How I decided to be a house (yes, “be” not “buy”)
Today, I want to dive a little deeper into the first — and arguably, most important — component of the decision-making process: Objectives.
Determining your objectives is like determining the criteria for your decision.
Think about when you put an address in your GPS. There might be three different routes to get to the place you’re going, and you’ve got to choose one.
This is where your objectives are important. Do you mind tolls, or want to avoid them? Does scenery matter, or would you rather stick to highways?
Knowing what you prefer is going to make it a heck of a lot easier to make a decision about which route to take.
Now, about that time I was a house…
The first thing you should know is that Halloween is a big deal for me.
Making costumes is one of my all-time favorite hobbies, and I love dressing up. I don't go full-tilt every year because I don't always have the bandwidth, but if the timing and idea are right, I will totally throw myself all in.
The second thing you should know is that my birthday is on Halloween.
So you can imagine my excitement when Halloween lands on a weekend, like it did when I was in business school. And then my subsequent deflation when I found out I would be spending that entire day sitting in a class that was mandatory for my specialization.
Knowing that skipping the class wasn’t an option (at least not without consequences I was willing to accept -- more on that, soon!) I decided to show up in costume, and not just any costume —
My costume was going to be a form of friendly protest.
With that (highly desirable) outcome in mind, it was time to dig deeper and consider the objectives that would help me decide what that costume would be.
In other words, what did I mean when I say “friendly protest”? I had to get really clear about what criteria were important to me in the creation of this costume so that it could be a form of friendly protest (and, let’s be honest, a fun way to celebrate).
I knew this: I wanted this costume to be completely out there. It needed to be eye-catching and visually loud, blatantly reminding people that it is Halloween and we should be enjoying ourselves instead of sitting in a classroom. It also needed to be a costume that was obviously custom made, because that’s how I roll. And that particular year, it also had to be a costume that actually allowed me to sit in a chair from 9am to 4pm.
In summary, my objectives for this Halloween costume:
I had to be able to sit for 8 hours
It had to be visually loud
It had to be obvious it wasn’t store bought
Bonus: It had to be worthy of people asking to take a picture of or with me. (My Holy Grail!)
With those objectives clearly laid out, I started brainstorming.
This was 2009, when Pixar movies were at their absolute peak, so I hedged my bets that a Pixar-related costume would be noteworthy + recognizable. The film du jour was Up! so I started to cycle through my available options:
Do I want to be the little boy, Russell, or the old man, Carl? No, that's too easy, and too many people could be dressed as them.
Ooh, do I want to be the bird, Kevin? That could be fun, especially if I find other people who are dressed up as Carl and Russell.
Then I hit the idea jackpot… I was going to be the house. The best part? I could surround myself with balloons!
Considering my objectives, I felt the costume idea was solid. It said, “Hi. I'm here sitting in class, even though it's Halloween and my birthday. I clearly want to be somewhere else, and you’re going to remember that all day.”
Decision = made.
I put on my engineering hat and got to work drawing up the architectural plans for this house. Of course, the construction process led to a whole new set of decisions to meet my structural objectives, like being able to sit comfortably during the day and bust a dance move at the club that night.
(When I go to the club I dance pretty hard, but that’s a story for another time.)
But the point of this story is this: Having clearly-defined objectives made this decision that much easier for me to make.
And, in this case, it elicited the outcome I desired.
Now, you might not be planning your next Halloween costume, but whether you’re navigating a career choice or a costuming one, being clear on your objectives will go a long way towards tilting the outcomes in your favor.
For a more thorough explanation of the “how to” behind establishing objectives, check out this episode of the Ask A Decision Engineer podcast. In just 12 minutes, you’ll learn how to:
Articulate your objectives by making the implicit explicit
Refine your objectives so they’re measurable instead of directional
Reflect on changing objectives in the face of new information, and
Keep your priorities straight when wrangling multiple objectives.
Being a good decision maker isn’t about getting everything you want.
The best decision makers know how to optimize for the most important objectives — and accept the trade-offs along the way.
