I'm sure on some level, we are all a little bit familiar with the concept of decision paralysis also known as analysis paralysis (according to Google). It's probably not too hard to imagine this situation... You are sitting with your spouse, significant other, or friend and one of you says "what sounds good for dinner?".
You reply with an almost immediate, "I don't know, what sounds good to you?". Then you sit there for an hour without making a decision because neither of you can or wants to. I'd venture to guess this happens on a daily basis in some relationships. I know I've been there my fair share of times with @mrsbozz.
Of course, there is always something I am hungry for, but I don't know if it is something that she is in the mood for, so I don't want to force her to get something simply because I want it.
I saw this meme a while ago and it's quite honestly next level genius. However, while it works for the scenario I mentioned above, it doesn't always work for every instance of decision paralysis you might face.
According to a page I found on the Internet, this is the definition of Decision Paralysis:
"Decision paralysis is the inability to decide out of fear of making the wrong choice or being overwhelmed by too many options. And if you have a tough time choosing, it may prevent you from making any decision at all."
Given my job as the head of a department, I find myself in the position where I have to make decisions quite frequently. Usually, it's pretty easy for me, after 25 years doing this I would hope so. Other times though, it can be pretty excruciating. @mrsbozz usually knows when I have something like this going on as I get very quiet and probably somewhat gruff with my answers to her.
It's interesting how the number of people a decision impacts can have a significant difference on how easy or hard it is for you to make said decision.
Then again, sometimes the decision comes pretty easily no matter how many people are impacted by it. For example, we recently had a large project where we decided to bid out for new copy machines. We had perhaps eight or so companies respond to our bid, and at the end of the process, it was pretty clear which brand we should pick.
Konica had the lowest prices, a repair response time that was in line with the other vendors, and good reviews from other school districts we contacted who were using the products. We are still in the process of our roll out and so far things seem to be good.
Then there are other situations where things don't fall into place quite so easily. I was recently made aware of some FCC funding that could be going away and our consultant suggested we take advantage of it to update our enterprise wireless system.
We are currently using Ruckus and have been very happy with it throughout the years. Unfortunately, due to some unforeseen circumstances (which is a story for another time), we got blacklisted by a key vendor which made it virtually impossible to move forward with Ruckus for this wireless refresh project.
The idea of starting all over when we have something that is five years old but still works is kind of a punch in the gut.
What if I choose wrong?
What if the staff hates it?
This close to retirement, is this the decision I want to be remembered for in this district? With everything so dependent on wireless, making a false step here could potentially be career ending. Okay, maybe not that severe, but I will be forced to answer some really tough questions to some people I don't normally talk to. All because of one decision I made.
As you can imagine, I was pretty nervous. As discussed above, my life pretty much came to a standstill for a couple of days as I struggled with decision paralysis. Fortunately, this decision has a timeline on it, otherwise I would probably still be hemming and hawing over which way to go.
After watching a demo, doing a fair amount of research online, and talking to some other people who use one of the solutions, I finally came to a decision that I think is going to work well for the district both now and moving forward in the future.
The simple fact is, this would have to be done eventually anyway. The average lifespan of most technology is 3 to 5 years before it becomes obsolete. Public schools usually milk stuff for much longer than that due to budget constraints, but if I can get the federal government to pay for 80% of the project, why wouldn't I?
Have you ever been in a position where you face decision paralysis? It seems many times when we are facing those big decisions time is of the essence, so to some degree we are forced to make that decision for better or worse.
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There is a great book I read in college called The Paradox of Choice. It talks about all this kind of thing. I don't know when it was written, but that was 25 or so years ago when I read it, and even at the time it was talking about how too many options was responsible for a lot of the stress we have in daily life—I'm sure today that is much much worse.
Wow, that is interesting. It's a lot of weight to carry on your shoulders sometimes. I guess that is why I get paid the big bucks though :P I can't even type that with a straight face!
Yeah, I have been there before. In very similar situations too. Would be curious what solution you went with.
It's from a company called Juniper that just got bought out by HP/Aruba a little bit ago. Apparently their interface is so streamlined that Aruba knew it would take them billions of dollars to replicate it, so they just bought he company instead.
Oh, I have been out of the loop. I didn't know HP bought them out. I've heard good things about Aruba and Juniper and nothing but good experience with HP.
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I know the feeling! Every time I had big budget items choosing the best one that fits the need and price is challenging. And with you being close to retirement you don't want to be remembered as "that guy" who messed up everything on his way the door! All you can ever do is make the best call with the information you have at the time.
Thanks, I hope that is what I did in this case. From what I can tell it seems to be a really solid product and other districts larger than mine are using it with no issues, so I have my fingers crossed!
This never happens, if there's not a speedy decision, I'll be on the bread and jam in no time.
Tough call, those kind of decisions, but you'd got the narrative by the end.
Where I work, the big challenge is getting twenty-six people to all come to the same decision and not any one of them change their mind before I can implement it!
I'm retiring next year 😂
I'm lucky that I am pretty much the sole decision maker. I might have to hear people grumble about my decision after the fact, but it's mine and mine alone to take responsibility for. My wife and I have spent a two hour drive home trying to figure out where we wanted to stop for food, only to just eat something from the fridge when we got home.
😁
When it comes to big decisions that affect many people, it's natural to feel anxious about making the right decision, especially when the consequences are big or unexpected.
For sure!
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