Make Better Decisions!
Decision making is predicated on frameworks + Be a master deal closer in a virtual world.
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🧑📚PERSONAL DEVELOPMENTMaking Better Decisions
Read: My Journey to Learn Better Decision Making
The article referenced above is my read of the week. The author - Aditya of Kaapi - gave a deep dive on how to make better decisions. Below are the key points I got from the article.
Decision vs. Execution - A mix of great decision making and average execution will yield a better result than a combination of great execution and average decision making. So, in as much as working hard to execute tasks and getting things done is a great virtue to have, a superior mental skill to hone is excellent decision making.
Your frameworks (values and perspectives on things) play a pivotal role in your decision making. Hence, a foolproof technique to becoming an excellent decision-maker hinges on carefully designed frameworks.
For Example:
Clients’ inquiries (Stimulus) -> Customer acquisition is preferred to retention (Framework) -> Customer support is not a priority so feedback is provided to clients whenever it is convenient (Decision)
Clients’ inquiries (Stimulus) -> Continued relationship with clients is highly valuable (Framework) -> There is a high priority in having a dedicated customer support team and consequently, feedback is promptly provided to clients (Decision)
There is always a choice to make decisions either impulsively or logically. The former is absolutely fine if the impact of the decisions can be reversed in case of an unexpected outcome. But when decisions will create an awry impact that can’t be easily altered, it is prudent to subject your decision making through the acid test of your frameworks.
Some interesting frameworks. Analyse the 2nd & 3rd order effect of your decision (magnitude of outcome) and play the long term game – make a decision today even if the immediate result is presently small as long as it compounds to give you an unfair advantage in the long term.
Negotiation in a Virtual Environment
Read: Line of Inquiry: George Wu on negotiating over Zoom and How to Negotiate Virtually
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought with it a lot of social changes, one of which is remote working and taking meetings virtually. If you are self-employed, you’ve got to keep selling and closing out deals. So, presented below are some of the things you should note if you are negotiating in a virtual world.
Make a personal connection - Before starting a negotiation, try and have small talk with your counterpart as a means of making a personal connection and setting up the stage for collaborative discussion. This recommendation is supported by academic research which noted that those who engage in small talk before jumping into negotiation have better financial outcome than those who don’t.
Use video as a means of Communication - Difficulty in reading body language is a disadvantage of teleconferencing but this can be suppressed by making video the default option for communication. Also, the bigger the view, the better. Thus, as much as possible, you should use a computer instead of a mobile phone for virtual negotiation.
Use feedback from previous meetings - Prior to a negotiation, you could use video recordings of prior non-negotiation meetings as feedback to identify things like optimal posture, placement of webcam and communication tone etc. While these may seem insignificant, they are factors that could contribute to successful virtual negotiations.
Video meeting can help get tough conversations out - Conversations that might be tough to have in real life during negotiation can be had virtually. A trick is to have what you need to say written out and read out as natural as you can be.
La Fin
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Image Reference
Photo by Vladislav Babienko on Unsplash