Decisive by Chip and Dan Heath

One of the things I’ve learned in the agency business is that few people have a great framework for making decisions, especially hard decisions. In the creative world, we use design thinking to generate ideas, but most people struggle to pare those ideas down to what has a chance to win. It’s often not a lack of data; it’s a lack of process. And without a process, you’re stuck with flipping a coin, going with the gut, using a Magic 8-Ball, or following the loudest voice in the room.

That’s one reason I like the book Decisive by Chip and Dan Heath so much. It’s an easy book to read, and the Heath brothers do a great job of backing the ideas with examples and stories so it doesn’t come across as an academic study.

There are three key points I use every week in some way for little to large decisions:

First: Stop accepting a binary frame.
If the only options on the table are “do the thing” or “don’t,” you’ve cornered yourself in a binary frame. Instead, consider the vanishing-options test: if neither choice existed, what would we do instead? This forces you (and your team) to move beyond what’s expected, easiest, or even what has momentum, and rethink the options.

Second: Reality-test before you scale.
Confirmation bias is a killer in the creative world. It lets half-cocked concepts make it to market and kill brands and careers. The Heaths push you to look for the information that would prove you wrong, and to run small, cheap experiments instead of betting the full plan on a deck. Jim Collins calls this “firing bullets before cannonballs.” In agency life, that looks like a limited market test, a two-week creative sprint, a pilot with one segment, etc. Some jokes just don’t land. Some product ideas land flat. And sometimes you find a unicorn that makes you look brilliant.

Third: Get distance before you lock in.
When people are screaming for deliverables, the quarter is closing, management needs numbers … it’s easy to go with the idea people love now versus what will last over time. The Heaths recommend a decision model originated by business writer Suzy Welch to help you get some emotional distance. The 10/10/10 rule asks you to consider how you will feel about this in ten minutes, ten months, and ten years. It helps you overcome some of the emotion of the moment and balances perspectives.

There are other tools and techniques in the book that might work for you.

What’s a book on decision-making or a model that you’ve found helpful?