Option Solving Blog

Let’s fantasize as we might, during this season of goodwill, that we bring all political parties together to provide a panel for making a recommendation on America’s near-term future using option solving. We ensure the all-party panelists are briefed on option solving: its seven key steps, methodology and tremendous decision advantages.

With that completed, we now get them focused on producing the right question to prod their collective intuition to create a range of options for choosing the optimum way forward. Their question and related considerations flowed as follows: “What is America’s best option going forward in 2014, considering there’s tremendous political polarization occuring, its economy is slowly turning around, there is tremendous uncertainty over its new health system, and there are many dangerous hot spots festering around the world?” The panel produced several other important considerations, although it felt these were approximately 50% of the total, but were the most important ones.

Once their question was ready, they were invited to develop two Yin and Yang “bookends” for producing a framework with their least likely options: along with the key reasons for setting them aside. They still acted as an important prompt in producing more likely options. In our Latest Example, you will see these came out as: “Just keep trundling along with deficit spending,” at one end, with, “Invade key trouble spots and bring them under control” at the other. Their extreme views will help our all-party panel come up with more creative and hopefully objective options.

Although option solvers will usually produce at least five possibilities for stretch-ing the limits of their thinking, this panel came-up with six. In two of the six, option C turned out to be: “Produce 3-4 joint-party, compelling, national visions + National debate + Referendum,” and option F was “Revamp education system at all levels and then create public/private exchanges to access capital for creativity push.”

Now that an Option Solving pictorium was in place, we gave our celebrity panel a late lunch break, as a form of emotional distancing, to talk about other things and let their intuitive minds subconsciously mull over their options. When they returned, they were immediately shown the pictorium again and required to put it to a vote after a quick intuitive review. Once the vote was in, they were given the option of either going straight to an action initiative, while the whole issue was still hot in their minds, or to pursue “Peeling the Onion” with their choice. They chose the latter to help unearth better option insights, which will be shared in two weeks time. If any readers have their own choices, please share them under the blog comments section.

If you have an issue example of your own, please share it with this blogger, through the COMMENTS area.
Thanks Option Solving. (NOTE: Next posting in 2 weeks: “Peeling the Onion with America’s future.” We’re always interested in your COMMENTS or go to peter@ileadershipsolutions.com to connect with the blogger.)

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Young people solving their career issues, again: using Option Solving ?

A young person in my circle, who has already made an unsatisfactory start in their career world, is now taking a fresh track to their career. That person decided to relocate and position self to pursue a graduate degree in a specialized financial field aiming for a fresh career option. Unfortunately, despite that person’s intention to pay-their-way, the local job prospects were far more difficult than originally thought. Even though that person had already started and invested in some intense preparatory studies, he/she had to reconsider their position relative to economics. This dilemma became a great topic for option solving.

He/She needed an initial grounding in option solving and was then ready to move ahead. So their first step was to use their rational talents to create a probing question for their innate intuitive capabilities to make an optimal judgment, based upon a range of options. Their question and related consider-ations came out as: “What is my best career option following my move close to university for graduate education, considering my intention to pay-my-way, good local jobs seem to be scarce, my credentials are rather specialized, I prefer the local weather and personal independence, recruitment is done in a ‘hands-off,’ virtual way, and am heading for a career in finance?” They came up with several other considerations, although felt the ones embedded in this question were the 50% most important ones. They represented both sides of the dilemma’s coin.

Now that their question was in place, they were prompted to develop two Yin and Yang “bookends” to create a framework with their most unlikely options. In our Latest Example, you will see these came out as: “Just wait for the right position to find me,” at one end, with, “Take whatever job comes along, regardless of salary level or job type” at the other. The reasons for these being unlikely are given in our example picture.

This person then focused on coming up with the most plausible options. Although they were encouraged to come up with at least five, to stretch their creative thinking, he/she came up with six. The second of six turned out to be: “Keep working on grad prep courses, get accepted to grad school and take on government loans, if necessary” …option B.

Comfortable with these six realistic options, they were now in a position to pursue some emotional distancing time by sleeping on these possibilities. However, they should not put themselves into a position to second-guess themselves. This means take one night to sleep on it, then take a quick look at their option solving picture – soon after waking the following day – and then take their decision and stand by it unless things dramatically change. Then they should proceed to make an action plan, while the issues are still fresh in their mind.

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: “A Mystery Topic ” We’re always interested in your COMMENTS or go to peter@ileadershipsolutions.com to connect with the blogger.)

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