Decisions, Decisions [#11]
We make countless ones a day, but are they all good?
Dear Reader,
This quarter just gone has been an intense one on my side. Extremely busy across both “the day job” and additional work (a.k.a. coaching primarily), but also a lot, and I mean, a lot of learning moments.
And as we have less than 100 days left in 2024, this has prompted me into a bit of a reflection. Transformative Letter is all about sharing ideas that have the potential, if applied (which is most of the battle, really), to take you to a whole new level of performance. Today, I’m sharing my newest tool in my arsenal.
The new kid in the block: Decision Logs
Decision Logs, or simply put, logging the decisions that you make, have been a really powerful addition to my ability to think and make robust and better-informed decisions, at a pace, and to a calibre, I have rarely had before.
There are two types of decision logs: public, and personal
Public logs document what particular aspects of a project have been decided on, the rationale for it, and what we believe the outcome will be. Their goal is to achieve alignment and provide documented evidence of what has been agreed.
Personal logs are private. They are yours, and only yours to see, but effectively are also a record of the decisions that have been made. Their primary, purpose, however, isn’t to document what was decided, but to help decide.
I have been implementing a decision log for the last few weeks for major or non-straightforward decisions I had to make, particularly at work. The log has evolved over time, and I have now reached a point where I really feel I have something robust to take me going forward, after all the iterations I’ve had.
Why have I become so bullish with my newfound habit?
For two primary reasons
Reason 1: Protection against Hindsight
It’s human nature to be a bit of a “revisionist” of our own lives. To interpret past decisions based on information that simply wasn’t available to us then. It’s easy to realise you were wrong buying a car after it broke down on you three times in one year. But it would be unfair to automatically judge it a bad decision.
Human beings however are experts at being rather harsh with themselves, and “realise” how it was such an obvious outcome they should have seen everything coming.
That’s not how it works, though. Sometimes, the objectively correct decision at moment A does not deliver the outcome you were expecting in moment B. The fact things didn’t play out as you hoped doesn’t mean you took the wrong call. It may mean several different things, but it isn’t an automatic translation of “things didn’t go my way, therefore I made the wrong decision”, which we default to too often.
Having a log allows you to revisit a decision, with the outcome known, and to review whether the new information teaches you anything.
Did you under-emphasise one part of the problem?
Did you overlook something you thought was trivial but wasn’t?
Could you have gotten additional crucial information had you spoken to someone else?
And crucially… could any of the alternative solutions realistically have provided you with a better outcome?
The best way to improve your decision-making skills is by making, and reviewing, more, and more decisions, whether yours or someone else’s.
Reason 2: Think as you write
I think I already made this confession to you, but it’s an important one. I don’t write Transformative Letter for you. I mean, yes, you are the audience, and I do want to help you unlock your potential, and go to the next level, obviously. But the primary reason I write is rather selfish.
There are many benefits for me, personally, to write a letter, twice a month. And among them, the one that has been at the core of why I the decision log is so powerful is that Writing forces you to think.
The value of the personal decision log isn’t the completed log itself, but rather, the completing of the log. I never sat down to write a decision log with a decision made. It’s by writing the log that the most appropriate call starts to surface until it stares at me in the face because of how obvious it has always been, deep down.
I write myself into the right decision. The log is essentially a living document, and the decision, and the considerations, and the ponderations, all take shape gradually, as I progress through it. It’s as if I was debating the decision with a sparring partner, one who is deeply intentional and committed to it, and who has the power to help me challenge and surface my assumptions. When I write a log, both me, and the log, are working together to get me to the most appropriate answer. And that, is the real power of the log.
About 40% of the decisions I have made through the log were actually not the ones I thought I was going to end up with when I started the writing process.
I write to think. I decide through writing. This is why Transformative Letter is something I keep writing (although the slowly ticking up of subscribers is so gratefully appreciated, and I am grateful to each and everyone of you for being with me on this journey).
When the outcome of the decision becomes clear (I always schedule a time to revisit the decision), I reflect and document how things have gone, what I could have done differently, and what lessons I can take from a decision. I also apply a Red-Amber-Green rating to each decision, so I can track, historically, how my decision-making quality evolves over time.
Try it out
Like everything I share in this letter, I recommend you try it out. It has added a lot to my performance, and I hope it will for yours too.
There are loads of templates online, and I have evolved mine from a combination of three sources that were shared with me in private, focusing on optimising that process of writing myself into a decision. Happy to share mine with a brief explanation if you reply to this email, though! I can’t promise it will work for you, but it could be a foundation for you to reflect and build your very own!
Let’s finish 2024 with excellent decisions, shall we?