8 Keys to Implementing Decisions Successfully

Greetings Decision maker,

So many great ideas and seemingly wise decisions fail in execution.

Exploring potential failures in decision making is particularly hard for me personally. I’m naturally an optimist: I think the glass is half-full and that the grass is greener on the other side of the hill. So using these techniques is extremely important for me in particular, as I know that my gut reactions will tend to lead me astray and cause me to fail much more often than I should. If you’re an optimist too, then you want to pay especially close attention to using the aspect of the strategy described below that protects you from failure and removes unnecessary risks; if you’re a pessimist, you want to focus on how to use the tool I’m about to describe to maximize success and seize opportunities.

Failure-Proofing

Failure-Proofing is an eight-step technique to prevent failures and maximize success in implementing decisions and managing important projects and processes associated with these decisions. I developed this technique based on research findings in behavioral economics and cognitive neuroscience studies. Failure-Proofing should be used after you made a decision to implement or substantially revise any significant project or process, as well as to check in regularly on the ongoing implementation of existing projects and processes.

This technique consists of two phases:

1. Prevent disasters in implementing decisions and managing projects or processes

Imagine that the implementation (or project or process) was a complete failure
Brainstorm all plausible reasons for failure
Generate solutions to these potential problems
Integrate these solutions into your project or process

2. Maximize success in implementing decisions and managing projects or processes

Envision that the implementation (or project or process) was a spectacular success
Brainstorm likely reasons for such success
Generate strategies that would lead to such success
Integrate these strategies into your project or process

To learn this method, start by reading the blog on Failure-Proofing:

My Bad Decision

In the previous Wise Decision Maker Guide email I shared the story of when my wife and business partner Agnes Vishnevkin and I made the right choice in buying a house in Columbus, OH, in 2015 by using the technique on Avoiding Disastrous Decisions. I’m embarrassed to share that we also made a really bad home-buying decision much earlier in our lives, when we still hadn’t learned the strategies to avoid decision disasters.

We decided to buy a house quite early in our relationship, in what I now realize was a foolish impulse to follow the American dream of being homeowners. We spent a lot of time looking for good options and finally found one we liked. Excited, we made an offer, and it was accepted, so we entered into a contract to buy the house and made an earnest money deposit of $1,500.

When we proudly shared the news with our parents, they were surprised and disappointed that we were planning to buy a house, and they encouraged us to have a more thorough look at all the costs and obligations we would have as homeowners. Only when we sat down and took a very close look at all the numbers did we realize just how many additional costs we would have in addition to the down payment and monthly mortgage bill. As renters, we didn’t have to worry about paying for upkeep, repairs, and taxes, and we didn’t factor in these costs when we decided to buy a home.

Eventually we made the painful realization that we simply couldn’t afford to make this purchase. We moaned and groaned, but eventually broke the contract and lost our earnest money. It was tough to lose the deposit, not to mention the embarrassment of our parents highlighting our poor planning and backing out of a contract because we couldn’t afford to buy the home.

I really wish we had the Failure-Proofing technique available to us when we were starting the house search. We’d have realized right off the bat that buying a house was a bad idea at that time in our lives.

Manual on Failure-Proofing

The Failure-Proofing technique has a number of counterintuitive elements that are uncomfortable and somewhat difficult to enact in regular business interactions. Most notably, you have to imagine that the decision, project, or process utterly failed. Doing so presents a great deal of emotional trouble to stakeholders in the project. So based on the requests of my consulting and coaching clients, I created a thorough Manual on Failure-Proofing. It offers a step-by-step guide using two case studies, one for a group and one for an individual, for preventing failure and maximizing success on important decisions, projects, and processes.

What’s Up With Me

I’m currently scheduling both public and private talks around my forthcoming book, Never Go With Your Gut: How Pioneering Leaders Make the Best Decisions and Avoid Business Disasters. For example, I’ll be giving the opening keynote at a higher education HR conference in North Carolina, entitled "Overcoming Resistance to Change Via Emotional and Social Intelligence for Higher Education HR Professionals," as well as several other clients.

Do you think the organization where you work might benefit from a talk on the book? What about an association to which you belong? Check out my speaking experience and potential book-based programs and let me know.

Next Time in the Wise Decision Maker Guide

Next time in the Wise Decision Maker Guide - which hits your inbox every first and third Tuesday, so November 6 for the next one - you’ll get a technique to develop a strategy to avoid threats and seize opportunities in any area of your professional or personal life!

Help Me Serve Your Needs
Was there a time in the past when you wished you had the Failure-Proofing technique available to you, whether in your personal life or professional activities? Tell me about the situation and how you think Failure-Proofing could have served your needs. I’ll rely on what you share to further refine and develop my content to make it more relevant for you.

Eager to learn what you think and feel about the Failure-Proofing technique and hope it serves you well in implementing your decisions in the most successful way possible!

P.S. Want to protect your decisions from failure and maximize success when you make decisions as well as when you implement them? As a follower of my work, you get exclusive access to pre-order benefits for my forthcoming book, Never Go With Your Gut: How Pioneering Leaders Make the Best Decisions and Avoid Business Disasters, not available to those who aren’t active fans.

Just pre-order the book on Amazon in any format, then enter your order information into this pre-order form, and you get: 1) A secure spot for the November 7 live webinar discussion of Never Go With Your Gut, available only for those who pre-ordered the book, and only while space is available, and 2) A digital version of the book that you can start reading right away.

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Decisively Yours,

Gleb

Disaster Avoidance Experts is a social enterprise dedicated to promoting science-based truth-seeking and wise decision-making. All profits are donated to Intentional Insights, an educational 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, and its Pro-Truth Pledge project.

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