Before You Decide: 3 Steps To Better Decision Making | Matthew Confer | TEDxOakLawn
Summary
TLDRThis inspiring transcript details a Stanford University challenge where students turned a $5 seed fund into an opportunity by selling presentation rights to a company. It outlines three key steps for effective decision-making: challenging constraints, embracing a pre-mortem to anticipate failure, and checking the basics to avoid overlooking details. The narrative is reinforced with examples including the 'Cobra effect' and the Mars Climate Orbiter mishap, culminating in Captain Sullenberger's heroic decision-making during the 'Miracle on the Hudson'.
Takeaways
- 💡 The winning team at Stanford didn't use the $5 seed money, instead they sold the presentation rights to a company, highlighting the importance of thinking outside the box and challenging the constraints of a problem.
- 🤔 The decision-making process should start by questioning the constraints that are presented, as they can limit innovative thinking.
- 🌟 The speaker runs a leadership development company that uses team-based competitive business simulations to prepare professionals for real-world decisions.
- 🔄 Post-mortem analysis is common, but the speaker suggests a 'pre-mortem' approach to consider potential failures before making a decision.
- 🐍 The 'Cobra effect' in India is an example of how not considering the potential negative outcomes of a decision can lead to disastrous results.
- 🚀 The Mars Climate Orbiter disaster was due to a basic oversight in unit measurements, emphasizing the importance of checking the fundamentals in decision-making.
- 🛫 Captain Sullenberger's response to the 'Miracle on the Hudson' is an example of challenging constraints, contemplating failure, and checking the basics in high-stakes decision-making.
- 🧘♂️ Before making a decision, it's crucial to balance envisioning success with contemplating potential failure to better formulate a course of action.
- 🔍 A pre-mortem involves thinking through how a decision could fail before it's implemented, which can help mitigate risks and prevent costly mistakes.
- 📏 Checking the basics is often overlooked but is vital in ensuring that simple tasks and details do not become the downfall of a well-thought-out decision.
- 🛑 The speaker concludes with the three steps to effective decision-making: challenge constraints, embrace a pre-mortem, and check the basics.
Q & A
What was the challenge presented to the students at Stanford University in the entrepreneurship class?
-The students were given an envelope with five dollars of seed funding and tasked with turning the five dollars into the most money possible in a short timeframe.
What did the winning team at Stanford do with the five dollars that was different from the other teams?
-The winning team did not use the five dollars. Instead, they sold the rights to their presentation to a local company for a fee, using the opportunity of the presentation to attract potential recruits.
What is the importance of challenging constraints in the decision-making process as illustrated by the Stanford story?
-Challenging constraints allows individuals to think beyond the limitations and come up with innovative ideas that might not have been considered otherwise.
What is a 'pre-mortem' and how does it relate to decision-making?
-A pre-mortem is a forward-looking analysis where one envisions potential failures before making a decision. It helps to identify and mitigate risks that could lead to unsuccessful outcomes.
What is the 'Cobra effect' and what does it teach us about decision-making?
-The 'Cobra effect' refers to a situation where a solution to a problem makes the problem worse. It teaches us the importance of considering the potential negative consequences of a decision before implementing it.
What is the significance of the NASA Mars climate orbiter spacecraft story in the context of decision-making?
-The story highlights the importance of checking the basics and ensuring that all teams are aligned on the same standards and units of measurement to avoid catastrophic mistakes.
What is the third step in effective decision-making as suggested by the speaker?
-The third step is to check the basics, ensuring that small details and simple tasks are not overlooked, which can often be the downfall of even the most complex and well-thought-out plans.
What is the story of 'Sully' Sullenberger and how does it relate to the three steps of effective decision-making?
-Sully Sullenberger's story of landing a plane in the Hudson River after both engines failed illustrates the three steps: challenging constraints by considering unconventional solutions, embracing a pre-mortem by contemplating different scenarios of success and failure, and checking the basics by ensuring all critical details were confirmed before and after the landing.
How did the speaker's company, Inability, contribute to the understanding of decision-making?
-Inability, a leadership development company, has facilitated team-based competitive business simulations for over 20,000 professionals in 30 countries, providing real-world insights into exceptional decision-making.
What is the relevance of the transcript's content to everyday decision-making, regardless of the scale of the decision?
-The principles of challenging constraints, embracing a pre-mortem, and checking the basics are applicable to all decisions, from personal choices to professional and critical decisions, helping to improve the decision-making process and outcomes.
What can we learn from the transcript about the common pitfalls in decision-making?
-The transcript suggests that common pitfalls include accepting constraints without question, focusing too much on success without considering failure, and overlooking the basics which can lead to significant errors.
Outlines
💼 Innovative Entrepreneurship Challenge
The Stanford University entrepreneurship class challenged students to maximize profit from a $5 seed fund. The winning team ingeniously sold the presentation rights to a local company, aiming to recruit the students post-graduation, without using the $5. This highlights the importance of challenging constraints to foster innovation and excel in decision-making. The speaker, running a leadership development company, emphasizes the value of strategic simulations in preparing professionals for real-world challenges and introduces three steps to effective decision-making.
🐍 The Cobra Effect: A Pre-Mortem Approach
The British government's attempt to control the cobra population in colonial India by offering a bounty led to an increase in cobra breeding for profit. When the program ended, breeders released the snakes, worsening the problem, illustrating the 'Cobra effect.' This serves as a lesson in the importance of a pre-mortem approach, where potential failures are considered before making decisions. The speaker uses this example to introduce the second step in effective decision-making: embracing a pre-mortem to anticipate and mitigate potential pitfalls.
🚀 Mars Orbiter Mishap: The Importance of Basics
The Mars Climate Orbiter mission's failure due to a unit of measurement mix-up between teams underscores the necessity of checking the basics in decision-making. Despite the high stakes and expertise involved, a simple oversight led to the spacecraft's destruction. This incident is used to introduce the third step: before deciding, ensure that fundamental details are correct to avoid letting minor details derail significant decisions.
🛫 Captain Sullenberger's Heroic Decision-Making
Captain Sullenberger's quick thinking and decision to land US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River after a bird strike is highlighted as an example of exceptional decision-making under extreme pressure. His actions, from considering various landing options to ensuring all passengers were evacuated, demonstrate the application of the three steps: challenging constraints, embracing a pre-mortem to consider various outcomes, and checking the basics to ensure a successful rescue. The story concludes the speaker's presentation on effective decision-making.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Entrepreneurship
💡Constraints
💡Decision Making
💡Pre-Mortem
💡Innovation
💡Cobra Effect
💡Basics
💡Simulation
💡Strategy
💡Sully Sullenberger
Highlights
A Stanford University entrepreneurship class challenged students to maximize profit from a $5 seed fund.
The winning team sold the presentation rights to a company, demonstrating innovative thinking over using the $5.
The importance of challenging constraints in decision-making was emphasized to foster innovation.
The presenter's company, Inability, specializes in leadership development through team-based business simulations.
Over 20,000 professionals from 30 countries have participated in Inability's simulations to improve real-world decision-making.
Three key steps for effective decision-making were introduced based on observations from simulations.
A pre-mortem approach was suggested to envision potential failure before making a decision.
The 'Cobra effect' from British colonial India serves as a cautionary tale against unforeseen consequences of decisions.
The Mars Climate Orbiter disaster highlighted the importance of checking basic details in decision-making processes.
The story of 'Sully' Sullenberger's Hudson River landing exemplified challenging constraints and effective decision-making under pressure.
Captain Sullenberger's methodical approach to decision-making ensured the survival of all passengers.
The necessity to balance envisioning success with contemplating potential failure in the decision-making process.
The importance of not overlooking the basics, even when dealing with complex strategies or plans.
The value of conducting a pre-mortem to identify potential pitfalls before embarking on a course of action.
The story of the aircraft's successful water landing underscored the significance of checking the basics in high-stakes situations.
A call to action for individuals to apply these decision-making steps to their daily lives to achieve better outcomes.
Transcripts
five dollars and a class on
entrepreneurship the class was at
Stanford University and the students
were presented with a challenge the
instructor split the group of students
into teams and then handed each team an
envelope with five dollars of seed
funding for their brand-new operation
they had one task turn the five dollars
into the most money possible in a short
timeframe the final part of this
exercise came early the next week when
each team was required to present to the
rest of the students highlighting what
they had done and the amount of money
they had generated I'm sure you were all
now strategizing in your head what would
you do if given the same choice and I'm
guessing you're wondering well what did
the winning team do would it surprise
you to find out that the winning team
didn't even use the five dollars so what
did they do well they sold the rights to
that presentation to the rest of the
class to a company in town that was more
than happy to pay them for the privilege
of pitching a group of brilliant
Stanford students with the aim of
recruiting them to join their
organization upon graduation
the winning team spent the short amount
of time they had maximizing the real
opportunity they had the presentation
which required challenging the
constraints of the exercise in this case
that five dollars in the envelope
constraints prevent innovative ideas
from ever developing step number one if
you want to excel at decision making oh
we start by challenging the constraints
I find the decision making process
fascinating
I run the strategy team inability we're
a leadership development company based
in Austin Texas that places people in
team-based competitive business
simulations to mimic the decisions they
make in the real world to better prepare
them for the challenges ahead in the
past three years alone over
20,000 professionals in over 30
countries have participated in one of
our simulations we get to work with some
of the most innovative companies on the
planet and we get to witness firsthand
what truly exceptional decision-making
looks like the three steps I present
today are distilled from those
observations and they focus on what to
do before you decide it doesn't matter
if you're a professional on the
precipice of a critical choice or a
parent in the midst of a conundrum
considering the path to take with your
child or student deciding what school to
attend or what major to pursue we all
make thousands of decisions each day and
we are all striving for an edge I
started with that Stanford story because
it highlights something that I see time
and time again in our simulation too
many teams jump right into solving a
problem and they accept all the
constraints we present them with if you
want to excel at decision-making begin
by considering what barriers are holding
you back start there and see what is
possible step number one challenge the
constraints to introduce the second step
I want to share something that probably
won't surprise you one of the most
impactful periods during our simulation
is actually after the experience is over
when people and teams reflect on what
went right and what went wrong we do
this often in life and we call this
exercise a post mortem because we wait
until the event has concluded here's
what our time with leaders around the
world has taught us take this post
mortem approach and flip it around
embrace a pre-mortem consider what
failure would look like before you ever
go down a path it's human nature to
strategize a prep and approach and then
formulate all of the ways that you will
be successful
don't get me wrong it is great to
envision your success and you really
should only pursue decisions that you
believe will have a positive outcome
however I've watched professionals
strategize Grandia
plans of the many ways they will triumph
in our simulation but many times all of
that energy comes at the expense of
spending any time brainstorming how they
might fail and the many ways they might
fail so now let me tell you a story
about snakes the British government and
a striking example of where a pre-mortem
could have averted a decision-making
disaster during the era of
colonialization in India the British
government was concerned about the
number of venomous Cobra snakes in Delhi
after countless failed ideas the
government decided to offer a cash
bounty for every dead Cobra initially
this was an extremely successful
approach as a number of snakes were
killed for this new reward here's the
problem
imaginative individuals started to breed
Cobras explicitly for the income they
can now generate it didn't take long the
government became aware of this and they
quickly scrapped the reward program for
dead Cobras however this led the Cobra
breeders to set their now worthless
snakes free the wild Cobra population
became even worse than it was initially
the apparent solution for the problem
made the situation even worse this is
now unsurprisingly referred to as the
Cobra effect it is also a perfect
illustration of the power of a
pre-mortem before we decide we choose
most often to imagine what success will
look like and then for some reason we
wait until the experience is over and go
over with a fine-tooth comb and conduct
a forensic post-mortem invest the time
upfront contemplating how an idea you
are considering could end in failure
step number two embrace a pre-mortem to
introduce the third step I want to share
a story from 1999 about a NASA mission
to study the climate of the planet Mars
after almost 10 months of travel and a
build cost of over a hundred and twenty
five million dollars
the Mars climate orbiter spacecraft
burned and broke into pieces due to a
navigational mistake the fascinating
thing about this failure was that it was
entirely preventable there were multiple
teams working on the project one of the
teams used the metric system in their
calculation another team provided
crucial data using inches feet and
pounds some of the smartest people on
the planet legitimate rocket scientists
forgot to check that both teams were
using the same unit of measurement and
the consequences were catastrophic thus
far I've stood on this stage and I've
told you that your first step should be
to challenge the constraints to allow
you to think big then I told you that
most of us are predisposed to
contemplate success and instead you need
to balance that and contemplate failure
those first two steps allow you the
capacity to think outside that
proverbial box we hear so much about
but the third step is vital and it's
often overlooked never forget to check
the basics
I have watched senior leaders of Fortune
500 companies concoct truly impressive
strategic plans in our simulation with
multiple levels of complexity in an
effort to win the game but many times
they let small details prove to be their
downfall during one of our simulations
completely unbeknownst to the
participants at the onset of the game
over the course of the experience we're
going to challenge them with unforeseen
external events these events range from
unexpected product recalls to social
media PR disasters all the way to
natural disasters like hurricanes that
put their virtual employees at risk many
times though it is actually the more
simple tasks of bringing a product to
market that trip a team up the steps
required to bring a product to market
actually don't change throughout the
course of our game and they're pretty
basic
but once we introduce intense adverse
events and the clock continues to tick
down
teams then struggle to complete those
basic tasks step number three before you
decide
check the basics never let the minut
details be the downfall of the decision
on your doorstep
we started with $5 ingenuity at Stanford
and then we talked about cobra snakes in
India and then we talked about
spacecrafts destined for Mars three
stories that highlight three steps to
effective decision-making I want to
finish with a story about January 15th
2009 when an aircraft with 150 people on
board took off from New York City
destined for Charlotte North Carolina
three minutes after takeoff an ordinary
flight became anything but the pilot
would later remark that he heard
terrible noises the likes of which he
had never heard before
and it felt as if the bottom had fallen
out of his world what changed the plane
had struck a flock of Canadian geese
causing both engines to shut down it was
at that point that Sully Sullenberger
took control from his copilot and
radioed a mayday call I don't know if I
can highlight any example of challenging
the constraints more than the following
exchange between Sullenberger and air
traffic control he had previously
considered returning to LaGuardia
Airport then he considered nearby
Teterboro Airport in New Jersey before
receiving the following message quote
which runway would you like
captain sullenberger's responds we're
gonna be in the Hudson the response from
air traffic control I'm sorry say again
after the event Sully would say that
given the fact that they were in New
York City one of the most densely
populated places on the planet it was
actually the Hudson River although an
extreme option that represented the best
chance for a safe outcome so he
challenged the constraints and readied
for a water landing at that point his
Prima
began he actually believed that he could
land his plane intact in the river but
what he did next was contemplate how
long his aircraft would float and given
that it was January he considered the
feasibility of a water rescue given the
freezing temperatures after walking
through different scenarios of success
and contemplating different scenarios of
failure he moved forward on his
decision-making path as the aircraft
approached the river he had his copilot
shout out airspeed and altitude to
confirm the critical basic details that
ended up leading to all 150 people on
board surviving after the landing and
during the water rescue there was
actually one final check to be done
captain Sullenberger walked the length
of the flooded aircraft twice to ensure
that no passengers remained on board
before he finally exited the plane each
day we are presented with thousands of
decisions it is my greatest hope that
you never faced anything as perilous as
what Sully faced that cold January day
but no matter the gravity of the
decision you face before you decide
first challenge the constraints to allow
you to think big and think different
next embrace a pre-mortem to mitigate
for potential mistakes and better
formulate the correct course of action
and conclude by checking the basics to
ensure that small details don't prevent
you from accomplishing amazing things
thank you all so much for your time
[Music]
[Applause]
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