how to make hard choices by ruth chang - a visual summary

How To Make

Hard Choices?~RUTH CHANG

Key Takeaways from the Popular Ted Video

Submitted By Aaisha Modi (PGP30410)

7. Conclusion

1. Understanding hard choices

2. Hard choices are hard because you are stupid?!

3. Paradox of Hard Choices

4. Dynamics of Value

5. Discovering the latent power

6. Way forward

So, what is in it for you?

Deepika Padukone? Anushka Sharma?

Whom to Marry?

Apparently, yes – associated with agonizing, hand-wringing, the gnashing of teeth!!!

So, are hard choices big, momentous and related to things that “matter”?

In reality?!

Let us put things in Perspective..

Easy choicesOne alternative is betterthan the other in allaspects. The choice, to arational mind, is obvious.

You agonize over where to stay – staying might give you emotional strength from family while shifting may give you a financial high – a hard choice and a big decision to make

Hard choicesOne alternative is better insome ways, the other inother ways, but neither isbetter than the other overall.

Let us put things in Perspective..

BUT! Not all hard choices are as big!

Decision about breakfast - Maa-ke-haath ka healthy pohaor cold coffee & choco chip cookies?

Effectively translates into choice between health and taste. However, neither is better than the other overall - a HARD

choice

If you can make small hard choices,

You can make the big ones too!

So.. What If?

Tom Cruise had

become a

Priest Instead?

What If?

George Clooney Continued as

Insurance Salesman?

Right after school – there is a course that interests you and there is one that Mummy-Papa and neighbour-ke-parents want you to take. In their words –

“Bubbly ki CTC is Rs 1 cr! Do you want to earn just a quarter of it?”

So, how do you decide?You erase your year-old designs off your white board and weigh the pros and cons of both courses, along with visiting several astrologers (because obviously,

they know what is going to be good for your future)

Eventually? • Take the safest option – “Varna shaadi kaun karega?”• Sooner or later, you realise that your chosen path was not meant for you• So you either accept what you are and just exist or start afresh

You might just have killed the next Dhoni, Asha Bhosle or Shahrukh Khan!

Why take up the easy option first? Because you are stupid?

NO !!!

It was the fear of unknown - a common motivational default in dealing with hard choices; However, it rests on a misconception

It's a misconception to think that one alternative really is better than the other, and that as you're too stupid to know which, you might as

well take the least risky option

Hard choices are hard not because of us or our ignorance;they're hard because there is no best option

Paradox of Hard Choices Now, if there's no best option, then the alternatives must be

equally good!

If that is right, just flip a coin and do what the coin has to say!

Marry the one that the coin favoured, live where the coin wants you to and choose you career on the basis of a heads/tails

Don’t feel it’s right?

Well, you’re RIGHT about that!

Marketer or Consultant

Marketer or Consultant

Does this Make this job better?-MAY BE NOT!

Two jobs - neither is better than the other, nor are they equally good

How do you choose then?

Is the choice itself problematic and its comparison impossible?

Not like we're trying to choose between two things that can't be compared –not comparing chocolates and pens

What is the issue? What are we doing wrong?

Decoding the Paradox

Decoding the ParadoxWhat’s wrong? An unthought-of and unreasonable assumption

That values are like scientific quantities (length, mass and weight)If you compare your weight with your friend’s, there are only three possibilities- you weigh more, your friend weighs more (to your delight) or both of you weigh equal

Values – a completely different ballgame!

What matters to us – own solace, interests, a child's delight, the love you have for your partner — can't be expressed or represented by real numbers

Hence, there's no reason to believe that in hard choices, one alternative is better, worse or equal to the other

A new fourth relation beyond being better, worse or equal, exists.

Dynamics of Value

Values are ‘on a par’ In the same league, but very different in type

‘The world of is’(the world of lengths and

weights)is unlike

‘The world of ought’ (the world of choices)

MATTERS WHICH ONE YOU CHOOSE, but that doesn’t mean one is better than the other

That’s why it was tough in the first place!

A world full of only easy choices would enslave us to reasons

If you think about it, it's incorrect to think that the reasons given to you dictated your choice of hobby, job or house!

In reality, you faced alternatives that were on a par — hard choices — and you created reasons for yourself to choose that hobby, house and that job

It's when faced with hard choices, that you exercise your normative power– the power to create reasons for yourself – which develops you into the kind

of person that you are

When we make hard choices we decide certain things - Here's where I stand. Here's who I am. I am for marketing. I am for cold coffee and cookies.

Its just not supported by reasons served on a plate, but by those created by our own selves

When we create reasons to justify being a certain kind of person, we wholeheartedly become the people that we are - the authors of our own lives

Look for reasons within: Who am I to be?

Be an engineer who chooses to pursue marketing & has chocolates for breakfast

OR Decide to study commerce, start your own venture &

have healthy breakfast

The choice depends on only one thing –You yourself!

Conclusion

• Hard choices could be small or big

• You are NOT stupid

• There is no real BEST option when hard choices exist

• The only thing that matters is which alternative you choose

• Don’t doubt the rationality of your decisions –

they are supported by reasons that matter most –

YOUR reasons!

Thank You

You are the artist of your life – do not be a drifter;

A Course by Prof Sameer Mathur for PGP-MBA students@professormathur

IIM Lucknow