Master Reality-Based Decision Making: Empower Your Strategy Development Skills

 In today's fast-paced and dynamic business environment, effective decision-making is more critical than ever. Whether you're leading an organization, managing a team, or striving for personal growth, the ability to make reality-based decisions can significantly impact your success. Introducing our transformative online course: "Reality Based Decision Making for Effective Strategy Development."

Embrace Reality, Drive Success

At the heart of our course lies a humanist approach to critical thinking. We believe that by anchoring decisions in reality, individuals and organizations can navigate complexities with confidence and clarity. Our program equips participants with invaluable skills and techniques to hone their strategic acumen and foster a culture of informed decision-making.

What You'll Learn

Focus on the Real Problem: Learn a simple yet powerful technique to identify and address the core issue at hand, ensuring that your strategies tackle the root cause rather than surface-level symptoms.

Critical Thinking Skills: Explore the six essential critical thinking skills necessary to ground your strategies in reality. From analysis to inference, our course empowers you to dissect information, challenge assumptions, and arrive at well-informed conclusions.

Scientific Evaluation of Alternatives: Discover methodologies to objectively evaluate alternatives, employing scientific rigor to assess potential outcomes and mitigate risks effectively.

Learning Objectives

By enrolling in our course, you'll achieve the following objectives:

Master Organizational Change: Gain insights into developing, influencing, and executing strategies for managing organizational change, enabling you to navigate transitions with agility and foresight.

Strategic Decision-Making: Acquire the expertise to actively participate in strategic decision-making and due diligence activities, contributing valuable perspectives and insights to your organization's growth trajectory.

Strategic Planning Proficiency: Develop a comprehensive understanding of the strategic planning process, from design to implementation and evaluation, empowering you to drive impactful initiatives aligned with overarching goals and objectives.

Elevate Your Decision-Making Skills Today

Whether you're a seasoned executive, a budding entrepreneur, or an aspiring leader, our course offers unparalleled value in enhancing your decision-making prowess. You'll gain practical insights and actionable strategies to navigate the complexities of modern business landscapes with confidence and conviction.

Earn Continuing Education Credits

For professionals seeking continuous growth and development, our course offers the added benefit of earning continuing education credits, ensuring that your investment in learning yields tangible rewards both personally and professionally.

Conclusion

In a world defined by uncertainty and ambiguity, the ability to make reality-based decisions stands as a hallmark of effective leadership and strategic vision. Join us on a transformative journey to unlock your full potential, drive meaningful change, and chart a course towards enduring success. Enroll in "Reality Based Decision Making for Effective Strategy Development" today and embark on a path of discovery, innovation, and unparalleled achievement.

Are you ready to shape your reality and shape your future? Enroll now and embrace the power of informed decision-making.

https://humanistlearning.com/realitybaseddecisionmaking/

Available as a certified online course, streaming video, book and audio book. 

Changing Directions - and Asking for Help

 One of the great things about being human is - we can change our minds. If our situations change, we can - change. If we are failing? We can change.

That doesn't mean that change is easy. It isn't. First, we have to admit, what we are doing isn't working. Maybe it never worked. That's hard to admit sometimes. But it's the first step to being able to change what you are doing.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. My husband is nearing retirement. We are now thinking about what we want the next phase of our lives to be. And I've had to admit to myself that I have failed to meet the goals I had set for myself. I wanted to change the way harassment and bullying is taught so that we use - science - so that we can actually fix the darned problem. I've failed to do that. Not for lack of trying. 

I also failed to get my company, Humanist Learning Systems to the point I wanted to get it to. I've decided that is ok too.  What I really like doing is content creation. Creating the training programs and sharing them. I'm lousy at marketing and sales. I need help in that regard.

What acknowledging these things has allowed me to do - is to go out and find partners that can help a) promote this work and b) run the parts of the business I don't enjoy so that when we retire, my work will continue to be taught.

The amazing thing about having done this? I'm making more money than I did when I was doing it all myself. And, I will be saving money because I won't need to manage my own learning management system myself. 

I'm pretty excited to make more money by doing less of the annoying work and more of the fun work. But to get to this point, I had to admit to myself, I was failing to achieve my objectives. I also needed to set out clear objectives for what I want to do and have in the future. 

If you want to take any of my online courses visit- https://humanistlearning.com/  You can take a certified course for continuing education at my partner LearnFormula, you can view the videos at Vimeo, or you can get them as a book, ebook or audio book. 

Thanks for your continued support. PS - if you want to view any of my course videos at Vimeo - check them out below.

Making good choices and accepted other people's choices.

I have a good head on my shoulders. How do I know that?  It's because I survived my first job with my integrity and wellbeing intact. What was my first job? I sold tickets to porno movies for the mob.  I was 16 years old! 

Now, some may argue that working for the mob selling tickets to porno movies when you are underage is itself – a bad decision.  And you wouldn't be entirely wrong. But in my defense, when I took the job, I didn't know that would be the job. Do I make good decisions? Yes, because I obviously handled what turned out to be a crazy job - quite well.  

The theater was a revival movie house. We showed more than porno movies. Just - we also showed slightly more porno movies than is legally allowed before you have to register as a porno theater. We got raided by the cops. A lot. The pornos we showed was almost all art films and cult films. It also turned out the theater was a money laundering operation for a gay mobster but that's another story.  

What I remember the most was how hysterical it was when young men, going to an art film porno on a Sunday morning, suddenly have to purchase a ticket from an obviously underage girl. They universally stammer their way into explaining why the movie they are going to see – wasn’t something they were PLANNING on seeing even though, that's totally what they had planned. They would make an excuse like - my girlfriend is shopping (even though there were no stores near us) and they had time to kill. What movies are available? Oh - it's a porno?  Oh well - might as well see it. Men, just so you know, you don't have to explain to anyone why you are going to a porno movie. The people selling tickets - don't care.  

Despite being surrounded by the mob, prostitutes (both male and female) and people doing drugs, and being head hunted by famous strippers to learn the trade, and being hit on, a lot,  I got through that job – without trying drugs. Without getting raped. Without having sex, without working in a sex club, and without going on any dates with questionable people, though there were a couple I seriously considered, including a concert pianist or the guy who went on to become a famous Oscar winning movie director both of whom – I liked. Despite everything I was exposed to and multiple opportunities to make questionable life choices, I made good decisions for myself.  

As for how this relates to Humanism. If you want to know why I am so completely non-judgmental when I meet people, it’s because – I’ve MET people.  You are almost assuredly pretty boring compared to some of the people I’ve met.   And I do love boring but interesting people so don’t think of that as an insult. If you are boring - I mean that you aren't making choices that create unnecessary drama and hardship for yourself or the people around you. I've seen PLENTY of that. I prefer boring over unnecessary trauma.   

(Note: If you want to learn how to make better decisions to avoid unnecessary drama and trauma - I have a course called Living Made Simpler that explains how I use the Humanist philosophy to making difficult decisions in all aspects of my life - https://humanistlearning.com/livingmadesimpler1/) 

The main thing I learned though – is that everyone I met, every single person I met, including the ones I knew enough to say no to, were human beings worthy of being treated with dignity. 

The other lesson? The reason I was ok through all of that, was because every single person I met, was ok with me saying NO.  Even the kind of scary, almost assuredly mentally ill guy that would come by on occasion to hit on me  – accepted me saying no to him. 

So – when we talk about rape, understand something important. People who don’t accept "NO" - ARE The problem and they are the exception. Because I’ve hung out with strippers, had extensive conversations with prostitutes brought by their Johns to see violent porno movies and other people of equally – interesting backgrounds.  And at no point, was I ever made to feel like I wasn’t safe or didn’t have control over whether I was ok with things or not. I knew what my boundaries were and kept them and my boundaries were ALWAYS respected.  It was ok for me to say no to people involved with the mob. 

Consent is everything. People who ignore consent are uncommon – fortunately – but they are ABSOLUTELY terrifying and do a tremendous amount of damage to everyone else.  

Making good choices, only works to keep yourself safe, if the people around you – respect your choices.  This is what we should be teaching – as normal. This is what I learned was normal selling tickets to porno movies for the mob. It must be ok for people to say – no thank you. I’m not interested in doing drugs, having sex or working at a strip club or whatever else I said no to.  If you want to do those things – have fun. But I’m not interested.  That was ALWAYS ok which is why it was ok for me to work there. 

Most people - accept consent as foundational to everything. Those that don't - are dangerous.  And when I say, accept consent. As soon as I said no, no one cajoled me or tried to make me change my mind. Never. If I said I wasn't interested, the conversation stopped there. Always.  Anyone who tries to make you change your mind, isn't accepting your no which means, they are dangerous. 

Don't let Cognitive Dissonance trip you up.

Most people struggle with reality.  We don't like it. We want reality to be different. Unfortunately - we only have a limited ability to change the nature of reality.  The only hope we have - is to accept reality for what it is and work with and around it - realistically.

Today's post is about cognitive dissonance - which happens when there is a disconnect between our beliefs and our behavior and/or our beliefs - and reality.

And yes- this is about personal responsibility.

Here is a short article about cognitive dissonance: https://www.learning-theories.com/cognitive-dissonance-festinger.html

You can cause yourself and others harm - sometimes extreme harm if you reject reality.  Specifically - if you reject the reality of harm you did to others.  

Youi have a belief that - you are a good person. And yet - we all do things - that cause harm to others from time to time.

Most people deny that they harmed others - because - they didn't mean to harm others.  That's not a very effective way of fixing a problem you have.

The more effective way is to - accept you did harm, take responsibility for the harm you caused - and work to fix it.  The more you fight or deny the reality - the more harm you cause to others. 

On top of hurting them - you hurt them more as a way to deny your cognitive dissonance between the reality of your behavior and the belief you have about yourself. 

Good people and good leaders - don't deny the reality of the impact of their behavior. They take responsibility for the impacts of their behavior - and change their behavior in the future.

Wouldn't it be nice if everyone did that?  Of course it would. Start practicing this for yourself and you will see immediate benefits from less stress - less unnecessary conflict and better relationships. 

Sunk Costs:

Another way we cause harm is when we refuse to accept something isn't working.  This is known as a sunk cost fallacy - where we have invested so much into something and it just isn't working (the reality) but we refuse to believe it isn't working because - we've invested so much already.

A definition of insanity that I really like is - doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. 

If you are doing something and it isn't working, don't double down on the stupid. Do a realistic assessment of the situation and make some changes.  YOu may not have to totally abandon the thing that isn't working, maybe you can tweak it. But always be open to the possibility that you just need to abandon it. Because - if it's not working  it's insane to sink more of your time, energy and money into something that isn't working. 

Learn more:

If you want to learn more about reality based decision making - take my course - Reality Based Decision Making for Effective Strategy Development - https://humanistlearning.com/realitybaseddecisionmaking/

Group Decision Making - Inclusion and Psychological Safety

Are there ways for companies to improve their group decision-making? Here are some practical tips on how to plan/implement best practices as well as psychological elements that should be taken into account.

I teach humanistic leadership, behavioral science techniques and have over 30 years in executive leadership.

1^st - Good decision making. “Good” is a moral value judgement. You have to define what good means to the group.  What is a good outcome?  Only then you can look at your options and weigh them against the ideal.  This step – helps eliminate a lot of conflict in group decision making. Often what happens is different people have different ideas of what good means. When you get everyone into agreement on what a “good” result is – you can more easily gain consensus. 

Let me give you an example. I used to work in the tower industry. What constituted a “good” tower to maintenance – was a tower that was in good shape and didn’t need much work.  What constituted a “good” tower to marketing was a tower in a good location for their customers.  What constituted a “good” tower to accounting – was a tower that was generating more cash flow then debt.  Until you get all 3 stakeholder groups into agreement on what a “good” tower is – there will be squabbling.  And yes – this is a real example from my past – it was finally agreed upon that if we were generating more cash flow then debt – then costs to upgrade the tower were irrelevant as we were already net positive.  If there was less cash flow than debt – then we needed to consider whether there was any marketing growth at this location and how much maintenance costs we would have to put in to get that growth. Consensus through integration of all concerns– made all the other decisions easier. We grew to be a half billion-dollar company.

2^nd – Involving ALL stakeholders. It is very easy to make decisions alone. In fact – there is a reason why many people do this. Getting consensus among people with different ideas of what “good” is – is hard.  But it’s a mistake.  You don’t know what you don’t know and not knowing things leads to poor decisions. Bringing in all the stakeholders (from lowest to highest paid) helps ensure that everyone is on board with the plan. It also helps ensure that you aren’t blind to major issues. Diversity is good for decision making.

3^rd – Dealing with diversity problems in decision making. Having a discussion on what is “good” with a diverse group of people is often quite difficult. We all have blind spots.  We think our opinion is the most important opinion. Sorting all that out – takes humility, patience and dignity.  Dignity is an interesting word. You have to act with dignity yourself and give dignity to people you disagree with.  Most people aren’t really capable of this – or rather – they don’t have a lot of practice – acting with dignity and giving dignity to others. But it’s key to sorting out differences and helping a diverse group – become cohesive – while allowing space for all those diverse opinions.

So … how do you do this? Pragmatically? 

By acknowledging dignity violations. Everyone has been hurt at some point. Some  - more than others.  People coming from marginalized backgrounds (whether it’s gender, race, disability, poverty – or whatever), probably have felt like their dignity has been violated more than others.   Creating space for and acknowledging those violations – helps people feel heard. Helps them feel like their dignity is being acknowledged and helps them move past the past violations so that they can work collaboratively in the present. 

This really does work. But to do it – you first have to acknowledge your own feelings of hurt. Understand that you are in charge of your own dignity. No one has the ability to take it from you. You either act with dignity or you don’t. Claim your dignity. Then – help others claim theirs. Then – the first conversation about what constitutes a “good” outcome – becomes much easier.

Let me know if you have any questions.  In the meantime, if you want to learn more - I have a variety of professional development courses that can help you learn these skills for yourself. 

https://humanistlearning.com/category/businesscourses/professionaldevelopment/ 

Bad Decisions - Public Policy Edition

Who knew that privatizing health care in prisons would a) reduce services and b) cost more. Lots of people actually. But no one listened to them.

It would be really nice if we viewed critiques of our public policy agendas - as constructive. Because this whole - the other side is crazy so I don't have to listen to them mentality - results in - expensive harm.

Here is an article about - what we've learned about privatizing health care in prisons. https://www.bradenton.com/article238308513.html - The headline is: Audit: Privatizing Florida’s prison medical services was costly mistake

File this under - the importance of reality in decision making. Don't have ideological blinders on to the point you don't listen to people telling you - something is wrong with your plans. Good strategists - realistically weigh the pros AND the cons before making decisions.

There was a similar problem with the ectopic pregnancy law  - The lawmaker who proposed the law – didn’t do the research to know whether what he was proposing was – doable or not (it’s not). https://www.businessinsider.com/ohio-lawmaker-says-he-didnt-research-ectopic-pregnancy-abortion-bill-2019-12

But he didn't listen to the critiques because - he thought the people telling him it wouldn't work - the doctors - were evil/crazy - take your pick.

We need realistic laws – based in science, reason and – compassion. This last bit is important. Compassion is what helps us listen!  And if we listen - maybe we won't make such costly mistakes that - you know - kill people!

Oh - and in case you were wondering - YES - I do have an online course that will help you do better at this: https://humanistlearning.com/realitybaseddecisionmaking/

Why, What, and How

Can asking some questions, like WHY, WHAT, and HOW helps us get past the current divisive moment we find ourselves in?  Yes.

I am a very opinionated person. I am an active citizen in a democracy. I take my responsibility to be aware of what is happening and to weigh in on solutions very seriously.  We clearly live in a very divisive time. And while I could and have opined on how we are being conditioned to not listen to each other. What I want to talk about today - is HOW we can actually start bridging these divides. 

All of us need to take responsibility for our side of this problem and engage with compassion and reason to fix it. In other words, what we all need is a big heaping dose of humanism and a willingness to ask ourselves and others - some questions. Reasonably and compassionately.

I have a lot of friends from a variety of political viewpoints. What I notice when we argues is that we rarely disagree on WHAT we think should happen. We are disagreeing about HOW to fix the problem. But we don’t know that we agree on WHAT because we are so busy disagreeing on the HOW.

When we disagree on HOW – it's easy to assume the other person doesn't agree on WHAT or maybe they don't even care. But in most cases - we actually do agree on WHAT - we just don't know that. And I find this to be true on even the most contentious issues - whether we are talking about abortion or immigration or health care or even racism! 

The fix is to realize when we are disagreeing on anything, we are probably disagreeing about HOW. To get us to rationally discussion HOW we need to get back to the WHAT by asking WHY.

WHY do we want to do whatever it is that we are discussing? WHAT do we really want to accomplish by doing that? We will almost always get to an agreement on WHAT ideally we want to happen. We are then able to have a rational discussion on HOW to do it.

For instance, I was discussing the death penalty with someone just the other day. WHY do they want the death penalty? WHAT exactly does society look like if they fix whatever problem it is they are hoping the death penalty will fix?  Chances are - I agree with them on WHAT it looks like when we fix the crime problem. The debate over the death penalty isn't a debate about WHAT - which is a society without violence. It's a debate about HOW - to create that society. Once we understand that - we can have a rational and compassionate and science based discussion on HOW.

The method? 

Ask WHY to fully understand your ideal WHAT. Only then should you start discussing HOW.

When you are fighting with someone over HOW – end the fight by asking WHY questions about the HOWs to understand and get consensus on the WHAT. Once there is consensus on WHAT – the arguments usually go away.

This method – works – for work, politics, religion and - well - EVERYTHING! 

How do we get there – by reminding ourselves that most humans actually do agree on the WHAT.  So don’t let disagreements and arguments over HOW derail discussions or cause unnecessary divisions. We really do have more in common than we realize.

Relevant programs/books:

• How to win arguments without arguing
• Reality based decision making for effective strategy development
• How to De-Escalate Conflicts Using Behavioral Science
• Living Made Simpler

Psychological Safety and Team Dynamics

Last February - I was in India - discussing why bullying/harassment is bad for decision making and therefore bad for business.  Turns out I am not the only one looking into this connection.

Google has been studying what makes for effective teams. This is what they found.
https://amp.businessinsider.com/google-spent-years-studying-effective-teams-this-is-what-they-found-2018-1

For those of you who don't want to click through and read the article - the answer is psychological safety. The best performing teams are teams where members feel safe. This in turn means they feel safe to share their thoughts - and advocate for what they think will be a more effective solution. 

No safety - no real discussion. No real discussion - the solution chosen is based on who is dominant, not who is right.

This is exactly what I was discussing in India and the case I keep making for adopting humanistic management.

If people are socially excluded – decision making suffers.   Psychological safety is another way of saying -  making sure everyone is included.  Exclusion of one person leads to stress to the others who fear – I may be next.  It has a dampening effect on dissent and makes rational dissent very difficult – and again – that’s bad for problem solving.

The challenge – how to create that?

We can hire people for compatible traits – conscientiousness, openness etc. We can also work to help protect those who are excluded.  the good news is that we can also use science.  Science can teach us how to get rid of unwanted behaviors and how to encourage the ones you do.

If you have bad outcomes despite good intentions, it's probably because your organization has perverse incentives - meaning you are accidentally rewarding the behavior you don't want and punishing the behavior you do.  It happens all the time.  The solution is often to flip things upside down and really consider how your rewards and responses are being used and to consciously change the dynamic by changing what you reward.

I have several courses and training programs that will help you do that over at. https://humanistlearning.com/

Books You Can Read in One Setting

I have a whole series of short short how to books that can be read in an hour or so.  They mostly focus on how to use behavioral science to stop bullying and interpersonal problems. 

They are all about 25 pages in length or about 7,000 words and come in paperback, ebook and audiobook form. I have:

How to Win Arguments Without Arguing: Socratic Jujitsu: https://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Arguments-Without-Arguing-ebook/dp/B076PQ699R/

Ending Harassment & Retaliation in the Workplace: https://www.amazon.com/Harassment-Retaliation-Workplace-Jennifer-Hancock/dp/1987765761/

Why Bullies Bully and How to Stop Them: https://www.amazon.com/Bullies-Bully-Stop-Using-Science/dp/1984008803/

How to Talk to Your Child’s School about Bullying so they will actually listen and help: https://www.amazon.com/childs-school-bullying-actually-listen-ebook/dp/B01EXRTSOY

How to De-Escalate Conflicts Using Behavioral Science: https://www.amazon.com/Escalate-Conflicts-Using-Behavioral-Science-ebook/dp/B07CKN2YNJ/

Why Conflicts Management Doesn’t’ Work When the Problem is Bullying: https://www.amazon.com/Conflict-Management-Doesn-Problem-Bullying/dp/1719409145/

Reality Based Decision Making for Effective Strategy Development: https://www.amazon.com/Reality-Decision-Effective-Strategy-Development-ebook/dp/B079NC236V/

The above books are companion books to my online courses.  If you would prefer the video - check them out here: https://humanistlearning.com/programsoffered/

What are the shortcomings of Humanism?

There are 2 things about the philosophy people have difficulty with. And these are things most Humanists consider essential.

The first is that it is a secular philosophy. The second is that ours is a situational ethic.

Lots of people believe in supernatural things. Humanists, reject supernaturalism as an ineffective unproven field of inquiry. If something happens, you can prove it happens. There is no need to appeal to supernaturalism. People who like thinking in supernatural terms, don’t like this aspect of the philosophy.

But for Humanists, the rejection of supernaturalism and our focus on all things secular, is critical to the practice of our philosophy. We are mostly concerned with solving our real problems here and now. Appeals to supernaturalism don’t help us with that. In fact, in many cases, they make solving the problem impossible. Our focus on secular matters and rejection of supernatural - is pragmatic.

The other area people have problems with is that we approach ethics situational-ly. Our value system is based on compassion. Our goal is to do the most good and the least harm - in any given situation. There are no hard and fast rules. Our ethics requires active thinking, critical thinking and a willingness to make difficult decisions.

There are many people who prefer absolute ethics - where you have a rule that is always applied, but we humanists view that as an unrealistic ideal. In the real world, our values compete with each other. For instance, it’s not ok to kill someone. But what if killing that person would save thousands of lives? There is a great quote in the Hindi movie Faana. I’m going to paraphrase. Morality isn’t about choosing between good or evil. It’s about choosing between the greater of two goods or the lesser of two evils. Every situation is different and we are called on to make difficult decisions where the “right” solution that will do the most good and least harm - isn’t clear. Humanists view situation ethics as essential precisely because we understand we live in the real world - where what is “good” isn’t always clear and because - we are willing to do the hard work of thinking through those problems to come to a “good” solution and because we accept the responsibility to do this - is ours.

Making Sense of Science Reporting

Scientific Literacy is a necessary life skill. It isn’t optional anymore. To be an active citizen and to make sense of your health care choices – you must be scientifically literate. So, a) what does it mean to be scientifically literate and b) how does one become scientifically literally.

First – a definition: “Scientific literacy means that a person can ask, find, or determine answers to questions derived from curiosity about everyday experiences. It means that a person has the ability to describe, explain, and predict natural phenomena. Scientific literacy entails being able to read with understanding articles about science in the popular press and to engage in social conversation about the validity of the conclusions. Scientific literacy implies that a person can identify scientific issues underlying national and local decisions and express positions that are scientifically and technologically informed. A literate citizen should be able to evaluate the quality of scientific information on the basis of its source and the methods used to generate it. Scientific literacy also implies the capacity to pose and evaluate arguments based on evidence and to apply conclusions from such arguments appropriately. “(National Science Education Standards, page 22)

Or to put it more bluntly – a scientifically literate person knows how to evaluate claims being made to know what is true and what is false.  This has wide ranging implications for all aspects of life, from health care, to jobs, to politics and more.

In many cases scientific literacy is a life and death matter and it is not a joke to not know what is scientifically true and validated.

When people aren’t scientifically literate they make bad decisions.  Those bad decisions can obviously cause personal harm and even death (see What’s the Harm for all the ways people who don’t think scientifically harm themselves http://whatstheharm.net/)

Bad decisions taken by groups can have far ranging consequences for the entirety of society. Pretty much every major civilization that failed, failed because of bad decision making. For those of us who would like to not only live, but live well – we view scientific literacy as the foundation of all good decision making.

Deborah Howell – at the Washington Post – wrote an opinion on – how to make sense of science reporting. Consider this your first lesson in how to be skeptical of science reporting – and really all reporting. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/05/AR2008120502959.html   

•       Double check your sources.
•       Always try to read the source material to make sure that the headline matches the actual findings
•       Look for contradicting information
•       Stick with facts and not with opinions.

To learn more - check out my online course: Reality Based Decision Making for Effective Strategy Development. 

https://humanistlearning.com/realitybaseddecisionmaking/

Also available as a streaming video, audio book, dvd, ebook and paperback: 

http://amzn.to/2tkcjir

Reality

Reality isn’t always pleasant. But we don’t solve our problems by pretending they don’t exist.

Accepting reality will help you be a better leader.  A leader who sticks their head in the sand isn’t a leader. They are a coward that is too afraid to lead.

Good leaders accept reality, even when it is unpleasant. The don’t flinch from their responsibilities, they just get on with the job of fixing the problems whatever they are.

Resist the temptation to ignore reality or to plan for the best case scenario.  Plan for the worse case and be pleasantly surprised if it turns out to be easier to deal with then you thought.

I am currently running numbers for a property rental business. Sure, I could run optimistic numbers, but I would be lying to myself. Instead, I run real numbers. What is it I have right now. How much is it really going to cost me to do whatever it is I need to do.  A good cost benefit analysis is based in reality. Anything else is a flight of fantasy and won’t lead to good problem solving.

I used to be in franchise sales and I helped a lot of people create their business plans. Almost all of them were overly optimistic about income and overly optimistic about expenses. My advice was always - halve your income, double your expenses. Do you still want to do this?  That is reality based decision making.

To learn more about reality based decision making – check out this course.

How harassment impacts decision making

Making decisions without good information rarely turns out well.

Harassment is a form of bullying. It is done to hoard power and to withhold power from others. It’s about creating in groups and out groups. People whose opinions matter and people whose opinions don’t matter. Whenever we decide some people’s opinions don’t matter we negatively impact decision making.

Lets talk specifically about how sexual harassment impacts decision making.

There was a study recently published about how often the female justices of the US Supreme Court are interrupted. Turns out, it’s a lot. Including by people who are prohibited from doing so, but whom the head justice allows to do it.  These interruptions are often because there is a disagreement on something and the males interrupting the women simply don’t want the woman’s opinion or line of questioning to be heard. https://hbr.org/2017/04/female-supreme-court-justices-are-interrupted-more-by-male-justices-and-advocates

The impact of all this interrupting is that diverse viewpoint are less likely to be heard, which is the point of the harassment. It silences opposition or perceived opposition.

The same impact occurs with other forms of harassment. Harassment is done to put someone off balance and to denigrate and dehumanize them and basically label them as others, so that the people watching, are less likely to side with or even listen to this person.  It doesn’t matter if what is happening is a snide comment, or passively aggressively “forgetting” to invite someone to a meeting on which they have knowledge that would be helpful to the group.  Harassment sidelines them so that their voices aren’t heard and this impacts the quality of the decisions being made.

Ideally, when you are in a group making a decision, you want to weigh the pros against the cons and come to a rational decision about the best course of action. But what happens if you are never given the cons. Or you aren’t told what the pros are?   Or there is an important piece of information that is omitted from the discussion.  When this happens, bad decisions are made and the decisions don’t actually solve the problem the group is trying to address.

Let me give you a rather mundane example of this.  I used to be the director of volunteer services for a rather large non-profit. Our fundraising department decided to hold a volunteer appreciation dinner as a fundraiser. It was a great idea. The problem? They didn’t tell me about it or invite me to any meetings or ask me for advice on which of the volunteers might be worthy of awards being given.  And no, I’m not joking, this really happened.  The result was a volunteer awards dinner with no volunteers present because they hadn’t been invited because no one told them they were invited or that they were receiving an award because the people organizing it never bothered to include the person with that information in their meetings and they never asked me or told me my help was needed. I was totally in the dark about what was happening until the event, which I thought was a normal fundraising dinner. I was sitting with our board members and it was so bad that the chair of our board started to openly mock the proceedings. Literally no one receiving an award was there.

In the grand scheme of things, it’s a pretty silly and stupid mistake they made.  But it’s the sort of thing that happens when people who have knowledge critical to the decision being made are either absent from the meeting or being silenced DURING the meeting. And these two things happen whenever bullying or harassment is happening because exclusion is the point of bullying and harassment.

If you are in business, take bullying seriously. If not for the human toll it is taking on your employees, stop it because allowing bullying and harassment to occur is hurting your ability to function well.
Learn how to stop bullying in the workplace - https://humanistlearning.com/retaliation1/

And the 7 principles of Humanistic Management - https://humanistlearning.com/?p=2237

Finally - learn about reality based decision making - https://humanistlearning.com/realitybaseddecisionmaking/

Courage and Compassion

Doing the right thing isn’t always easy. We should find the courage to do it anyway.

Being a leader isn’t easy. It requires the courage to make decisions often, with imperfect information.  It requires a willingness to be wrong.

How we cope with being wrong is all about character.  Ideally, if we are wrong, we should admit it and fix our mistake and undo any damage we may have inadvertently done wrong.

There is a quote I live by when faced with tough decisions.

“The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.” - Henry David Thoreau

To me this means that it is ok to make mistakes. Do the best you can in the moment. If you find out you made a mistake, fix it.  Do whatever you think, at any time, is right. 

This attitude requires compassion. For yourself. You aren’t perfect. None of us are.  But we can still move forward as best we can. Doing the best we can for ourselves and for others. And this last bit is important too. For others.

How we determine what is right and good matters. For me, as a Humanist, I determine what is right through compassion.  If it helps people it is good. If it hurts people, it is bad. I know of no other metric that makes sense.

The next time you find yourself faced with a difficult decision. Get the best information you can. And focus on making as good a decision as you can – to do the most good you can for yourself AND for others. Then, have the courage to make that decision knowing that if it turns out you were wrong, you can fix your mistake.

Learn more about how to make better decisions with my online course, Planning for Personal Success - https://humanistlearning.com/planforpersonalsuccess/

Critical Thinking in Decision Making

Do you know the elements of good decision making?

Good leaders make good decisions. If a leader is charismatic and can get people to do what they want, that’s good. Getting them to do what is needed to get good results? That’s great!

It isn’t enough to know how to motivate people if what you are motivating them to do is counterproductive and stupid. All you will have done is wasted people’s time, energy and money fixing a problem that either doesn’t exist or not fixing a problem that does.  As my father always said, that’s not too B R I T E!

A good leader makes sure that what they are asking people to do will yield the desired results and not waste anyone’s time with pointless busywork.

Here are the elements of good decision making.

1) Understanding the problem that needs to be solved. The amount of time wasted on what I like to call proxy problems is astonishing. I’ve seen leaders just spin everyone’s wheels on problems that aren’t really problems. In order to make sure you don’t waste time solving problems that aren’t really important or critical to your success, you HAVE to think critically and ask the question – WHY AM I WORKING ON THIS?

2) Knowing what will actually work to solve your actual problem. Assuming you know the problem you want to solve AND that the problem is a real problem that’s actually worth solving, you now need a solution that will actually work to solve it. Again ... critical thinking will help here. Consider all your options and use critical thinking to evaluate those options to choose the one that is most likely to help you succeed. Fail to do this step, usually means failure.

3) Plan for problems. Knowing what is going to cause you problems before you start a project is a good way to not fail.  Hoping for the best isn’t a strategy. Considering what all could go wrong and having a plan for how to avoid or deal with those things happening is a strategy. All this step takes is a little bit of time thinking! I know it’s hard, do it anyway.

4) Be open to being wrong. Sometimes, despite our best efforts, we make mistakes. We analyze. We consider, we plan and then, things still don’t work out because there was something we didn’t know we needed to know before we started. When this happens to a good leader, they regroup, reconsider and adjust their plans accordingly. Usually all that’s required is a slight tweak. Don’t force your team to trudge on when it’s obvious what you are doing isn’t working. Nothing kills respect for a manager like sending a team on a pointless death march.

If these 4 critical thinking skills are new to you, consider taking my personal development program – Planning for Personal Success. While the course is for personal development, it does cover how to make good decisions so you give yourself the best change at success.

For Parents – teaching kids how to make good decisions

The goal of humanistic parenting is to raise autonomous human beings capable of making good decisions, as in decisions that don’t get them killed or cause harm to themselves and others.

There are a lot of ways to die.  And it simply isn’t true that what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. Sometimes what doesn’t kill us leaves us permanently disabled.  Sure, we can persevere and still have an amazing life, but it will be different and more difficult.

I know of no parent who would wish extra difficulties on their kids. Life is hard enough without adding to the difficulties you already have, whatever they are.

As humanist parents, our job is to help our children grow into autonomous human beings who can basically function independently without doing too much harm to themselves or others. In order for our kids to learn that, they have to learn how to make decisions. How to weigh the pros and cons and how to make choices despite their instincts which may be compelling them to do really horrendously stupid things.

How can you help your child make better decisions, by teaching them, explicitly, how to make decisions. How to weigh the pros and cons of any given situation. Helping them understand the benefit of taking the time out of their hormone ridden lives to actually do some thinking.

Telling them the answer isn’t helping them learn how to think. I’m not saying don’t set boundaries. I’m saying explain why you set those boundaries and be open to negotiation about where exactly that boundary may be. Encourage your child to set their own boundaries and to make their own choices. Walk them through possible consequences, both good and bad so they get in the habit of this sort of structured thinking early on.

Is it easier to just insist they do things a certain way and demand compliance? Actually it isn’t. When you chose to demand they behave a certain way – they learn moral and intellectual dependence. That’s way more exhausting to deal with. I would much rather have a kid who can think through problems for themselves and who is morally independent because then, I don’t have to worry about them so much!

If you have a tween or teen, consider reading The Humanist Approach to Happiness together and discussing the situations you find in there and how they might think about similar situations in their lives.

If you have a teen or young adult, consider having them take the online course Planning for Personal Success, which will help them think through their choices more effectively.

Both of these parenting resources cover all the topics parents tend to worry about - sex, and drugs and relationships.

What you weren’t taught about making pro/con lists

Decision making list matrices: what my mom never told me!

Whenever I faced a big decision when I was younger, my mom taught me to make lists. A list of all the benefits if I did whatever it was. And a list of all the negatives. In other words, a pro/con list.  And I did this. And sometimes it helped. And sometimes it didn't.  Overall, as a tool, it wasn't very helpful.

I finally found out why. Farnham Street blog has a lovely article about decision making ala Seymour Schulich - http://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2015/02/seymour-schulich-the-decision-maker/

What is so cool is that – he recommends the pro/con list – and says – add weight to each item on the list.  A number that indicates how important each item is to you personally (1 is not very important 10 is very important). And then you add up all the weights and that gives you a positive score and a negative score.

I feel like all this time I've been doing it wrong. No wonder these lists didn't help me make a decision. This makes so much more sense! Just counting up pros and cons always left me feeling like  - OK – but – this other thing is really important and the counter items, while numerous aren't all that important.  Giving each item weight solves that problem.

And that’s not all – the rule is – your positive score should be at least twice your negative score in order for the pros to outweigh the cons.  Otherwise, don’t do it or think really hard about whether it really is worth it.  I am so excited to try this out for my next big decision.

Do any of you use this sort of weighted matrix for decision making?  Does it work for you? It seems like it would be way more effective than flipping a coin and hoping for the best.

Make Better Decisions

It’s amazing how much more effective decision making is when it is based in reality.

 One of the things I try to do with this blog is teach people how to think better so that they can make better choices.  The three skills I teach are how to combine critical thinking, compassion and personal responsibility into better decision making. Learning HOW to think better is the key to making better choices that you CAN feel confident about your choices.

The nice thing about the Humanist approach – is it is woo free – no magical thinking required. And this is important because reality based decision making is vastly superior to assumption based or fallacy based decision making. You are just going to have to trust me on this one – but I’m pretty sure if someone ever did do a scientific study on this – I’d be proven right.

(Note: I actually did try to find evidence to back up this assumption that reality based decision making is better, but it’s so obvious that if you base your decisions on evidence of what works and what doesn’t, you are going to have a better chance of success. This is so well understood that a search on “study – reality based decision making” turned up pages of studies on HOW to most effectively integrate evidence based decision making in medicine.)

Regardless, on when making a reality based or evidence based decision – you need to do your homework.  You need to find out what is factually true. What works and what doesn’t to solve your problem.

You see, we humanists are very aware that we have cognitive biases and that these biases can throw us off course. And of course, we also make a LOT of assumptions. To counteract these built in defects in our thinking, we have to work hard to challenge our assumptions and doubt whether what we think we know is actually so, so that we become motivated to find out so that we can base our decision making on evidence, to the best of our ability.

And this brings me to the next bit. You can’t ever have perfect information. It doesn't exist. At some point, you do have to make decisions with imperfect knowledge. And, you need to be OK with that. For me, I do this by accepting that I might be wrong and make a note that if I find out I was, to be humble enough to correct my mistakes. Quickly. Because the only thing worse than being wrong, is continuing to be wrong after you find out.

Finally, my rule of thumb with decision making is to do the most good and the least harm possible. Again, reality based decision making requires me to acknowledge that I don’t live in a perfect world.  All I can ever do at any time is what I think is right (Thoreau said that or something very close to that in case you were wondering).

So – to sum up – reality based decision making, coupled with a commitment to do the most good and the least harm with an acknowledgement that you may be totally screwing up but you are going to do the best you can anyway – oddly enough – leads to good confident decision making.  It really does.

Try it – you’ll see. The more humble you are about what you don’t know – the more effective you become at decision making. At least, that’s how it works for me. Someone ought to do a study to see if my personal experience translates into the rest of humanity. 

Talking to teens about dangerous relationships

7 tips for teens dealing with difficult relationships.

I have a book – The Humanist Approach to Happiness: Practical Wisdom. The book is used by parents to jump start important conversations with their children about ethics and decision making in everyday life.

I have a chapter called “Run for the Hills.” It occurs just after the chapter on dating and relationships and it is designed to help kids recognize people they are better off avoiding, people who are harmful for you to be around.

7 types of people to avoid:

1)     People with excessive drama. It’s not bad luck, it’s who they are.

2)     First Date Confessions – if someone tells you everything that is wrong with them on a first date, something’s wrong with them.

3)     Bad Boys and Poison women – animal magnetism often hides an incredibly narcissistic personality and once you get past the initial sexual high, you realize, not only is there no there there, they are incredibly annoying and sometimes dangerous to be around. After all, if they are in the habit of having “dangerous” sex, they may very well have picked up a disease along the way.  Don’t put yourself in that situation no matter how “liberating” it may seem. Thinking before copulating is always a good idea and it doesn’t ruin the sex. And if it does, well, that tells you A LOT!

4)     Basic Maintenance. People whose lives are falling apart need compassion and help accessing resources that can help them, but the average teen can’t help someone whose life is falling apart.  Help them get help, but don’t become romantically involved.

5)     Fools Rush In – a big humongous red flag is someone who falls head over hills immediately. Someone who pushes for a full commitment right away. These are the folks who often end up being the most controlling. So while its “romantic” to be pursued the way these people pursue you, in reality, you should run for the hills in the opposite direction (note – in order for this advice to make sense, you do have to have a discussion about how average/normal relationships progress from dating to relationships and what the difference is – don’t assume kids understand the difference, they don’t)

6)     Exceeding your minutes – someone who calls, texts or checks in with you constantly or in the middle of the night when they should be sleeping, isn’t romantic. They are insecure. This is one of the tell tell markers of abusive relationships. They aren’t just thinking about you. They are worried you have forgotten them or are with someone else and they are calling to reassure themselves. That insecurity often turns violent in very short order and someone who is excessing in contacting you in EXTREMELY SCARY!

7)  Anger Management. If someone gets angry a lot (not necessarily with you, but with others and with inanimate objects and with the world in general), they aren’t deep, they have anger management problems and those problems WILL turn on you. Run for the hills.

Ok old farts – time to chime in – what sort of advice would you give a teen about dating?

What you believe really matters

I say it all the time. What you believe really matters. If what you think is causing your problem isn’t really the cause of your problem you won’t be able to solve your problem.  This is why Humanists reject supernaturalism. We are looking for the real reasons why things happen so that we can fix it.

This is why when Humanism is applied to different fields of study, it yeilds such good results.  Humanistic medicine and Humanistic psychology for instance have benefited from this compassion based natural approach to problem solving. We don’t think that people with mental health issues are possessed by the devil anymore. At least not in the west.

I ran across this article from Arab News which reports that epileptic seizures aren’t caused by Genies. It turns out it is curable. http://www.arabnews.com/%5Btermalias-raw%5D/epilepsy-curable-not-linked-jinns  My son is epileptic so this caught my eye. I know my son’s epilepsy has natural causes and is treatable.

To me, this is a perfect example of why rejecting supernaturalism is so important and can help people. People are suffering from epilepsy without knowing that it can be cured. They are being treated as outcasts because their community isn’t aware that this is a natural as opposed to supernatural problem.  What you believe your problem is really matters. It is the difference between solving your problem and continuing to suffer with it. Humanists reject supernaturalism because every medical problem studied so far has turned out to have natural causes. Genies have nothing to do with it.