Learn Decision making skills from the (US) government

At first I was quite surprised with the "wealth" of information available on the Small Business Administration site.... at least at a high level - ya'know, squinting. They have 4 nicely organized sections to "Plan your business", "Start your business", "Manage your business" and "Getting out"... So I'm looking through the basic headlines of each subsection thinking "hey, this is pretty good..." seeing things like "Choose a structure" and "Lease Equipment" and "Get Insurance" - a total of 30 sub-categories, including the one which caught my eye enough to go deeper, labelled "Make Decisions".

Following that link gave me three subsequent links - including the winner of my next click, called "Are You A Good Decision Maker?".

Here lies the key secrets to government beauracracy (which they apparently think should now be applied to small businesses).
The first section, called "Ten Steps to Wise Decision-Making" should actually be called 'Ten ways to put off making a decision for as long as possible'... Each step requires deeper and deeper analysis of the potential alternatives - with no limits - starting with defining the decision to be made and the insightful lesson to ask yourself "Do you really need to make a decision? (if you do not have at least two options, there is no decision to be made)". Then to "Brainstorm as many different alternatives as you can imagine - let your imagination run free..." - including the wise suggestion to "just be sure to write everything down" (clearly there was an auditor on the editorial staff). The next 6 steps require further discovery and then deeper dives into all the potential alternatives of your pending decision which may exist in this universe and elsewhere (at this point, I fully expected them to suggest that I go search my grandmother's attic - or attend 4 more years of college to uncover even more potential alternatives).... afterall, "Additional information generally leads to more alternatives"... so I should "check out", then "Sort through", then "visualize the outcomes", then "do a reality check" (you think they did one?), then, finally, pick the "wise decision" and "Get started!". So here in step 9 is where the true decision-making spirit glistens... "Second-guessing yourself will only cause grief" so "you always have the option of changing your mind in the future" - which sounds like a euphamism for 'go to step 3 and randomly choose another of your deeply analyzed 417 potential alternatives'. Oh my.. step 10 actually does suggest this - "If the decision did not come out the way you planned, go through the complete decision-making process again"....

So, I'm guessing this process wouldn't work well for decisions like "Should I check my parachute?" - cause if I am unhappy with decision alternative #17 in that case, I'm probably not able to "go through the complete decision-making process again". I know, an extreme example - but just needed to make the point... 'cause even a decision like "should we spend our full year's marketing budget on this TV ad" is not exactly reversible...and it feels as important as the parachute example to the small business owner...

The best part (yes, better than the other best part) was in the next section labelled "Common-decision making mistakes" where they list "Not listening to your feelings or gut reactions" as a mistake... Huh?! The process never mentioned anything about intuition or gut reaction before now!! Where was that advice when I needed it! I could have saved 4 months and 62 yellow pads if I just listend to my gut from the beginning!! Why'd ya tell me to keep looking for alternatives!!

Yeah... I'm sure they just mis-titled this whole thing...

Take your Daughters, Sons and Toys to work

Today was ‘take your daughters to work’ day… so I brought my son ;)
First – a train ride… That’s almost worth the price of admission to a 6 year-old (“six and a HALF!”).
Then the Subway... whoa... now that's fun!
Then daddy’s workplace (booooringggg... but, wait. what’s this? Toys!! Cool!!).

Given that I work for a company which highly values ‘fun’, this was a fun day for my son and other kids who visited, and it gave me a new appreciation for the value of offering a fun environment at work. The fear that people would be unproductive with distractions like toys, scooters, video games, ping pong, and other kids’ indulgences is an ignorant view. That view ignores not just the value letting people enjoy themselves at work, but more importantly the benefits of trusting people to have good judgement and giving people freedom to get their work done in a way which works best for them.

Funny how reality and theory are at odds here... In theory, it seems right that toys at work is a flawed concept (particularly if you employ people who are just not motivated by their actual work) – but in practice, when combined with strong motivation to achieve a company’s mission, it works and gives adults the type of environment which is analogous to, well, kindergarten! An environment for learning, for exploring, for experimenting and for playing nice with other "kids" ;) Especially when those "toys" include musical instruments and chess boards...

One key difference to kindergarten is the appreciation we adults have for fun in camparison to say, paying bills or going grocery shopping, or getting the insurance information from the guy who just cut you off and made you crash your car, or going to the doctor to find out what that pain in your chest is...
Toys at work? - I love it.