What a life hack from Tim Ferriss can teach us about simplifying decision making in teams … 

Read more thoughts on the art of communicating week-daily at https://michaelgerharz.com/blog

Mentioned in this episode:

New Book Out in October

My new book “The PATH to Strategic Impact” is coming out in October. It’s about how to make your big ideas happen and turn ambition into true progress, with case studies from some of the world’s most successful organizations. Learn more at https://michaelgerharz.com/the-path

New book

Tim Ferris who hosts one of the world's largest podcasts likes to say

that he tries to make one decision that removes a thousand decisions.

And it's easy to see why.

For example, rather than to struggle each time you're standing in front

of the candy aisle, it's much easier to decide that candy just isn't for

you and skip the aisle altogether.

Or that you only buy this chocolate brand or use that phone brand.

Of course, for you it might be a totally different decision, but

Ferris's point still holds true: Making a thousand decisions is actually

exhausting even if they are small.

So, whenever you can find a general rule for your actions, life gets

a lot easier in that regard.

But here's another perspective on that, because I think that what Tim

Ferris uses as a life hack works even better for teams in a company.

It can be super frustrating and totally exhausting when every decision

escalates into a discussion about tiny details and different perspectives.

When you as the leader become the bottleneck to level the ground

and finally make the decision.

Aligning your team and focusing everyone on a common mission takes this load off

of yourself and of the team and makes life so much easier for everyone on the team.

But it does more than that.

If everyone agrees on a guiding star, the path you want to take together as a team,

decision-making can become distributed.

When it's obvious how a decision is made because it fits on the

path that everyone has agreed to take and to walk on, everyone on

the team can make that decision.

What's required for that is to get clarity about that path, about what actually

matters to us as a team and as a company.

And then for you as a leader to communicate this openly and frequently.