Building a Better Life with Better Decisions

When it comes to making decisions, I knew I was superb. My life and career were going great, built on a foundation of good decisions and hard work. And then, I fell in love and married the absolute wrong guy. After beating myself up for that decision, my own introspection led me to seriously study decision making. I read the latest books and reviewed the available research. I was disappointed that most of the books turned all the great research on how our brains function into manuals to help marketers understand and capitalize on how consumers make decisions. I’m not opposed to marketers or marketing, but I was in search of guidance on how to make better decisions in my life. I began mentally cataloging good and bad decisions all around me – in life and in business. While working with dozens of companies, such as Procter and Gamble, Nielsen, Walmart, L’Oreal, Target, Conagra, Kroger, Meijer, Ulta, Beam Suntory, Hershey, and Red Bull, I observed that ...

Why am I so passionate about decision making? I’ve seen the results of good decisions and when you compare them with the potentially devastating effect of a bad decision, the cost of taking time to better your decision making process seems negligible.

Much like my younger self, most of us don’t think we need help in making decisions. We are good at decision making; we do it every day, right? Research shows that our brain makes decisions so fast, that we’re unaware of the process the brain uses at the time of the decision. While we may believe our decisions are logical, they are based on the biases and heuristics of our subconscious. So when we’re faced with a complex decision – or a decision involving others such as a spouse or a team or other departments at work - we’re left without a dependable process.

That’s why I developed and documented a model that encompasses the elements of good decision making. The ADEPT ™ Model is one that has underpinned much of my success in the Insights Industry – optimizing annual marketing plans, designing decision processes for new product introductions, facilitating team decisions on global strategy. I’ve discovered that good decisions are:

A – Aligned to your values

D – Driving you toward your vision

E – Educated with data

P – Prompt

T – Tough (sometimes they require Tools when especially complex)

The ADEPT ™ framework is essential for: guiding better decisions, communicating when decisions involve multiple people, bridging the distance between decision makers and decision support, or even as a tool for salespeople trying to influence the decision of a buyer. While I currently provide consulting, fractional insight leadership, and executive coaching at my company illuminim.com, I want to help even more people and organizations better their business and their lives with better decisions; so I’m about halfway through writing a book to share this model with even more who could benefit.

As I expand my discussions of decision making - from my immediate network to speaking engagements at conferences - the community of professionals who are driven to become “decision optimizers,” is growing. This group of decision optimizers include a much larger part of the organization than typically come to mind when one thinks of decision support; people in roles such as market researcher, business analyst, decision scientist, consumer researcher, competitive analyst, financial analyst, product development, consumer experience, customer service, and customer success. In fact, I’ve found the decision making process is improved in proportion to the number of different perspectives included. Along with the book, blog and website, I’d like to provide:

• Training modules for each element of the model

• Tools and Assessments

• Group coaching in an exclusive social media community

• One-on-one coaching

The added benefit of utilizing the ADEPT ™ Model for big, complex decisions is that you can retrain your brain to utilize the process in more and more decisions. You can become more ADEPT at making good decisions over time. I believe that good decision making is essential to everyone’s success, so I’d like to expand to a larger community. My plan is to expand to the following groups, writing a book and building a community with training, tools, and coaching for each:

• Business leaders: building a culture for good decision making throughout your organization.
• Parents: giving your kids a strong foundation for decision making.

I am exploring the services available to help me build my community and grow along with my vision. Memberful seems like a perfect fit with tools to tie into my current website and social media plus support to grow my community and offerings.