A632.3.4_TAYLORHEATHER

While many times I have noted putting on my "blinders" as advantageous in getting the job done, I am now able to reflect back and see ways this mentality has limited my effectiveness.  As Shoemaker and Russo describe, I have fallen into "framing blindness" not realizing alternative options that were hidden due the distortions in my thinking.

There are three key areas of my life where I often see myself falling into these framing traps  and three methods that will help me avoid them.  

#1. "I've thought this through, it is the best plan." This is a trap I fall into often.  I am not allowing myself to understand the frames of others, as Shoemaker and Russo recommend.  While I do engage in deep reflective thought.  I go through the steps of critical thinking.  I check in with key stakeholders.  Then I come up with my plan and I stick to it.  The pitfall here is that I don't check in to see if there are more logical or beneficial alternatives along the way.  While the resolute nature of my thinking is rewarding in that it allows for task completion, it does not always lend to a great sense of group think after the initial decision making process.  I am now aware that I need to continually re-evaluate decisions along the way for maximum gain, not only for the business but the entire organization.

#2. "We've decided on this as a team, we've spent lots of time and effort on it and it is functional, why change?"  Shoemaker and Russo offer the technique to find ways where individual frames align.  A specific example here wold be the creating of a project plan for which the Project Management team utilizes as a template for each customer project.  Originally this project plan included over 300 daunting milestones.  Customers were completely overwhelmed and discouraged when they saw the project plan.  We met and used approximately $20,000.00 of resource time to successfully manage the list and narrow it down to 65 steps.  There have been several revisions since the initial group think sessions.  The current project plan is still under revision, but there have been times that I have thought it was unnecessary to revisit this plan continually.  I've had the thought that such time is not well spent as that time could be spent meeting customer needs.  In reflection, there is probably truth to both views.  No, spending hours and hours working on a plan and spending minimal time on execution is not advantageous.  That being said, if a team member does not feel heard or understood through the process, they may begin feeling a great sense of animosity and therefore decrease productivity, especially as it relates to successful use of the project plan.  By looking for ways where individual frames may align, we will be able to find common ground as a team and improve to better meet the needs of our customers.

3.  "This method has been effective for us and we've always passed audits doing it this way."  During implementation, I often find organizations looking to me for input on how best to approach a decision for their customization of the software.  Yet, we often come to points where they have historical experiences that have evolved into policies and procedures that are not as effective as they could be.  Sometimes, I have allowed the customer to continue with their legacy methods and not challenged others' reference points, as Shoemaker and Russo recommend.  In the future, I plan to challenge these views by asking questions such as "Did you have our Clinical Decisions Support technology in place prior to that audit?" or "Did you have an implemented EHR in place that meets federal mandates at the time?"  This may assist the agency in finding the best fit and continuing to evolve with technology.

Through this reflective exercise, I found that there are still many areas for which I need to continue developing to become the leader I would want to follow.  It is an ongoing process, and I know it will take time.  Each day I hope to increase my awareness of my frames and understand ways to improve not just personally but for my organization and my team.

A632.2.3.RB_TAYLORHEATHER

In Sheena Iyengar’s Ted Talk, How  to make choosing easier, she sites four methods to help a customer in the decision-making process.  (2011)  These  four choices are as follows:

“Cut”: Removing any unnecessary options

“Concretize”- Allow  customer to experience the option (i.e. pictures, videos, feeling textures, etc.)

“Categorize”- Break down choices into chunks or categories

“Condition for complexity”- Move customer from low level choices gradually up to high level choices.

Two of these methods are often used in my daily work and in my daily life.  They are the methods of cut and categorize.  Knowing myself, I have to have a certain degree of standardization in my life to be functional.  Can I manage without that degree of standardization?  Sure.  However, the choosing process takes much longer to complete as compared  to when I employ these two techniques. 

For example, in my personal life I wake up each morning and ask myself what I am going to wear.  In the past, when in a healthier physical state, I had my closet organized in a way where all of my seasonal clothes were together and then broken down by color and length.  This means that all of my winter attire would be in one section of my closet.  Then all of the items would go from darks to light much like the light spectrum.  Within each category (i.e. pink), I would categorize further to start with long sleeve, then ¾ sleeve, then T-shirt.  You get the jest.  Here is where the cut part comes in.  I would then go through my closet at the end of the season and look at what items I like to wear and which items I never chose to wear.  Those that did not get worn were then donated.  This made it nice for the recipient of the rarely worn clothing item, but also made it easier for me to get dressed each day.

Professionally, it is much the same.  As a project manager that was able to manage 13 large projects simultaneously, I had to come up with ways to break down choices into chunks.  My mentor and boss, George Epstein, worked with me and the project management team to fundamentally change the way we approached project management methodology.  We then looked at our system of project delivery and categorized them into sections (i.e. Project Initiation, Clinical Configuration, Revenue Configuration, etc.).  From these chunks we then placed in each item that must be covered during that stage of project management.  In doing so, we were able to cut down the number of steps to a project from over 300 steps to only 65 steps.  This was a huge victory and one that allowed us to create a standard approach the customer was willing to follow.  Many customers previously would look at their project plan and would just get overwhelmed.  Many projects failed because the customer felt they would never complete all 300+ steps.  Through this process, we are able to ensure each critical element is completed and manage choice making into bite size chunks.

Listening to the points made by Iyengar (2011), I feel the next step in this process would be to then order the choices and steps of the project plan from a lower level of complexity to a higher level of complexity.  This is a point that I would like to discuss further with the managers at The Echo Group to determine if they could see the benefit in making such changes. The ability to make choices feel concrete is currently underway by creating images /videos for each choice.  The idea is to have the customer review the video and images which lead them through their choice options and then they can reference these as they move on to higher level choices.

Iyengar, S. (2011). Shenna Iyengar: How to make choosing easier. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/sheena_iyengar_choosing_what_to_choose?language=en

A632.1.4.RB_TAYLORHEATHER

Decisions, decisions, decisions.  Each day we are forced to make decisions.  Starting from the moment we wake up, we have to make a cognitive choice to get out of bed or stay in bed.  Do we then let the dog out or choose to stay in bed and check out our social media new feed?  Take another five minutes to snooze, or tend to the needs of our little ones as they wake up and want to start the day?
Some decisions making choices are nearly instantaneous.  For example, a screaming hungry baby immediately results in a quick choice to offer the baby nourishment.  Other choices, however, do not have such a quick response time through the decision making process.  Those are usually the choices that tend to have the greatest number of alternative choices and the ability to wait to act upon the decision.
Take the example of purchasing a family friendly vehicle.  That was a decision that required a multistage decision making process.  We recently were provided the opportunity to make this decision and it was one we did not take lightly. We didn't approach this using a systematic decision support tool, nor did we have any equations to lead us through the process.  We created a "must have" list and went from top to bottom, determining together what areas we could compromise on and which we needed to uphold.
While I do appreciate the formulaic approach, I feel that if I were to use something this complex, my husband would immediately check out.  Being someone that is often referred to as an "over-thinker," this would just add to my over-thinking tendencies.  In decisions, I try to find a balance between impulse and paralysis.
So how did we make the choice to buy our vehicle?
Knowing there would be precious cargo inside the vehicle, we chose safety as our top requirement.  We wanted a vehicle that would fit all of us and be able to store a stroller and groceries.  Thankfully, we now have enough room for a stroller, wheelchair and groceries.  We went on websites for the institute of highway safety and looked at crash reports.  Those are a little more reliable than crash testing in a laboratory.
We knew we needed something in our budget, used and we wanted to make sure it could withstand different types of terrain, in case we needed to move.  It needed to allow me the safety and comfort of knowing what we value highest (the lives of our family) would be protected.  It needed to allow my husband the feeling that he was not becoming a soccer mom.
About 2 months into the search, we purchased a used 2005 Land Rover LR3, which in all crashes throughout the U.S. had zero fatalities.  Zero.  That number was worth more to us than being able to have 11 more miles per gallon on the highway.  It was more important than a sticker price that was $2,000.00 less.  While there might be a really cool dad out there somewhere driving a Ferrari that has extra stroller storage space, my husband and I are very happy with our decision, and our little one sleeps safe and sound as we take her for her late night car rides to get her to sleep.
Is this decision making model perfect? No.  Are there logical flaws? Sure.  However, we tried to look at what would be the greatest cost to us long term.  That would be the loss of one of us in a vehicle accident.  We then weighed that against what we could afford and what was available on the market.  We couldn't go without a vehicle, but we also didn't want to perform an impulse buy.  We tried not to have myopic thinking and looked at the decision from multiple angles.  My husband was about to give up on the search out of frustration right before we purchased.  We are so thankful now that we did take the time, we did look at this from multiple vantage points and we chose to obtain additional coverage/warranty on the vehicle to ensure it continues to operate to functional performance.
As for the decisions in between, most generally take about a full day and maybe a night's sleep to mull over.  If it is something that proves to be a greater risk than potential worth, it is something we pass up.  At this stage of our life, we are not looking to take large risks.  We would rather make the more predictable choices to ensure there is food on the table, clothes on our backs and enough financial strength to get us through each day.  It might be boring, but it has been what has kept us going and for that we are thankful.