Tag Archives: decisions

A Better Story

Can bad decisions lead to better stories?

Let us suppose for the purpose of crafting an entertaining story that your lead character’s dotty, old Aunt Hilda—whom he hasn’t seen in forty years, and who recently died at the impossibly-old age of 103—left him, her only heir, the sum of twenty-five million dollars, all in bearer-bonds, and twenty-five cats who shared her last abode.

Your protagonist is elated, of course, and only mildly sorry he hadn’t taken time to visit the old gal from time to time.  After placing the cats out for adoption and depositing one million of those dollars in his personal chequing account to cover immediate lifestyle changes, he now needs to decide how to properly invest and grow the remaining twenty-four million.

To whom does he turn for advice?

He could enlist the help of reliable, established bankers, investment counsellors, financial gurus, and market analysts, all of whom would be eager to serve.  He knows he could safely rely upon these learned and experienced people, whose profession it is to help other people make money—being handsomely reimbursed for their efforts, naturally.  Let us call this the elite option.

But if he has never considered himself an elite, he might decide to call on twenty-five of his closest friends who—in return for the chance to celebrate (and perhaps share in) his great, good fortune—tell him they will devise a sure-fire strategy to determine how he will invest the bulk of his new-found wealth.  That strategy, in order to be enacted, need only be approved by a simple, majority vote of 13–12, swayed perhaps by the most voluble, the most persuasive of the group, rather than by the most knowledgeable.  

Let us call this the populist option, and if your protagonist deems himself a man of the people, he might well choose this second course.

Or, let us suppose for the purpose of creating another entertaining story that your lead character has been recently diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, out of the blue, and that she has very little time to decide on the best medical option that might save her life—although there are no guarantees, of course, from any of them.

To whom does she turn for advice?

She could, in addition to talking with her loved ones, consult with her physician and the specialists to whom the physician refers her, all experts in their field.  Before choosing her treatment plan, she might seek second, third, even fourth opinions from people who have studied their entire lives to deal with critical situations such as hers.  Let us call this, again, the elite option.

But let us suppose again, if she does not reckon herself among the elite, she might gather together concerned family members and friends, all of whom love her and wish her only the best, to ask, by majority vote, which treatment plan they believe she should follow—the established medical option, a naturopathic or homeopathic approach, or maybe an experimental route (which might require travel to a foreign country for procedures not approved in her home and native land). 

Let us call this, again, the populist option, and if she fancies herself of the people, she might choose this second course.

In these examples (deliberately simplistic, I know), there are dilemmas confronting these two characters and the decisions they would have to make.  To whom would they turn in such critical situations, the elites or the populists?

The authors of such stories, too, face these same dilemmas, these same decisions.  Which path should they choose for their protagonists to follow in order to compel their readers to stay locked in to the story?  And will those decisions prove good or bad?

In one telling of the first example, the lucky heir to the twenty-five million dollars might turn to the wise counsel of the investment community, prosper as his fortune grows, and live in a cloistered castle to a ripe, old age.  End of story.

But in another telling, he might seek the advice of his friends, invest and lose his entire inheritance based on their advice, realize belatedly the error of his ways, embark on a driven quest to recoup his lost fortune, clash and joust with pillars of the financial community, rise and fall again and again, only to triumph at the end—a true Horatio Alger story.  Or perhaps, in a cruel twist of fate, he might lose it all yet again and die miserably in an abject state of poverty.

Only the author can decide.

In one telling of the second example, the stricken person might rely upon the medical establishment and, after a period of treatment and rehabilitation, survive to live a long and happy life.  End of story.

But in another telling, the person might turn to family and friends for a decision, choose unwisely, see her condition worsen unto the point of death, only to be miraculously saved by the last-minute intervention of a handsome, dedicated doctor who refuses to be rebuffed by quackery.  The patient’s health improves dramatically, she marries her saviour, and goes on to live well into her nineties.  Or perhaps, in a cruel twist of fate, she is assailed by a recurrence of her disease, against which she vies valiantly, time and again, only to succumb in the end—a true Shakespearian tragedy.

Only the author can decide.

In either example, which do you suppose might offer the more entertaining story, the first version or the second?  The authors make their decisions in the initial writing, of course, but in the end, it is the readers who decide if those decisions are good or bad.

So, can bad decisions lead to better stories?

You tell me.

The Smartest Guy

During my working career, sometimes I was the smartest guy in the room.  But only sometimes.  Fortunately for me, in many of the situations where I wasn’t, I was the highest-ranking guy in the room, so the smartest folks, if they wanted corporate decisions and actions to go their way, had to convince me of the merits of their positions.

On occasion, that was relatively easy for them, because the evidence in favour of their arguments was plentiful and conclusive, and I’d have had to be the dumbest guy in the room not to understand that.  But I was never the dumbest guy, so in matters where there seemed only one reasonable course of action, not much convincing was needed. 

Other times, though, those smarter folks in the room would present conflicting data to me, sufficient to rule out an obvious choice, and that’s where the need to be convincing became paramount.  Whenever I was presented with two or more sets of factual data, each suggesting plausible courses of action, the art of persuasion became more significant.  And in such cases, I could always be persuaded by logic and passion.

Early on in my career, before I‘d reached the point where I was the arbiter in such scenarios, I watched as other smart folks made their pitches—sometimes in concert with me, sometimes in opposition—to those who would ultimately decide the matters in question.  And I learned that, absent overwhelming evidence in favour of one option or another, the most effective presentation of the differing bodies of evidence usually won the day.

Most of the folks to whom I reported along the way—men and women both—considered themselves the smartest guys in the room.  But just in case they might be wrong, all of them surrounded themselves with subordinates who might be—and who often were, in fact.  More importantly, the most effective of my bosses listened closely to their people, allowing themselves to be swayed by facts, logic, and passion—usually in that order.

I soon learned that passion alone would rarely, if ever, win the day with the smartest guys in the room.  For them, facts and logic were essential; they were, after all, rational beings.  But whenever reams of facts and heaps of logic offered divergent paths that might plausibly be followed, emotion entered the arena—enthusiasm, zeal, fervour, each of which is an essential part of the art of persuasion. 

Over time, I noticed the people who had the most success at winning over the decision-makers embodied similar characteristics, employed similar methods.  They were open and transparent about themselves, for example, and allowed others a chance to know them on a personal level, to learn what they stood for, what they valued.  When talking with someone, they focused exclusively on that person in the moment—leaning in, making eye contact, smiling and nodding when appropriate—all of which had the effect of making the person feel singularly important—even the boss.

The effective influencers were highly-visible in the workplace, too, and always asked pertinent questions of others in conversations and meetings to solicit their viewpoints.  They listened actively to the responses they received, sometimes saying them back, perhaps in their own words—not just to indicate understanding, but often to reframe the discussion in their direction.  They tried to establish links between colleagues’ ideas and their own, seeking to achieve synthesis—and eventually, consensus.

All of them were consensus-builders, but the consensus they strove for invariably skewed toward their own desired outcomes.  They would acknowledge and commend the results suggested by others’ proposals, then meld them with their own to offer higher-order outcomes, often coupled with a variety of strategies and tactics to achieve them.

One of the most effective of these tactics was their engaging habit of beginning their responses to others’ ideas with a phrase like, “Yeah, I agree…” or, “Yeah, I like that…”.  And then they’d segue to their own proposal by adding something like, “And if we were to combine that concept with this one…”, the point of which was to move the needle on the consensus-meter in their direction.

Without exception, all these folks who were successful at winning others over had a keen sense of anticipation, a nose to the wind for what might be coming, perhaps unexpectedly, and they made sure they were prepared with contingency plans.  I took notice of how they always had responses at the ready for questions that might never get asked, for objections that may never be raised.  They radiated readiness and competence, and as a result encouraged confidence in their abilities on the part of those around them.

With few exceptions, these smart folks with whom I worked were well-intentioned, not self-serving or conniving.  Almost all of us had the best interests of the organization at heart, and each of us believed the option we were advancing in a particular circumstance, even where it differed from colleagues’ proposals, was the best alternative for the organization.  We competed, yes, but for the overall good.

After I eventually ascended to the arbiter’s chair, the critical factor for me in favouring one proposed course of action over another was integrity—each person’s integrity, definitely, but also the underlying validity and foundation of her or his proposal.  The credibility of both the person and the proposal were paramount.  When those were in place, when the data and logic were clear, I was ready to be convinced, to be persuaded.

Even today, long-since retired, I consider the importance of having to be the smartest guy in the room over-rated.  One could be merely a shade above average in a roomful of average—hence, the smartest in the room—yet not particularly well-equipped to make critical decisions.

Far more important for decision-makers, I have always thought, is to encircle themselves with folks with the potential to be the smartest guy, and then encourage them, listen to them, take direction from them, and earn their commitment to a final consensus—a consensus that may ultimately combine elements of several proposals.

Now, if you’ve read this far, it’s possible that you disagree with me about some or all of my thinking, so feel free to persuade me otherwise.

I can be reached.