Every important decision has to be made three times. If you act on an important decision without a complete journey through the three yeses, your decision and action may not be as intact and strong as it can be.

Let’s take the buying of your house for example. First you had the instinctive ‘yes, I like this house’, on your first visit.

This first decision is a gut decision. Does it feel right or not?

Then, you asked yourself on the following morning – ‘do I still feel positive about this house?’ The subconscious mind is slower than your gut instinct. It brings forward its concerns the following morning. That’s why people say, ‘I need to sleep on it’. It’s a way of saying ‘I need to get to my second yes.’ This is the second decision point. In the case of the house, possibly you have gone to see the house for the second time, to find out what the neighborhood looks like at a different time of the day.

The second decision, your second yes is when you earnestly engage in the conversation.

You are then at the point of making an offer. Your offer is contingent on an inspection. The purpose of the inspection is to see all the things that you cannot see, to flag all the possible problems.  This brings you to the third decision point.  The third yes is reached by the elimination of all objections and possible stoppers. This is the yes found by completing your due diligence.

The first decision is at the point. The ‘first yes’ is instinctive and quick.
The second decision is upon reflecting the following morning, or after a couple of days. The ‘second yes’ is a little slower and takes a while to find.
The third decision is after having completed your due diligence. This ‘third yes’ is the slowest. It takes as long as it takes to remove doubts and find the assurance about the positive long term prospect of the decision.

Do not bring analysis-paralysis to the third yes. Due diligence is assessing and evaluating all the known factors and then quantifying the unknowables and guestimating their risk-reward ratio. Once you found the third yes, learn to take action and move forward without looking back.

Now you can use this insight in your internal dialogue and conversation with others. On important matters, ask yourself: “Have I completed my three yeses?”

© Aviv Shahar

Aviv Shahar :: Aug.05.2008 :: Entrepreneur, Personal Growth, Strategy :: 1 Comment »

If you are to make yourself attractive to new learning and insight you have to dare to step into unknown situations, and to do that you must:
1. be fascinated with life and living.
2. be comfortable in not knowing.
3. love learning, truth and growth more than you love your ego.
4. be excited about new possibilities more than you love your need for security.
5. be ready for learning and insight to come through anyone regardless of their position, seniority or age.
6. have a sense of humor.
7. be mentally agile and alert.
8. be intensely present and treat each conversation as though it’s the most important thing in the world.
9. trust your capacity to turn every setback into valuable learning.
10. have a sixth sense for the invisible dimensions of things.

© Aviv Shahar

Aviv Shahar :: Jun.17.2008 :: Consultant Journal, Entrepreneur :: No Comments »

What’s better than making decisions?

What is more fun, more powerful and more creative than getting up in the morning and thinking that what you’ve got to do today is to make decisions?

Making decisions is great but even more fun, more energizing and more creative is to have the mindset that today you don’t need to make decisions – that today your endeavor is to GENERATE OPTIONS.

What’s my point? Decision making is overrated. The bigger art in business and in living is to generate options. Great leadership and smart strategy is generating options. When you create options and clarify your vision, your values and your principles, you really don’t need to make many decisions. Instead of you having to make each decision, you let the decision present itself and come to you. I don’t mean which brand of toothpaste to get; the industry has done a very good job in that area and we are presented with many (some might say, too many) options. Therefore, which toothpaste to use is indeed a tough decision. What I am talking about are the bigger, more important directional things in life.

I asked our son who is now in his third year in college, what he wanted to do after he graduates. His reply was, “Right now I am creating options for myself. The best thing I can do at this time, is to do well both academically and in everything else I am involved in whether at school or personally. By excelling in what I do I create more options for me.” Here is his self briefing:

1. Do what I do well.
2. Discover what I am succeeding at.
3. Discover what I am interested in, what energizes me.
4. Meet interesting people and have interesting conversations.
5. The four points above will bring the widest range and best options.

This is a smart mindset.

You don’t see the tree in the forest needing to make decisions. It grows in all possible directions. The roots find the best path to deepen and the branches follow the optimal path for sunlight exposure, depending on the competition and density in the forest canopy.

How about this as a mindset? How about growing in all directions? How about generating a wide range of options? How about letting the environment tell you which are the best options?

Decision then is a confirmation of the obvious. A “yes” to what presents itself as the best option. I agree, sometimes you need to make tough decisions but a good seven or eight out of ten decisions need not be more than confirming the obvious best option. You can then get on with generating options up the path you are pursuing. It’s a different way of thinking. A more energizing way to live. A smarter strategy and a better way to run your business.

© Aviv Shahar

Aviv Shahar :: Apr.23.2008 :: Entrepreneur, Personal Growth :: No Comments »

Here are a few quotes from a Harvard Business Review conversation with Twyla Tharp. These sweat beads of wisdom go beyond art. She captures the essentials of any dedicated endeavor.

“…everyone can be creative, but you have to prepare for it with routine. There’s no other way around it. It’s an absolute mistake to think that art is not practical—or that business cannot be creative. The best artists are extraordinarily practical”

“…The best creativity is the result of habit and hard work. And luck, of course.”

“Fundamental change is an endeavor, it’s a real enterprise, it’s not something that just happens. You make a choice to keep evolving and keep growing.”

To deliver a great performance be it in art, sport, business, teaching or any other field, you have to do much of what is viewed by some as the unnecessary work. Lance Armstrong built a depth of strength during his winter practices up the Tour De France mountain picks when most other cyclers were resting.

It’s the invisible work you put in when no one sees that later shines in your performance. By doing the extra work you make yourself an instrument and a home for the essence of your endeavor and it cannot help but shine through you. Tharp’s message is that it’s the same with creativity. You don’t just wait for a muse or inspiration. You build a practice of showing up and working at it. It is then that inspiration finds you and that you have built the muscle for what it then needs to do.

Here is another interview with Tharp where she explains that it’s about making the dance, and about what failure and success mean.

© Aviv Shahar

Aviv Shahar :: Apr.18.2008 :: Entrepreneur, Innovation :: No Comments »

The greatest pragmatism in the world is to have a dream you work toward realizing. To say, “I don’t dream. I deal in reality.” is to negate your power and to deny your ability to transform reality. Your ability to work and to realize your purpose and dream is the most real thing in the world. It is reality.

Put differently, without idealism, a “realistic” and “pragmatic” approach does not mean much. Idealism is about having a dream, a passionate purpose. Realism is about what is. Pragmatism is about what works, what gets results. It turns out that what is and what works is to take action towards a purpose, a vision, a dream you feel strongly about. Small, consistent, focused actions towards your dream are the real path forward. It is pragmatic idealism. The greatest pragmatism in the world.

© Aviv Shahar

Aviv Shahar :: Apr.03.2008 :: Entrepreneur, Happiness, Personal Growth :: No Comments »

After returning from discovering America Columbus was honored in a series of celebrations. At one such party he was criticized by a gentleman who said: “What’s the big deal, anyone sailing west could have found America”. Columbus went and fetched a cooked egg and challenged all those present to balance the egg on its sharp end. One after the other they tried but they all failed. The egg would not balance and would not stand on the pointed end. Finally Columbus picked the egg and smashed the pointing end on the table just enough for it to balance the egg. To the amazement of all the egg stood balanced. Columbus looked around and proclaimed. “Anyone of you could have done it but I found the way!”

What are the lessons from Columbus’ workshop on exploration and innovation?

1. Discoveries and innovations often look obvious after the fact. After a truth has been articulated, after a discovery has been made known, after a development has been tested and refined, they often look simple and easily accomplished. But they were not obvious before someone articulated, discovered, tested and put them in front of people.
2. The bigger part of innovation is not what you do but how you do it.
3. Think outside the egg.
4. It’s not enough to discover America; you need to also sell it, or to sell your ability to discover the next America. Whether you come up with a technological idea, a service, a solution, a new process, a scientific breakthrough, a business model or a new creative design – It’s not enough that it is promising; you’ve got to be able to communicate it and deliver the good.
5. Be always ready to show what you know.

© Aviv Shahar

Aviv Shahar :: Mar.24.2008 :: Entrepreneur, Innovation :: No Comments »

The lessons of newly emerging champions in the global economy from a Davos CEO forum:
• You have to have a mission. A mission of creating a better world for your children.
• Make impossible things happen.
• Be bold and persevere.
• Be a bridge.
• Rethink cultural biases.
• Rethink where talent is – create talent.
• Empower women.
• Rethink where innovation comes from.
• Create diversity and inclusivity.
• Leverage technology.
• Be flexible and open to the best ideas.
• Keep high ethics and high standards.
• Have a heart to your country.
• Generate business model innovation.
• Don’t be rigid, be adaptive, be open, listen, see, learn and embrace.
• Articulate a clear corporate social and environmental responsibility.
• You need a cause in life. Use business as a model for change.
• Vision comes first. Be a transforming force.

© Aviv Shahar

Aviv Shahar :: Jan.28.2008 :: Entrepreneur, Money & Market Behavior :: No Comments »

The Economist writes intriguingly about Evan Williams the founder of Blogger and Twitter: “Williams accidentally stumbled upon three insights. First, that genuinely new ideas are, well, accidentally stumbled upon rather than sought out; second, that new ideas are by definition hard to explain to others, because words can express only what is already known; and third, that good ideas seem obvious in retrospect.”

The Economist claims that Williams epitomizes Silicon Valley’s right-brain; truly good stuff but needing a critical addition. It is not right-brain – it is “whole-brain” that makes innovation possible.

Recent decades have popularized the right-brain / left-brain story. Every other person is ready to explain what the functions of each side are, and which side of the brain makes innovation, good leadership, happy relationships and more. We seem to love simplistic answers, especially when we believe them to be backed by hard scientific facts. This list below provides us such confidence:

We look at this and think – “well that’s why I am good at this and not good at that…” or “this is why I understand her but cannot connect with him…”

Why do people love to put themselves in boxes (personality types, astrological signs, brain sides and more…) that justify their behavior and explain their experience? Why do we need such labels to explain what makes great leadership, artistic and scientific breakthroughs and innovation? We love the security of telling ourselves right-brain stories supported by left-brain facts. It lets us off the hook of further reflection.

What’s my point?
How many times have we seen that the whole is more than the sum of its parts and how does this apply to the usage of our brain? Isn’t it time we expressed more interest in “whole-brain–whole-mind” functions to discover how it facilitates us to be more complex and complete humans, better innovators and greater leaders and partners?

Innovation is applying ideas to create valuable results where it matters. It is the transformation that makes ideas “happen”. Innovation needs integrated whole-brain function, not just right-brain. Innovation is not a one side or the other enterprise, but a “more than the sum of its parts” synergistic process.
A Whole-brain:

1. Combines creativity and analysis
2. Looks at the whole and sees the parts within
3. Uses feelings logically and applies logic feelingly
4. Integrates quantitative and qualitative awareness & objective and subjective perspectives
5. Is methodical and intuitive
6. Identifies facts and is imaginative about their meanings
7. Is conceptual and practical
8. Synthesizes problem solving
9. Organizes inside chaos
10. Assimilates learning from multiple sources

To build an innovative organization, to cultivate an innovative culture you need to facilitate whole-brain functions and systems. One of the ways we do this in our strategy and innovation summits is we shift between the “foreground” (the business) and the “background” (our internal operating system), and zoom in and out of both. Albert Einstein is one of the best examples of whole-brain–whole-mind thinkers. He is famous for saying, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” In our summits we cultivate new mindsets (individual and collective) by engaging whole-brain–whole-mind functions.

One of Williams’ whole-brain tricks is to ask “what can we take away to create something new? A decade ago, you could have started with Yahoo! and taken away all the clutter around the search box to get Google.” An idea can be initiated in the right-brain but then it needs a whole team of both left and right-brains working together to bring about whole-brain collaborative transformation to make the idea viable and cool in its implementation.

Innovation’s critical competency is whole-brain engagement. Thomas Edison, a great whole-brain–whole-mind innovator said:

“Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. Accordingly, a ‘genius’ is often merely a talented person who has done all of his or her homework”

“I readily absorb ideas from every source, frequently starting where the last person left off.”

“Because ideas have to be original only with regard to their adaptation to the problem at hand, I am always extremely interested in how others have used them….”

“I never perfected an invention that I did not think about in terms of the service it might give others… I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent….”

© Aviv Shahar

Aviv Shahar :: Jan.07.2008 :: Entrepreneur, Innovation, Organizational Development :: No Comments »

Great negotiators, sales people, coaches, consultants and entrepreneurs understand that the word ‘no’ is not the opposite of the word ‘yes’. People say ‘no’ for multiple reasons and they mean a variety of things depending on the situational context. When you get a ’no’, or when you do not get a ’yes’ it may mean any of the options listed below. In parentheses are suggestions about how you could frame your response action accordingly:

1. Not now (Find out what would be a good time)
2. I am not ready to say yes (What holds you back? What will help you feel ready?)
3. I want to hear more (What specifically do you need to understand? Who else needs to be involved?)
4. I need to first know that you understand my concerns (I am here, listening. Help me understand.)
5. What will I gain? What’s in it for me? (What are your hopes? What’s most important for you? What will simplify your life the most?)
6. I need to learn more about your process, help me see how we can get there (Canvass it through the other person eyes: the first step will be… this is what we will do… this is what it will look like… feel like…the results you can expect are…)
7. First I need to know if I can trust you (Build trusting relationship)
8. What guarantees do I have? (What guarantees do you need?)
9. I am under personal pressure and am not in a position to reply now. (That’s why we have to do this… or approach it at another time)
10. How will it impact what we do? What will be the consequences of this? (What are the impacts you hope for? What are the consequences you are concerned about?)

© Aviv Shahar

Aviv Shahar :: Dec.02.2007 :: Entrepreneur :: No Comments »