Are you one of those people who wants to make all the right decisions? Suppose you were about to buy something like a car or a TV, would you do your homework? Would you ask your friends, search for options online, seek recommendations from resources such as Consumer Reports, and read all the opinions you can find? Would you test drive several cars and carefully compare their features, maybe even right down to the seat-back pockets, number of USB ports, and mpg to the tenth of a mile?
Of all the corporate certificates I’ve ever received, the one I’ve valued above all others is the one that reads “The Person Most Likely To Dispute Recognized Authorities.” I received this honor for my relentless questions about the evidence and conclusions presented from studies by PhDs representing venerable institutions such as Harvard and Stanford. Looking back, I suppose I was completely exasperating.
Contrary to everything you’ve heard or experienced, debating pros and cons is not the way to make a decision! As with many practices—practices like SWOT and the pursuit of low-hanging fruit—just because it’s common doesn’t mean it is effective. So here is the problem.
Before I started Uncommon Clarity in 2004, I read Alan Weiss’ book Getting Started in Consulting. Any independent professional, whether consultant, painter, lawyer, or something else is in the marketing business first and foremost. Hanging a shingle on the proverbial door might let you call yourself a consultant, but it doesn’t let you practice it.
The human experience is paved with failed promises, mistakes, omissions, bad luck, and scary new situations. The consequences range from immediate regret to crippling anxiety. The situations run the gamut from saying something stupid to your supervisor to being asked to speak to a large audience to discovering your new house is threatened by rising seas after signing the papers at closing.
Agreement, as well as progress, starts with objectives. We will never agree on alternatives if we can’t agree on objectives. In other words, we will never agree on a route if we can’t agree on a destination! Thus, objectives are what we should be debating, not alternatives. Case in point: Gun control. The gun control debate is impossible largely because everyone is arguing about alternatives before agreeing on objectives. Here are just some of those alternatives:
I’ve never sold a house one day and a bought another the next. Until this week. While meeting with our attorney a few days beforehand, I quizzed her a bit to understand how wiring the money worked. I wanted to know the likelihood of the sales proceeds not getting through in time to cover our purchase the next day. Seeing that a short delay would have fairly minor consequences, I took the next logical step. What if the sale fell through completely due to some unforeseen calamity? I pictured ourselves arriving at the second closing with no money in hand and all our belongings in a moving van due to deliver within two hours. This is when the attorney said, “Turn your brain off or you will go crazy.” Now that is a statement with which I could not disagree more! For three reasons.
Massachusetts recently tried to make changes in state health care programs for retired civil servants. They had to back down when the retirees protested. The Governor, Charlie Baker, blamed a lack of communication. The Boston Public Schools recently tried to change school start times. They too had to back down following excessive protests. Once again, a lack of communication was cited as the culprit. This is stupid. This is the kind of thinking that leads to endless meetings where everyone is invited. Truth be told, no matter how many meetings you have, no matter how many people are allowed to have their say, and no matter how many explanations you distribute, you will have protests if you mess with people’s lives and expect communication to be the preventive medicine.
Look around you. Listen to the conversations. Read pretty much any meeting agenda. What will you find? Lots of people discussing, reporting, communicating, and reviewing – activities described by what I call treadmill verbs. Why do I call them that?