I was reminded recently of a consulting client of mine who kept putting off an important business decision she knew she had to make. Diane had to decide whether to take advantage of a time-limited opportunity to make a substantial investment that she believed could possibly — but not definitely — make her business way more successful in the future.
Diane was troubled by the fact that she wasn’t following through on her intention to make this hugely consequential decision. She tried over and over again to consider the pros and cons of taking the plunge, but the harder she tried, the more stuck she felt.
When more motivation won’t help
I realized that it would be pointless for me to recommend a strategy that would increase Diane’s motivation to decide. Motivation clearly wasn’t the problem — Diane was already highly motivated to make the decision — and showing her how to manufacture more motivation wouldn’t solve the problem and would probably make her feel even worse about being stuck.
Of course, being stuck meant that Diane had already done her homework. She had already thoroughly considered her options. And she was now spinning her wheels only because as hard as she tried, she couldn’t find a logical basis for making the decision. There was just as much to commend going ahead with the investment as there was to taking a pass.
“Yes, I should take the plunge,” she concluded. “No, I shouldn’t take the plunge,” she concluded. Diane was stuck NOT because she had no idea what she should do, but because she had two totally contradictory ideas of what she should do!
A counterintuitive strategy for getting unstuck
Frustrated, exhausted, and getting absolutely nowhere, Diane took a step back to examine her dilemma. “If only I had a crystal ball and knew what the future was going to bring, I would have decided already,” she told herself. “But because things that would make the decision a no-brainer haven’t happened yet, I feel like I’m being forced to take a shot in the dark,” she thought. ”I guess it’s really no wonder I’ve been so reluctant to pull the trigger,” she concluded.
Having taken herself off the hook for failing to make the decision, Diane was ready to take the important step that finally got her unstuck. Spoiler alert: The step required her to set aside logic, which she was willing to do because logic had obviously not helped her get out of the mud.
Diane decided to make the investment IF a particular customer of hers made a purchase by the end of the month. If that customer didn’t make a purchase, she wouldn’t make the investment.
It’s important to note that whether or not this particular customer made a purchase wasn’t particularly relevant to the substance of the decision Diane had been unable to make. But that didn’t matter. Diane realized that to get unstuck she needed to set things up so that the important decision would AUTOMATICALLY be made by an IF. What she needed, in other words, was a tiebreaker. And it didn’t even matter if the tiebreaker was completely irrelevant.
Diane’s strategy worked. When her IF didn’t happen, the tie was broken and her decision to forgo the investment was AUTOMATICALLY made. She was finally out of the mud. After a huge sigh of relief, she moved on.
Should you give it a try?
The next time you have a tough decision to make, have already thoroughly examined your options, and are left just spinning your wheels, try setting aside logic and using the strategy Diane used to get unstuck.
It may seem counterintuitive and even reckless to set things up to AUTOMATICALLY make an extremely consequential decision like quitting your job based on whether or not something that’s barely relevant happens. But if you’re hopelessly stuck in the mud, inventing a somewhat arbitrary tiebreaker can help you get unstuck and move on. The strategy works by letting you essentially replace a decision you can’t make with one that nevertheless gets the job done.
We just tried it
My wife and I just used this strategy to AUTOMATICALLY decide whether we should have an expensive protective covering applied to our concrete garage floor. After spinning our wheels for weeks, we set things up so that we would AUTOMATICALLY decide to go ahead with the project IF — and only IF — the contractor agreed to make an unusual concession. We weren’t trying to negotiate a better deal. We were just inventing a tiebreaker that would AUTOMATICALLY make the decision that we had been unable to make on our own.
I’m slightly embarrassed to tell you just how arbitrary our tiebreaker was, but it worked. We asked the contractor, who had already given us his very best price, if he would throw in a fine new broom to sweep our fine new floor! After scratching his head and trying not to look quite as puzzled as we assume he was feeling, the contractor agreed, and the decision was AUTOMATICALLY made to go ahead with the project. Had he refused, honestly, we would still have a bare concrete floor in our garage.