Often in our professional and in our personal lives, we make decisions that either reflect our rigidity, and stubbornness towards change or we lack having faith on our own decision making ability allowing others to decide for us. Poor decision making happens due to lack of information to guide our thoughts, actions and feelings in the right direction and that can rob us from being in charge of our own life and destiny. It is said, “Human beings are not creature of circumstances; circumstances are creatures of human beings.” This is why prominent leaders such as Bill Gates, Gandhi, Oprah and our very own Professor Yunus rose to different occasions, showing the power of informed and conscientious decision making through trial and error. This shaped not only their own lives but also the lives of the people around the world. Each one of them were able to take empowering decisions that led to real changes in businesses and societies.
One such leader in the business world is Howard Schultz. Scultz is the Chief Executive Officer of Starbucks who started his journey from growing up in the poor projects of Brooklyn, New York and paying his way through college. But his life started to take a different turn the day he walked into a small espresso bar in Italy where he saw how a simple cup of coffee created connection and a sense of community. During that time, Schultz was working at a small coffee company in Seattle named Starbucks. He returned to USA with his burning passion to create such an experience to enrich the lives of the people through coffee. Unfortunately, his vision was not shared by the company as during that time when Starbuck’s operation was limited to selling only whole bean and ground coffee. In Howard Schultz’s book “Onward”, he wrote how his vision encouraged him to leave the company to start his own espresso bar and by 1987 was in the position to buy Starbucks which has now become a world renowned brand. He wrote, “As a business leader, my quest has never been just about winning or making money; it has also been about building a great, enduring company, which always aspired to strike a balance between profit and social conscience.”
COMING TO THE OPTIMUM DECISION AT THE RIGHT TIME WITH CONSCIOUSNESS IS CERTAINLY A DYNAMIC PROCESS WHICH REQUIRES US TO MAKE CHOICES AT DIFFERENT POINTS OF TIME FROM THE START TO THE END AND ALSO AT DIFFERENT LEVELS TOWARDS THE DECISION.
On February 26, 2008, he once again took a courageous decision to shut down 7,100 stores in USA for the day to retrain the baristas in the art of making the perfect espresso. Closing down the store that day meant risk of losing millions from the sales, media humiliation and sinking of stock prices. But, his intuition, his belief and his conviction guided him to make the conscious decision to detach himself from all the reasons to avoid investing in his employees. His confidence in doing the right thing paid off as Starbuck won the fight and emerged as the market leader once again, winning back the loyalty of their customers.
This story shows how an engaged and a conscious decision can lead towards achieving the desired goal. Life is a sum of all the choices we make. Starbuck’s CEO courageously made the decision to go against all reasons, and common sense towards a passionate conviction. Often we are afraid to make the wrong decision feeling afraid of failure. Our educational and social system, especially in Bangladesh, often weakens and domesticates our thought process, stopping us from taking a bold step outside our comfort zone. The option to practice decision making is also sometimes limited as we observe a system of dependency on others. However, recently there has been a seismic shift in the thought process among the younger generation where many are experimenting to break the mold of the conventional career path. Undoubtedly, it is a great change but at the same time, to be able to navigate through the challenges, one would need some tools that can help them to make better decisions along the way. Just like building muscles with physical training, we ought to strengthen our brain by making more decisions in every aspect of our lives.
I have always been intrigued with the thought process of those who are deemed as the outliers; the leaders who braved all obstacles to go for their dreams, not hesitating to make mistakes on the way. More admirable are those individuals who not only achieved outward success but also attained a deeper inner growth that allowed them to build a balanced and happy life in all three realms—professional, social and personal.
The decision making process gets better as you make more decisions through out your life. Therefore, we need to be open to understanding how each of us are navigating. Each one of us is unique with our unique life experiences, abilities and worldviews which influences the choices we make in our lives. It is our decisions through a process of self-cultivation from one point of time to another (T1,T2,…) on our self-knowledge or awareness,mindsets, character and moral standards, intution and levels of attachment on objects, ideas and people that leads us to ultimate decisions at TU that brings real changes. Coming to the optimum decision at the right time with consciousness is certainly a dynamic process which requires us to make choices at different points of time from the start to the end and also at different levels towards the decision. Each one of us needs to evaluate and re-evaluate the different elements of our lives while we enagage with the other factors that are beyond our control. Our experiences, therefore, help us to build a storage of information that can guide us towards effective decision making process having an overall positive change in the quality of our lives.
AN ORDINARY PERSON CAN BECOME EXTRAORDINARY BY THE POWER OF THEIR OWN DECISION MAKING TO MANEUVER THROUGH THE MAZE OF LIFE.
The following diagram takes an attempt to integrate some of the areas I discussed above to show a hypothetical path of an effective and conscientious decision making process that can lead to a improved quality of life. This process can be described in a much more comprehensive manner but the simpler version helps build some level of awareness on where we should be focusing on for a deeper understanding of the forces that can turn us into better decision makers. The diagram indicates that as individuals, we all are complex and organic beings with different degrees of involvement with ourselves, our families, communities, and the world. The following are some elements at the individual level that can be re-evaluated and improved at different intensities of decision making in our lives to ultimately become skillful enough to achieve personal, social and organizational effectiveness.
SELF-KNOWLEDGE
An understanding of one’s own strength and weakness at emotional, physical and social level can provide leverage to conduct an assessment of one’s own capacity and ability towards making effective decisions. Based on the Theory of Flow by Csikzentmihaly, it is our self-knowledge that allows us to become fully engaged in an activity that appropriately matches the challenge with one’s skill. This is the state of “flow” where one is immersed and fully focused on the task resulting in deep learning and high levels of personal and work satisfaction.
CHARACTER AND MORAL STANDARD
Character is all about who we are and understanding what we stand for. When we hold ourselves to higher standards—we cultivate humility, sympathy, honesty, integrity and other strong human values that can lead us to make ethical and conscious decisions. Without a strong sense of character and moral standard, we can often make decisions that not only can harm ourselves but our society and the world as well.
POWER OF INTUITION
This is all about what people feel. Leadership, according to John Maxwell, requires more than just the command of data but also demands to have the ability to read others, recognize the energy, the morale, the timing and the momentum. This is a power of a subconscious mind, which also could be enhanced through practice.
LEVELS OF ATTACHMENT
Sometimes we want to control everything around our lives showing higher level of attachment to our thoughts, our ideas, our beliefs, and to the people around us. Depending on personalities, we vary on our level of attachment to different aspects of life. However, we also need to develop the capacity to identify the areas where too much attachment can cloud our judgements and lead us to engage and experience life in a negative way. According to Migual Ruiz, “With the awareness of how we are to a particular belief or idea, we regain something very important: our ability to make a choice, to say yes or no all over again.” Therefore, it is crucial to recognize our attachments, and revisit them to realize our limitless potential towards the trajectory of our choosing.
MINDSET
Stanford psychologist, Carol Dweck explained how two types of mindsets influence our decision making. Those with “growth mindsets” thrive on challenges, converts life’s setbacks into successes, and see failure not as evidence of unintelligence but as a heartening springboard for growth and for stretching our existing abilities. On the other hand, people with “fixed mindsets” assume that our character, intelligence, and creative ability are static which cannot be changed in any meaningful way, and success is the affirmation of that inherent intelligence. However, as humans we can shift from one mindset to another with our inherent will power. Therefore, becoming attuned to decision making that builds positive change in our lives.
An ordinary person can become extraordinary by the power of their own decision making to maneuver through the maze of life. We all are works-in-progress and this is why we should keep searching for ways to become our best versions through learning and re-learning. It doesn’t matter where we start out but the decisions we make about where we are determined to end up will define who we were during our tenure in this world. There is a saying by Anthony Robbins, “It is in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped.” And that is why we should focus on which elements we need to tweak at different moments of our lives to enhance our ultimate decisions at TU which can guide us to a productive and improved quality of life.
