The secret ingredient to making decisions

If you cook, you might make a meal. If you play an instrument, you can make music. If you are good at DIY, you could make a wall. In fact, you can make pretty much anything with the right tools and materials.

But can you make a decision?

You see “decision” is an odd word. It’s a member of little recognised group of words called nominalisations.

Nominalisations are things that you talk about as if they are objects (nouns) yet you can’t really touch them as such.

When you can’t touch an object, ask the question ‘is the noun for this object actually a verb?’ If the answer is ‘Yes’ – you’ve probably found a nominalisation.

Relationship isn’t an object, it comes from the verb Relate.

Recognition isn’t an object, it comes from the verb Recognise.

Improvement isn’t an object, it comes from the verb Improve.

The interesting thing about nominalisations, is that people tend to think of them as ‘things’ instead of actions. So, instead of trying to improve, people look for improvement – as if it will be hidden in drawer somewhere.

Likewise, if somebody is in a bad relationship, they probably aren’t addressing how they relate to the other person. It’s much easier to blame the relationship.

If you turn a nominalisation back into a verb, you’re forced to address the action.

Decisions are the same. People try and reach decisions (objects) instead of focusing on how to decide.

Deciding is just a process. It has a beginning, an end, and a few steps in between. When you realise this, it is much easier to lead other people through the process.

Instead of making decisions, step through a decision making process.

If you write down the steps in your decision making process for any decision, the thing that immediately jumps out at you is that you have to answer questions.

How will this work? How many of these will we need? Who do we need to tell? When will it be ready? What happens if nobody likes it? Why aren’t they already here? Which one do we like best?

You see, really good questions are the secret to really good decision making. To truly Lead Decisions, you need truly fantastic questions - ones that make people go inside their head and really think before they answer. Or, ones that make people close their eyes as they search for a response.

I’ll give you one of my favourite questions you can ask at any point in a decision making process. You can save it up until you’re involved in a ‘making’ a really difficult decision – treat it as a secret ingredient.

The secret ingredient: How will we know that we’ve made the right decision?

Because to answer that question, people have to ask all of the other questions in the decision making process. What you elicit by asking that question are the criteria by which they measure decisions.

As you ponder that, I’ll leave you with one last nominalisation to think about:

When people speak of their career. Are they thinking about the noun or the verb? The verb hardly has a connotation of being in control does it?

If you want to take control of decision making, the 6th Rule of Instant Impact will give you more powerful questions and elegant language patterns that will help your turn your impact into outcomes.