Option Solving Blog

Last time we observed how someone’s son had to make a new personal career decision. After going through the option solving approach, he decided to peel the onion, to gain more insight on the best way to handle his career situation. Now suppose he picked Option E – Find a good reason to postpone the interview. Pursue when have everything lined-up. Now he needs to create a new question, reflecting this particular option.

This question, with its considerations, turned out to be: “What is my best way of handling postponement of the interview, considering that it might jeopardize any opportunity for a future interview, I have to find a really plausible excuse, and I will lose the opportunity to clarify many relocation issues?” There were a couple more considerations, but he decided to focus on the 50% most important ones – take as look at our latest example.

Once again, he had to come-up with two Yin and Yang “bookends” for framing other potential options and to inspire a range of more plausible ones. These can be found in our latest example as: “Just ignore the invitation,” at one end, while at the other end, “Pursue interview.” In the circumstances, he saw these as rather unlikely for reasons indicated in our latest example. They did provide a useful framework, however, to start fresh thinking on the issues.

He ultimately came up with five useful options – again, see our Latest Example. You are likely to produce the best possibilities by coming up with at least five options: more than that would be an extra bonus. One of his options turned out to be: “Inform them: ‘On reflection that I’m not sufficiently ready right now.’”…option B. Take a look at his other four options in our Latest Example and see which one you would’ve chosen. He then proceeded with emotional distancing, to give his sub-conscious, intuitive mind time to mull over his five possibilities before choosing. A great way to come up with an optimal approach.

After about half an hour, focusing on something completely different, he returned to his option solving picture and made his choice. He then proceeded to make a simple action plan while everything was still fresh in his mind. Now he was ready to move forward with an optimal decision and game plan.

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: “Re-establishing a former key business contact?’” We’re always interested in your COMMENTS or go to peter @ileadershipsolutions.com to connect with the blogger.)

Filed under: Uncategorized |