Issue 282 - Making Decisions

While I was out last week I asked one of my employees to draw up a "Franklin T." After he stared at me blankly for a minute I outlined what I meant and he caught on. The Franklin T is an excellent tool for decision making when you're faced with two or more valid options for a solution, and by adding it to your business management toolkit you can improve communication within your company. Oh, and don't worry, Casey gave me the thumbs up on the intro to the topic and admits he definitely gave a blank stare.

One of the common problems with growing a business is transitioning your own role from a single point of authority (the owner that makes all the decisions) to an owner that manages the decision making processes. One concern is that not everyone knows how they make decisions. (If you doubt me about this ask a younger child who has just done something wrong why they did it, you'll get to see that blank stare Casey gave.) One way you can start to manage the decision making process is to give your employees decision making tools that you can discuss and reference back to when evaluating the decision.

Ben Franklin laid out one such method:

“My way is to divide half a sheet of paper by a line into two columns; writing over the one Pro and over the other Con. Then during three or four days’ consideration, I put down under the different heads short hints of the different motives, that at different time occur to me, for or against the measure. When I have thus got them altogether in one view, I endeavor to estimate their respective weights; and where I find two, one on each side, that seem equal, I strike them both out. If I judge some two reasons con equal to some three reasons pro, I strike out five; and thus proceeding, I find where the balance lies; and if after a day or two of further consideration, nothing new that is of importance occurs on either side, I come to a determination accordingly.” –Benjamin Franklin

Ben's method has several benefits and has been restructured several times over the centuries to make it more 'official' but let's break down the key concepts of the decision making process he's outlined. You can use these decision making processes on your own, or in a group setting.

Make it physical and visual - It is very tempting to 'talk out' a problem or to 'think over' a decision, but the trouble is most people only retain twenty percent of a conversation's content. Get your thoughts down on paper, or on a whiteboard.
Revisit the decision making process several times - Ben was convinced that every aspect of a situation won't occur to you at the same time. For important decisions go back to the paper several times to make sure you come at it from every angle. You can accelerate this process by bringing the idea up for discussion in a group setting, getting many people's ideas down at once.
Weight the pros and cons respectively - Assign an importance to the different Pros and Cons you come up with. While doing a bit of reading on the Franklin T I came across this spreadsheet style variation that you might want to look over.
Eliminate balanced weights of Pros and Cons - Just like you can't think of every idea on the first pass, it's unlikely that you can consider every aspect of every idea you've jotted down and come up with the right balance in your head, to refine your decision match like weighted items on both sides of the line and cross them out.
Keep the Results - Once you or your employees arrive at a decision hang onto a copy of the Franklin T you've made. You can then review the results of the decision and compare it to the process you went through. Learn what aspects you might not have given enough weight to, or identify topics that you left off the list.

We really do most of this in our head but the problem is my head forgets things and sometimes I lose track of my priorities and what weight they have on my decision By putting them in writing and analyzing my choices I can truly see what my criteria is for my decision and revisit it like Ben suggests before finalizing.

Hope this old time method helps you folks as much as its helped me in the past.

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