How Great Decisions Get Made: 10 Easy Steps for Reaching Agreement on Even the Toughest Issues

Part 1: Making Great Decisions

Figure 1: The cycle of fear and scarcity.

Figure 2: The cycle of hope and improvement.

Figure 3: The decision process that encourages learning and gets results.

Step #1: Enlist Everyone: Invite Hidden as Well as Visible Talent and Avoid Creating Enemies

Figure 4: Excluding people wastes time and misses opportunities.

Figure 5: Funnel everyone and their ideas and you get better results.

Figure 6: Inclusion Checklist.

Step #2: Discover Shared Hopes: Multiply Your Prospects for Success

Figure 7: Plumbing the depths of Rosa's hopes.

Step #3: Uncover the Real Issues: Listen to Thoughts and Feelings

Figure 8: Accurately reflect thoughts and feelings.

Figure 9: Find the real issue.

Step #4: Identify all Options: See the Whole Tree before You Go Out on a Limb

Figure 10: See the whole tree before you go out on a limb.

Step #5: Gather the Right Information: Look Through the Lens of Your Hopes

Figure 11: Look through the lens of your hopes.

Step #7: Write Down Choices that Support Shared Hopes: Take the Guesswork Out of Decisions

Figure 12: Use secret ballots to capture each person's best thinking.

Step #8: Map the Solutions: See Clear Results

Figure 13: Example— Solution Finder reveals best choices.

Figure 14: Use a chart like this to tabulate results and find solutions.

Step #9: Look Ahead: Be Prepared with Alternatives

Figure 15: Continue the learning cycle to succeed.

Strategy #3: No Guide? Follow the Self-Directed Process

Figure 16: Choosing between inside or outside resources to guide the process.

Strategy #4: Very Large Group? Solve Problems the Way You Play the Accordion

Figure 17: Play accordion style to work with large groups.

Strategy #6: Stuck? Dissolve Old Differences and Build Trust

Figure 18: Balance Nails game.

Appendix A: The Ten-Step Improvement Checklist

Figure 19: Ten-step survey results.

Figure 20: TQ survey score results.

Figure 21: Ten-step practices yield results.