Heuristics at Work

by mnross | Dec 30, 2017 | Collaboration

When you get to a fork in the road . . .

Now that I have my own company, I have clients; before I had customers. But I’m getting very similar problems to solve that are being presented by people who can’t agree on a solution. Clients are saying, “My partner and I can’t agree on which approach to take. But I don’t want a conflict, so I’m going with hers (or his).” For customers, simply substitute “colleague” for “partner.”

There are many pat expressions we have at the ready to help us through this:

If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail;
You can’t solve a problem with the same intelligence that caused it;
If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there.

And we could all go on.

So how do you respond? Get more data? Flip a coin? Conduct a focus group? Put out a survey? Roll the dice? Apply associative heuristics? All of the above?

Several years ago I was taking a tour of Hunter Valley, the Napa Valley of Australia. Before we set out on a day of wine tasting, the guide asked our small group:

“Do you know what the best wine is?”

No one wanted to show their ignorance, but one person ventured, “Will we find out?”

The guide said, “It’s the wine you like.”

Let’s work together to solve some problems in 2018. www.michaelnross.com

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