You’re driving down a crowded road at high speed. It’s dark, it’s wet, you don’t know the area and you’re looking for a hotel to stay for the night. Up ahead there’s a busy T-intersection and you have to make a choice: turn left or turn right. Straight ahead is not an option.
Decision Time.
On the left turn you can see a Hotel (you’re in a country that drives on the left so it’s an easy choice in traffic). To the right theres a sign pointing right to a long road to a different hotel. Which way do you turn?
Of course you turn left.
19 out of 20 people will make the same choice. The Left turn is the easy, obvious, automatic answer. The Right turn represents the harder, less certain and riskier choice.
The Left turn represents the easy Answer.
The Right turn represents the journey to Solving the problem you have.
The Left turn represents Binary Thinking. Binary Thinking demands fast Yes/No answers, and thinks in certainty, black and white.
The Right turn represents Directional Thinking. Directional Thinking requires moving forward, experimenting, learning, solving.
Turning left is easy. It’s what we do when we’re under stress.
Turning right is harder, and takes you on a longer more uncertain journey. It’s the path we take when we have time, and wish to explore.
In business this choice to deal with an issue via the quick way or the hard way is the first and Most Important decision. Each single decision doesn’t matter by itself, it’s how often we turn Left or turn Right that counts. How often you do it separates Binary thinkers from Directional thinkers. How often separates failure from success.
Binary thinking and easy answers get us through the day but they also close down problems. Once a decision is made, our minds go to work rationalizing why it was the right decision, so you may never even realize if you made a mistake. Directional thinking takes a longer route and solves Problems. Directional thinking also drives Human progress. It drives progress because the journey to solving the problem uncovers new ideas, and new solutions.
It’s how We Gain Knowledge.
Directional thinking isn’t for every decision, you don’t have time. But it is a mindset. Its your mindset that defines your leadership. The Leadership Question is: When do you take the Binary Yes/No decision and when do you go down the less certain, Directional path?
Of course it’s not just about You. Your team has to make most decisions without you, so your job as a leader is to make sure they think Directionally too. They can’t just be binary thinkers waiting for the easiest answers.
“Each single decision doesn’t matter by itself, it how often we turn Left or turn Right that counts.”
Education matters here, and not just in school. Someone who has been trained to follow rules, to learn procedures and by rote is being trained to be a Binary thinker. An education that teaches you to think openly, and a workplace that encourages experimentation are teaching people to be Directional thinkers. If your people were educated to memorize answers and follow hierarchy you will have to work harder to encourage them to think Directionally – to take more Right turns.
That’s why Team culture matters – not so that everyone is happy but so that creative and balanced decisions are taken. A poor culture creates Fear and Fear drives people to Binary Thinking. The Culture you create and the example you set leads your team either Left to the easy answers or Right on the path to knowledge.
When you take the longer Right hand path your team needs help further along the way. This is where classic CI tools like DMAIC help. Its also why they don’t help Binary thinkers.
Are you a Binary thinker or a Directional Thinker? Do you turn Right looking to solve the Problem or a quick Left to satisfy the answer?
If you’re willing to take more Right turns across the traffic, you should know there are many struggles and U-Turns which you’ll encounter along the way. Next week I’ll talk about the 2nd hurdle you’ll meet on your journey to success.
Left turn decision makers don’t take the time to understand what they are really trying to solve, as a result they continue to fix the same issues over and over and learn very little!
Brendon, exactly right! Of course the trick is to decide what needs solving and what needs an automatic answer – more on this in a few weeks..
Hi Bruce,
This is a beautifully dramatic way of depicting the essences of decision-making.
Hopefully others have seen that their is a prima facie level (which might be missed as too obvious or too shallow?).
One of the biggest hurdles to successful business strategy is the failure of decision-makers to take on the challenge of the complexities of their decision pathways.
Turning left only requires simple considerations. Turning right demands multi-dimensional planning, including the human factor, asset appreciation and the community factor.
I look forward to seeing future posts.
Thanks Mark! I like the analogy (though it makes more sense where cars drive on the left!)