Option Solving Blog

Currently, we are grappling with the dilemma of how to take care of our very sick Aunt who lives 1500 miles away. We have been visiting with her on a highly regular basis to deal with doctor and hospital visits, but now her illness has reached a more advanced stage. We’ve discussed her wishes with her, as well as her options, but have not been able to come up with an optimal solution…hence our inclination to use Option Solving to find an optimal solution.

If you go to our Latest Example, you will see the question that we devised through our rational capabilities, along with the most appropriate considerations. That question was: “What is our best option for taking care of our sick relative; considering she lives a long way away, there is no immediate family living nearby, she has a 5 day-6 hour care worker now (Norma), there is a live-in housekeeper (Carmen), and Aunt does not wish to relocate to a cooler climate?” Other considerations were taken into account, although the ones used here were roughly 50% of the list.

With this in place, we set about pinpointing two “bookends” to frame option boundaries. These least likely bookends are there to set some limits, as well as spur our creative, intuitive minds to come up with the most likely range of options. After due deliberation, we unearthed: “Leave her to fend for herself,” at one end, with, “Put into hospice facility care” at the other. Their unacceptability is spelled out in our Latest Example.

It is important to come up with at least five examples in order to stretch the possibilities as much as we could. In fact, one of them proved to be: “24/7 nursing assistance at home –including VITAS hospice care “… Option D. Take a look at the other four options.

We then put our pictogram aside for around an hour for some emotional distancing and then returned to it after focusing on some other family activities. During that time our intuitive minds were diligently sorting through all our previous experiences to determine which option would best suit the Aunt’s situation. So when we did return to it, we quickly reacquainted ourselves with the options picture and made our intuitive choice. What would be your choice in the circumstances?

Once we made our choice, we immediately figured out an appropriate action initiative to make the most of the situation.. 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: “Getting my tech team on-board?” We’re always interested in your COMMENTS or go to peter@ileadershipsolutions.com to connect with the blogger.)

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