Option Solving Blog

Questions are often raised about how to motivate people, so we set out on a relatively simple quest to get the thoughts of executives wherever the opportunity arises. We want to give them an opportunity to determine this question through a series of options, which, at the same time, will give them a good idea of what Option Solving is all about. So, we created an option solving example around this interesting question.
Firstly, of course, we started to define an appropriate question, which started off like this: “What is our best option for keeping our people motivated, considering…” Two points here: A) Note the question starts with “What.” This is designed to engage our intuition, since we use our intuition to answer questions of opinion or open ended questions. B) We have introduced the possibility of considerations. If we pick the right ones, this will further provide our intuition with the ammunition to come up with a particularly good option.
There are many considerations that could be listed here and they would probably be different for different organizations. But we can reasonably assume three that might pop up: ‘Budgetary constraints,’ ‘Possible unrealistic expectations,’ and ‘Other stakeholders to keep happy.’ You can now view the final complete question under the Latest Example tab.
Then we came up with two “bookends,” the “yin and yang” extreme possibilities that come to mind from this question. The ones that immediately came to mind are: “Let people take care of themselves” and “Kill people with kindness.”
With these in place, our intuitive minds were now firmly challenged to come up with a range of plausible options between these two extremes. We didn’t have to think too hard to come up with the first one: “Utilize a high degree of incentives,” the other four you will find in our Latest Example.
At this point, you allow executives some time out for “emotional distancing,” by shutting away the option solving picture for 5-10 minutes, to give participants’ intuitive minds time to chew over the options and trade-offs, while talking about other things. They are then ready to make their optimum choice. If there is a group of participants, which always facilitates the best overall decision, then they are given the opportunity to make confidential choices to mitigate against the ‘herd mentality’. We’ll leave you pick the one that you feel best meets the question.
If you have an example of your own, please share it with this blogger, through the COMMENTS area. Thanks Option Solving. (NOTE: Next posting in 2 weeks: “Using Option Solving to decide on ‘On our best option for rewarding people without clocking their time?’” Let’s have your COMMENTS or go to peter@ileadershipsolutions.com to connect with the blogger.)

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