Option Solving Blog

Editor’s friend had a pretty positive conversation with her Executive Director contact of a well known public association by pursuing Option F: Suggestions to make our corporate membership as constructive as possible. The Executive Director suggested that she join a couple of newly formed leadership committees, in light of the friend’s leadership interest and expertise.  

Friend now needed to derive a new question related to Option F, which turned out to be as follows: “What is our optimum option for building a positive relationship  with XYZ  organization – “Peel Onion Option F: Suggestions to make our corporate membership as constructive as possible” – considering 1) phone-call has set more positive path, 2) suggested participate in two CORE leadership committees, 3) requires online –not in-person – committee  activities, and 4) fitting in with library professionals?” Again, editor’s friend was encouraged to stick with only four considerations to reduce the complexity of any eventual decision, when the moment arrives: despite there being other possibilities out there.

She was then encouraged to develop two fresh appropriate yin and yang “bookends”,as these would help keep her intuitive mind focused. Bookends such as these are vital for preventing our fertile intuitive minds from wandering and losing concentration. We are mostly unaware of how powerfully valuable but foot-loose our intuition can be unless we can keep it properly focused on such occasions.   

The two bookends that came to her mind were: “Minimal participation” –not engender positive relations;and “Take an assertive-expert role within committees” – likely to irritate other participants. You will note the italicized detractors associated with these least likely sub-options, which help to shut her other sub-options out of consideration. Even so, these bookends will now again nudge her intuitive thinking into high gear – see ourLatest Worked Example.

It was then be vital for her to come up with at least five realistic sub-options, although she ultimately come up with six within a decent amount of time. She was then positioned to pursue emotional distancing, which is a form of objective thinking, before making her choice sometime after that …perhaps after 2 hours, later in that day, or first thing the following morning. You can replace her proposed sub-options with any of your own. While they all resonated to some extent, she was now drawn to – Option DD: Look to make a key contribution early on – that mightshow the most immediate promise for building a positive relationship. She can then consider picking off any of the other possibilities.  

Assuming she decides to stick with this new sub-option, after some due emotional distancing; she can then proceed to a further level of “Peeling the Onion” to clarify how she should go about doing so.

If you have an example of your own, please share it with this blogger, through the COMMENTS area or contact him at peter@ileadershipsolutions.com .  Thanks Option Solving. (NOTE: Our next posting will be in two week’s time: “Further Peeling the Onion: Option DD- Look to make a key contribution early on?” Let’s have your COMMENTS or go to peter@ileadershipsolutions.com to connect with the blogger. Also consider buying the book: “Smart Decisions: Goodbye Problems, Hello Options” through amazon.com)

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