"Swift decisions are not sure."
SOPHOCLES. 5th-century B C. poet and dramatist
"He who considers too much will perform little."
JOHANN VON SCHILLER, 18th-century poet and dramatist
Having listed your alternatives, the next step in the decision-making process is to compare how each alternative stacks up against the others. In some cases, a single alternative may emerge as the clear winner — you may find a car that satisfies all your criteria. But in other cases, each alternative holds advantages and disadvantages. What then?
In situations like these, you need to rank your alternatives. Com- pare each alternative to each criterion. If an alternative best meets if. criterion, give it a rating of ten. It doesn't have to be perfect, just the best that's available. If an alternative is half as good as the best for meeting a criterion, give it a rating of five. Once you do this, you may arrive at a chart similar to the one below.
Performance Repairs Cost Mileage
Civic 9 6 10 8
Fiero 10 5 7 6
Toyota 9 6 6 10
Escort 6 10 9 7
Next, you multiply the value you assigned a criterion by the rating you assigned an alternative. For example, the criterion of perfor- mance received a value of ten, the Civic had a rating of nine, so it scores ninety points. Do this for all criteria, then total the score for each alternative, and see which one is greatest.
Performance Repairs Cost Mileage Total (10) (5) (8) (3> Civic 9x10=90 6x5=30 10x8=80 8x3=24 224 Fiero 10x10=100 5x5=25 7x8=56 6x3=18 199 Toyota 9x10=90 6x5=30 6x8=48 10x3=30 198 Escort 6x10=60 10x5=50 9x8=72 7x3=21 203
In this case, the Civic won as the alternative that best suited the ratings of the criteria. You may want to examine how your decision feels to you. If it doesn't feel right, then maybe your criteria are not ranked as they should be, or maybe you still need to search for more alternatives.
This rating scheme can be applied to feelings as well as specific factual data. You simply incorporate your feelings into a criterion and rate them as you would rate the importance of any other criterion. In this way, you can work towards an alternative that satis- fies both your mind and your heart.
Once you have made a selection, it's important to take some time to troubieshoot it. Ask yourself, "What could go wrong?" Then ask yourself, ""What could I do to prepare for this going wrong?"
TIP Unless new information and new alternatives appear, carry
through the decision that you have made. Avoid the tendency to switch just before the moment of action.
Decisions, Decisions, Decisions.
• Decision-making Warm Ups
What was one of the best decisions you've ever made? What was good about it? How did you arrive at that decision?
What was one of the worst decisions you have ever made? What was bad about it' How did you arrive at that decision?
What was one of the most difficult decisions you have ever made? What made it difficult?
What is one of the most unusual decisions you have ever made? What was one of the earliest decisions you made as a child?
• Target Practice
For each of the following activities, determine a statement of purpose. What could be the end result of these endeavors?
Buying a house Reading a magazine Running a mile
Doing all the exercises in this book Buying lottery tickets
Dieting
Not expressing negative emotions
• Setting Criteria
Figure out the most important criteria in making a good choice for the fol- lowing activities. What might you want to achieve, preserve, and avoid? Selecting a dictionary or atlas
Buying a sofa bed Selecting a new winter coat Choosing a novel Choosing a career Getting married
• Making a Point
Get a piece of paper and rate the importance of the following criteria for buying a house: total cost: mortgage rate, neighborhood; proximity to schools, churches, and shopping; street noise; taxes; spaciousness; arrange- ment of kitchen; number and size of bathrooms; amount of closet and storage space; space for entertaining; condition of plumbing, wiring, and heating system; age of roof; number of bedrooms; condition of roof, gut- ters, windows, or foundation; air conditioning; parking; size of yard.
• Getting There Is HaJf The Fun
Determine what activities you may need to perform in order to achieve the following set of goals.
To set up a hockey pool with twenty people in four weeks To be able to program in PASCAL by the beginning of June To travel to Kenya by next March
To renovate the living room and dining room by Christmas
• Choose and Feel
There is a popular story about Albert Einstein. When confronted with a decision that had two possible alternatives — a yes-or-no decision or a this- or-that decision — Einstein would take out a coin, assign one alternative to heads, the other to tails, and flip the coin. When the coin landed, he would look at the face of the coin and immediately ask himself how he felt. If he felt good, he would go with the first alternative. If he felt bad then he would go with the other alternative.
Q Think about the following hypothetical situations:
If you were going to die tonight, what would you most regret not having told anyone?
If vou were offered one million pounds to leave the country and never return, what would you do?
Would you kill a cow if you had nothing else to eat?
If you knew that there would be a nuclear war in five days, what would you do?
Would you choose to know the precise instant of your death?
A special device has been invented that can tell you the correct answer for any single question. Assume that you can ask about anything in the future, the past, or the present. What question would you ask5
If you could live in any person's body for a full day and night, whose would you choose and what would you do?
If you could inhabit an animal's body for a day, what animal would you choose?
• Risk Muscle
Next year, you must plant one crop over all your land. You have a choice of three kinds of seed. There will be three possible weather conditions, good, average, and poor. It is impossible to predict which condition will occur, since each is equally likely to happen. The profit and loss for the possible weather conditions are outlined in the following table.
Which crop would you plant? Why?
• Finding More Alternatives
The I Ching, also called the book of changes, is a collection of wise sayings that has been read in China for several thousand years. When you have a difficult or complex decision to make, consider using the I Ching, not as a means of divination, but as a way to get your thinking traveling in new directions.
Good Weather Merage Weather Poor Weather
Seed one 24 Seed two 12 Seed three 6 0 6 6 -6 0 6 177
• Ranking Routine
Rank the following seven shapes in order of preference. Do this by choos ing the shape you like best and the shape you like least and set them aside.
Then, of the remaining five shapes, choose your favorite and least favorite shape, and set them aside. From the remaining three, once again choose the shapes you like best and like least.
• The Root of the Problem
Next time you're feeling depressed, take some time to proceed through the formal decision-making process. Ask yourself what the problem might be. Formulate a statement of purpose. Define some criteria. Find out what you need to make yourself feel better.