When I look back on all the major decisions I’ve dithered over, I could scream.
It took me a decade to commit to becoming a parent. I wavered for a solid year over whether to dump a commitment-averse boyfriend whose favorite expression was, “What’s crappenin’?”
When it comes to making decisions, foot-dragging can look like prudence, but “typically it’s just slow,” said Frances Frei, a professor at Harvard Business School.
She and Anne Morriss, a leadership adviser for Fortune 500 companies, are co-authors of the book “Move Fast and Fix Things.” They also host “Fixable,” a podcast in which they solve a caller’s problem in 30 minutes or less.
While Frei and Morriss acknowledge that some dilemmas are more complex than others, they maintain that many can be solved with “speed and momentum.”
Here are the five steps they recommend to arrive at a decision. To test the process, I tapped my best friend, Julie, who is debating whether to adopt a dog.
Identify the root cause.
Until you identify the true origin of your problem — what is really keeping you stuck — it will be difficult to move forward, Frei and Morriss said.
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