Vision and Values

Do you know how to create a powerful statement of your organization’s mission, vision and values?

These few pages (downloadable pdf) describe a framework that I’ve found helpful in my strategic planning work. While it is geared mainly toward non-profit organizations, I find the approach just as useful for businesses.

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

Mission Vision

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Why is it such hard work to find your own niche?

Because until you fill it, it’s just a gap.

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

Find your own niche

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Book and Video Recommendation: Skills Are More Important Than Passion

“Follow your passion” is a very commonly heard career advice, but Cal Newport argues it’s actually quite terrible as a guiding principle.

In his quest to figure out how people find great careers, he found not only that preexisting passions are very rare, but that they have little to do with how most people end up loving their work. The pressure to “find our passion” can therefore unnecessarily lead to anxiety, dissatisfaction and unproductive career changes.

Instead, passion for a career seems to come after you put in the hard work of becoming excellent at something that adds value to other people’s lives, not before.

This is the book that resulted from his research, and where he includes more advice on how to go about building a career based on skills:

Cal Newport (2012). So Good They Can’t Ignore You –

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Infographic: Roadmap for Smarter Decisions

Do you like treasure maps?

I do. So I’ve created one on how to make smart decisions. You can download it directly as a two-page pfd:

Or, find it here among other free resources.

The infographic provides a roadmap and ultra-brief guideline on how to make smart decisions.
It is also available as a large colored post-card, with the map on the front and the step-by-step summary on the back side. I’m happy to give those away, let me know if you’d like one (or more).

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

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Book Recommendation: Strategic Decision Making

Craig W. Kirkwood (1997). Strategic Decision Making: Multiobjective Decision Analysis with Spreadsheets.

*** Geek Alert! ***

Skip this month’s book recommendation if you don’t like spreadsheets. This book by Craig Kirkwood is all about spreadsheets, and how to use them to make smart decisions.

It goes way beyond anything I’ve ever taught in my own classes, and beyond anything I will probably ever use, even in my consulting work. But it’s great stuff! So yes, this is a book for geeks.

If that’s you: I have a copy that you’re welcome to borrow (it’s out of print and very expensive to buy at this point). AND: when you pick it up in my office in Portland, I’ll treat you to an excellent Affogato at Spella Caffe. Just because I like to talk to geeks,

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A Career Development Tool For Academics

Continuing my series about self-assessments, the one I’m reviewing here is for academics:

the myIDP.

The myIDP is an Individual Development Plan for science careers, and is mainly targeted to grad students and postdocs, with the goal of helping them define and pursue their career goals.

It includes a self-assessment part covering skills, interests, and values. Aside from the online questionnaires that show your scores right away, can also download blank skills assessment forms to share with a mentor or colleague. Based on the assessment, it offers a long list of career paths and shows you how well each matches with your interests and skills. As you explore those options, you get suggestions of how to consider your values in those contexts.

After this assessment and exploration part, the website includes a personal planning system for setting your own goals and implementing next steps.

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Book Recommendation: Strategic Planning

Erica Olsen. Strategic planning kit for dummies.

If you’re a decision-maker in an organization and you’re serious about strategic planning, I highly recommend this book by Erica Olson as a very thorough but practical reference. It will give you more than you need, but it is very clearly structured so that you easily focus on whatever aspects are relevant to you. It also includes a DVD with worksheets, templates, and videos.

Why does strategic planning matter?

Strategic planning offers a systematic process to figure out where you’re going – as a business or as any kind of organization.

Erica Olsen reports that CEOs of the Inc. 500 spend 50-90 percent of their time on strategy and business development. Why? Probably because they realize how much it pays off. According to her research, the firms with a high commitment to strategic planning had higher sales volumes as well as net incomes than those with lower commitment.

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Book Recommendation: “Decisive” by Chip and Dan Heath (2013)

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,

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Book Recommendation of the Month: Rational Decision Making

Eisenfuehr, Weber & Langer. Rational Decision Making.

This month’s pick is a classic textbook, presenting theory as well as practical methods on how to improve decision making. It is admittedly not the easiest read, but those who are truly interested in the formal methods of how to approach difficult decisions will find this book very rich and thorough.

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