Decisions, Decisions

Consulting and Seminars from

H.F. Lillywhite, Logical Learning and Consulting

503-649-7647 email: decisions@hfl-llc.com

The quality of our work and our lives depends, to a great extent, on the quality of our decisions.

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Decision-making/Leadership Styles - two hours

Note: If desired this seminar can be broken into two parts, one on personality types and the other on methods of decision-making. Clients may purchase either part as a one-hour seminar.

Goal 1: Participants will recognize which personality type they have in terms of decision making/leadership and will use the strengths of that style while avoiding its weaknesses. They will also recognize the style of their own leaders and work effectively with those leaders to overcome weaknesses while benefiting from strengths. The ultimate outcome will be a melding of strengths from each of the four styles and using the most appropriate skills of each for different problems. They will use teamwork to combine the best skills from all team members.

Goal 2: Participants will understand the different decision-making methods and for important decisions will move toward the vigilent information processing method. They will use their understanding of the other four methods to avoid the problems those methods cause.

This seminar introduces participants to two different ways to classify decision-making styles. Both are useful.

First, we consider four different personality types and how they apply to decision-making and leadership. These are:

Drivers: people who make decisions quickly and get things done. They are good at moving the process forward but can move too quickly and make bad decisions. This includes the "Do something even if it's wrong" group.
Architects and Analysts: the polar opposite of drivers, they insist on considering everything. This makes for excellent decisions. However, they can cause "paralysis by analysis."
Relationship Masters: pay a lot of attention to people. They are great for keeping people from being forgotten and making sure the human aspect is considered. Their weakness is that they are very subject to groupthink and sometimes slow the process excessively.
Spontaneous Motivators: The "light bulbs," appeal to emotion and excitement. They add spark, passion, and motivation. They often stir the pot, resulting in good ideas. However too much of this can lead to overreaction and dissent. In extreme cases they become charismatic cult leaders.

The best decisions come from application of the strengths of each personality type and compensation for the weaknesses. Our goal is to (a) help participants recognize where they fit in these types, and (b) learn to combine the strengths of each type in their own decisions.

The second way of thinking of decision-making styles is to consider methods of decision making. This gets into "the good, the bad, and the ugly." We discuss five ways of making decisions of which only one is really good. However the other four are common and cause problems. By considering the "bad and the ugly" we can help participants avoid them and make decisions using ”the good.”

The methods considered are:

Unconflicted inertia – unthinking decisions not to change.
Unconflicted change – thoughtless change to a new course of action.
Hypervigilance - panic, tunnel vision and other problems associated with emotional overload
Defensive avoidance - finding ways to ignore unwelcome information
Vigilant information processing - an excellent way to make a decision. This includes consideration of all aspects of the question plus a complete review of goals, options, means, obstacles, probabilities, consequences of action (positive and negative), and risk analysis.

The seminar format is interactive and participants are asked to provide examples from their own lives.