Option Solving Blog

What is my best option for motivating my current team: using Option Solving?
A while back I found myself talking with a specialist team leader about his team and his best option for motivating them.
As we reviewed his situation, we moved toward outlining the appropriate question for his dilemma. We quickly came to a question starter: “What is my best option for motivating my current team, considering…”
I then encouraged him to list the relevant considerations, which were several, and he then picked the four most important ones, such as: “It’s a relatively inexperienced group, I have minimal resources at my disposal, I don’t wish to manufacture a situation, and I need to make my people’s motivation as durable as possible.” Look at the Latest Example to see his complete question.
Now we had the right question in place, he had to come up with two “bookends”…these were to be extreme options that would frame his overall option picture. We fairly quickly established these as: “Let team members do their own thing,” that is, find their own level of motivation, and “Shower them with kindness,” which was just as unlikely. Since these were extreme options, his intuitive mind began rejecting them by seeking more plausible ones.
With some nudging he came up with five options, which you can see in the Latest Example. His first one was: “Promote greater responsibility/accountability for their projects.” You can see the four other options in our Latest Example.
It was important at that point to invoke some “emotional distancing,” to allow his intuitive mind to reflect on his five alternatives compared to the question. So we talked about some unrelated issues for a while and then returned to the options picture he had created. By this time, his intuitive mind had had the opportunity to search through his past experiences to find similar situations and outcomes. Its ability to interpret his picture and make a choice was therefore almost immediate.
We won’t share his ultimate choice because that was something unique to his own circumstances. You could see real “peace of mind” coming with his chosen option because he had reviewed all the most reasonable options and picked the optimum solution: a big advantage with option solving.
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 ‘What is my best option for minimizing airline baggage fees?’” Let’s have your COMMENTS or go to peter@ileadershipsolutions.com to connect with the blogger.)

Filed under: Business Decision Making, Decision Dilemmas, Personal Decision Making | Tagged: Motivating People |