Alicia Davis
Stacie – decisions, decisions, decisions, decisions! So I have had a ton of coaching clients this past week, and whether they’re leaders, whether they’re teams, it just seems like, as people, we have to make a lot of decisions all the time in lots of different ways, and boy, sometimes it’s easier than others, isn’t it?

Stacie Watson
It’s so true. I think we can feel decision fatigue for sure, and you know, as you said, you feel it at all levels, right? Because, you know, we’re all making decisions all the time, and so today we thought we might just take a moment and break down a couple of pieces of decision-making from a process perspective, just to reinforce what might be helpful, you know. And it kind of starts in a very obvious place, and this often is what we see tripping up teams, and that is really understanding the problem or the challenge. You know, you can ask five people about the problem or the challenge, and if you get five different perspectives or five different answers, it makes sense that coming to a decision is going to be difficult because we’re sort of solving for different things. So, taking the time to really say, “Okay, let’s identify and define the problem that we’re trying to solve,” which will then sort of help us with the next step, which is brainstorming possible solutions. Right?

Alicia Davis
Right. And I think one key thing to add about that problem-solving is that we have to be able to regulate our reactions to people’s opinions first, and then be able to more objectively go in and say, okay, why are we considering this? What are some of the options? What are the outcomes that we’re looking for? But I think sometimes we can even get caught up, even in the beginning of the process, around getting very attached to our opinions or our perspectives, and so really being able to, you know, take a couple of breaths, try to take a step back, really consider, okay, all the things that we said, and then really look at, okay, priorities. How does this align with priorities? What kind of resources do we have? Is this the right time? Do we have the right staff? You know, does it align with our strategic initiative? Like all of those things, we can get to it kind of step by step if we can, if we can, if we can have that kind of iterative conversation about it.

Stacie Watson
Yeah, you know, there’s a little bit of freedom that comes from what you know we in the, I guess, consulting world call, or coaching world call, whiteboarding, right? When we just put up ideas without necessarily attaching to them, just really thinking about possibilities, I think it can really help us get to better outcomes because we aren’t so constrained by being tied to one idea. And then I guess finally the other piece that we just know is helpful is really understanding, at the end of the day, who will be making the decision. You know, all the information is gathered. We have the options. Is this going to be kind of a democratic vote kind of decision process, or is it going to rest with one particular person? Just having clarity on that, I think, could be helpful as well. So, yeah, decision-making is part and parcel of being part of a team, right?

Alicia Davis
That’s right. That’s right. And so, feel free to reach out to us. We’ve got a number of different tools that can be helpful. So, info@tlstransforms.com, and I’m Alicia Davis…

Stacie Watson
I’m Stacie Watson…

Alicia Davis
And thank you so much.

Stacie Watson
Thank you.