I had the privilege of hearing President Obama speak at this year’s ATD conference, and one comment he made really stuck with me. He said that any decisions in his office that had a clear right or wrong answer were made by somebody else, before they were brought to his attention. The decisions that made it to his desk were the ones with no clear right or wrong answer. So he didn’t try to make the “right” decision, because there wasn’t one. Instead, he tried to make the best decision: the one he felt best about after considering all the options and information available.
Going through a rational decision making process – gathering facts and weighing the pros and cons, etc. – is great when you can come away with a clear “right” decision, but what about when there isn’t a clear right? The truth is that rational decision making only gets us so far, and tough decisions are tough because sometimes there’s no right way to go. So what do you do?
Tags: microlearning • New Content