Making Hard Choices. Ruth Chang breaks it down for you and me

I once loved philosophy in university, and I stumbled upon Ruth Chang’s Ted talk tonight about making hard choices. We all face them and they’re never easy. In fact, I shared my own career decision making process in an earlier Huffington Post article.

Ruth Chang breaks down why hard choices are hard and what we can do about them.

Lessons learned:

1) Hard choices are hard because there isn’t a better alternative.

2) Hard choices are usually based on values and cannot be based on merely quantitative metrics. For example, when you are comparing two numbers, there are only three options: greater, lesser, or equal. Hard choices are not formulated that way.

3) Hence, there’s an introduction of the 4th choice which is: on par. Hard choices are on par with each other, such as being in the same neighborhood, so neither is clearly better than the other.

4) Hard choices are a god-send. They allow us to put ourselves behind a position that we choose and shape how we are.

5) Don’t be a drifter and make a decision based on fear of the risk or unknown. Be bold and make a decision to determine our own paths.

While watching her talk, I found myself thinking about all the hard choices that we have to make everyday at work, especially as a PM (product manager), and how being a PM made me a more efficient decision maker that benefits in my personal life too.

Do you feel like being a PM has made you a better decision maker?

What framework and/or process do you use to make decisions as a PM?

If you’re up for it, I’d love to gather some insights from you and write about it. Names will be anonymous.

Twitter: @yipstas