Decisive by Chip and Dan Heath, a summary

Read this summary if you want to more about:

  1. When YOU need to make a decision
  2. When you give advice to someone making a decision

The Heath brothers give a decision making framework, this is called WRAP

Widen your options

Reality-test your assumptions

Attain some distance before deciding

Prepare to be wrong

Widen your options

The main point here is expanding the choices you. Often times when you are making a decision you can be thinking very narrowly, for example, “should I move to New Zealand or not?”

These following tips will help you make a decision like that.

The vanishing options test

Imagine you couldn’t choose any of the options you are currently considering, they’ve vanished. Now you have to make a choice, so in our “should I move to New Zealand or not” example if you could not do any of that, would you do? Perhaps see how it is for 1 month, or spend holidays there, or move somewhere closer to home.

Think AND, not OR

If you have multiple options can you run them at the same time. Then compare and contrast, then combine some of the best bits from both.

So if your deciding what To-do list format you want to use, could you spend a week doing both and then review at the end of the week. Then perhaps you could use the best bits of each one.

Google it

There a 7 billion people on this planet, it is very likely whatever problem you are currently experiencing, someone has experienced it before. Spend 15 minutes doing research and you might be pleasantly surprised by what you find.

Reality test your assumptions

This sections focuses on gathering information you can trust and avoiding your confirmations biases.

Consider the opposite

If you’re dead set on moving to New Zealand, have a think about all the reasons it might not be, e.g. being far away from your family.

Ask negative questions

Often times you might fall into the trap of asking a question where a certain answer is expected. By asking a negative question, such as “What is the biggest obstacle I am likely to face in doing this?” or “If I were to fail, why that might be?”

Have a go

Can you trial what you’re wanting to do?

Say for someone wanting to become a doctor it would be advisable they do a 2 week internship in a hospital, to see whether they like it or not, before spending the next 10 years of their life doing it.  

Attain some distance before applying

The aim here is to make sure your decisions are based on your core priorities, and not only short term emotion.

The 10/10/10 rule

When making a decision, consider how you will feel about it in 10 minutes, 10 months and 10 years.

This method doesn’t assume the long term decision is the right one, but it does help you to see past that short term emotion.

Identify and enshrine your core priorities

At the start of each meeting, you could spend 5 minutes on your priorities and what you want to achieve, e.g. making your customers feel satisfied.

Then all decisions made will hopefully be from that perspective.

If it’s not a “Hell yes”, it’s a “no”

Say you have a really busy schedule, if you’re not saying “Hell yes” to it and being a 100% committed, then it’s a “no” and won’t make it onto your calendar, leaving you more time for the things that matter most to you.

Prepare to be wrong

Here we are focusing on planning for both the good and the bad outcomes

Run a premortem

It is 6 months from now and your decision is in a mess. Why did it fail?

Taking the time to consider why something may can wrong can help you mitigate those things if you want to make that decision, or make a different decision.

Set a tripwire

A tripwire is something that goes off when you have gone too far. It allows you try something new but have the security to of the tripwire to know when to stop. For example, if you wanted to start a business you could have a tripwire of 4 months to make a profit. After that 4 months if you are not making a profit you would stop, but if you are, then great, continue with your business.

Conclusion

This is a great book, well worth the read. Hopefully, you’ve gained what I believe are some of the main points. My favourite being the vanishing options test, so next time you make a decision use these tools and you should be more informed in the decision making process.