The Mentor | #16 | Choices
Each month, I share 3 things I've read on skills, careers, and personal development.
Every day brings new choices. -Martha Beck
“You can have anything you want, the only question is what are you willing to give up.’ I remember hearing this statement from a customer, early in my consulting career. The person went on, to describe a framework that I have observed to be true to this day.
The framework is the Cheap-Fast-Good triangle. The graphic is fairly simple:
As he stated, you can have anything you want. The catch is that you can only have 2 of the 3.
If you want something fast and good, it won’t be cheap.
If you want something fast and cheap, it won’t be good.
If you want something good and cheap, it won’t be fast.
1
We face choices every day. If you make a bad choice, the only thing you should focus on is not letting that compound into multiple bad choices. It’s easier said than done. As the saying goes, “If you are in a hole, stop digging.” Responding in the moment is usually not a recipe for good choices.
2
Great choices are made when you have a strategic framework or guidelines for the choice. It could be as simple as the Cheap-Fast-Good triangle, or as nuanced as ‘SPADE’.
Framework for Difficult Decisions
3
Expertise can be a trap. You can become so versed in a topic, that you can no longer see the obvious. Your choices become blinded by your expertise, instead of improved by it. Tapping into a beginners mind, is the only way out of this trap.