This simple question will help you make better decisions
Whether it’s what to order for lunch or what to do next in your career, being a more efficient decision-maker can improve your productivity and your quality of life. Getting caught up in “analysis paralysis” wastes time, but making quick decisions can, too.
“What happens when someone is faced with an issue or given a project is that they typically jump in; they confuse activity with impact,” says Christopher Frank, coauthor of “Decisions Over Decimals: Striking the Balance Between Intuition and Information.” “They start scheduling meetings, and emails start to fly. People chase the perfect decision, and that perfect decision doesn’t exist. You may get a good decision, a poor decision or no decision at all.”
Instead, Frank, who is vice president of global marketplace insights at American Express and an adjunct professor at Columbia University, says individuals and teams should approach the decision by asking one question first: What do I wish I knew? Determine the central question that needs to be answered at that moment (or the “IWIK”) and the minimum viable decision that needs to be made.
“Asking ‘What do I wish I knew?’ acts as a catalyst to bring clarity to what you need to answer,” Frank says. “By asking a series of IWIKs, you start to uncover what people really care about. You get a deeper understanding of actual needs. You start to understand knowledge gaps, and it’s really a quick technique to get at the heart of initiative to enable you to make a smarter, faster or better decision.”
To use the IWIK process, Frank says you need to follow four steps.
Get clear on the ask
The first step is to determine your level of clarity on what needs to be decided, what matters, and what information is essential to move forward. “Assess where you are in the decision process,” Frank says. “If there are multiple factors or multiple stakeholders, IWIK is an idea tool.”
Send an email to anyone who will be involved in the decision. If you’ve scheduled a meeting to work on the project, tell them, “I’m going to ask you this question: What do you wish you knew?” Frank says. “Tell them, ‘There’s no prework except pre-thinking. If I could deliver to you a piece of information that would enable you to move forward, what would that be? What will make you smarter or more confident to move forward?’ ”
Frank says “wish” in IWIK is a key word because it grants permission for open exploration.
Start brainstorming
Step 2 is the actual brainstorming session. The most effective IWIK sessions tend to be with groups no larger than three people. For decisions that have multiple stakeholders, Frank recommends conducting successive rounds of sessions.
“Small group discussions have the advantage of unlocking conversations that may not happen in larger group settings due to fear or inhibition,” he says.
Capture questions
The next step is to listen and record;
Frank calls this “capture mode.” The exercise of sharing IWIKs is often slow in the beginning, but as people start to offer up a series of questions, others will chime in, too.
“Once they feel the free-flowing and psychologically safe space, they will give you a stream of questions,” Frank says.
A key part of this step is to not stop and address any of the questions, even if you know the answer. Also, don’t give any kind of evaluation of the question in the moment.
Deliberate and find answers
Step 4 is done by the person who is leading the IWIK. It’s the deliberation phase, where you take all the IWIKs that you heard and categorize them. Flag duplicates — someone asking the same question — and questions that overlap. Look for IWIKs that can be easily answered and those that take analysis or potential additional research.
Categorize questions into what Frank calls the IWIK knowledge matrix:
What you know today but don’t need to know tomorrow is meaningless information.
What you do not know today and do not need to know tomorrow is random information.
What you know today and need to know tomorrow is foundational information.
And what you don’t know today but need to know tomorrow is missing information.
“The simple two-by-two matrix starts to act as a regulator on the information you need, the data you need and the analysis you need to complete,” Frank says.
Doing the IWIK exercise helps people and teams discover their biggest challenge. “It’s not just identifying the essential question; it’s also understanding and connecting the information,” Frank says. “IWIK not only drives efficiency of the analysis, but it also starts to really bring a holistic view to what everyone may be trying to solve to move forward.”