The North Branch Land Trust, a small northeast Pennsylvania, has the sort of problem many charities might like to wrestle with. The Trust owns a wildlife sanctuary that sits on a natural gas deposit, a deposit that could be quite valuable. What to do? Allow access to the land for drilling and make money to expand? Do they stick strictly to their environmental stewardship mission in every way and hope things work out in the end? Is there another option?
I don’t know what North Branch Land Trust needs to do in this case. I DO know about some tools that could lead to a better decision.
There are huge stakes in a decision like this one. An intuitive approach to making the right choice might not give the best results. There are techniques for evaluating decisions. I’d like to mention three of those methods and show how they can apply to decisions like the one North Branch Land Trust faces.
First, consider all of the factors involved in a decision to allow natural gas drilling. There are political, economic, ecological, and legal aspects to the decision. All you need to do is to take a look at each aspect of the decision in turn. That’s not so different from what you would normally do in making a decision. The point here is to add some structure to the process. This is one of Edward De Bono’s many thinking tools, called CAF for Consider All Factors.
Second, consider the potential impact of your decision to allow natural gas drilling. This process is similar to that first evaluation technique except that you are trying to project the consequences into the future instead of thinking about relevant factors today.
Lateral thinking guru Edward De Bono invented a technique for projecting the consequences of an action into the future. He called it Consequence & Sequel (C&S). You’ll have to read De Bono’s Thinking Course for a thorough explanation of the technique. My copy seems to have walked away, so I can’t offer a proper summary here.
Finally, you can take a decision – “Allow natural gas drilling” and evaluate the good points of the idea, the bad points and the interesting points. Edward De Bono offers a technique called Plus-Minus-Interesting that formalizes what I just explained. The point is to spend a few minutes each on the good, the bad, and the stuff that’s not obviously good or bad.
You can find CAF, C&S, and PMI described in De Bono’s Thinking Course. Look for a used copy online or go to a large public library and check out a copy. Read the book and do the exercises. When you have to make, or help make, another big decision for your organization De Bono’s techniques will help.
I don’t know what North Branch Land Trust needs to do in this case. I DO know about some tools that could lead to a better decision.
There are huge stakes in a decision like this one. An intuitive approach to making the right choice might not give the best results. There are techniques for evaluating decisions. I’d like to mention three of those methods and show how they can apply to decisions like the one North Branch Land Trust faces.
First, consider all of the factors involved in a decision to allow natural gas drilling. There are political, economic, ecological, and legal aspects to the decision. All you need to do is to take a look at each aspect of the decision in turn. That’s not so different from what you would normally do in making a decision. The point here is to add some structure to the process. This is one of Edward De Bono’s many thinking tools, called CAF for Consider All Factors.
Second, consider the potential impact of your decision to allow natural gas drilling. This process is similar to that first evaluation technique except that you are trying to project the consequences into the future instead of thinking about relevant factors today.
Lateral thinking guru Edward De Bono invented a technique for projecting the consequences of an action into the future. He called it Consequence & Sequel (C&S). You’ll have to read De Bono’s Thinking Course for a thorough explanation of the technique. My copy seems to have walked away, so I can’t offer a proper summary here.
Finally, you can take a decision – “Allow natural gas drilling” and evaluate the good points of the idea, the bad points and the interesting points. Edward De Bono offers a technique called Plus-Minus-Interesting that formalizes what I just explained. The point is to spend a few minutes each on the good, the bad, and the stuff that’s not obviously good or bad.
You can find CAF, C&S, and PMI described in De Bono’s Thinking Course. Look for a used copy online or go to a large public library and check out a copy. Read the book and do the exercises. When you have to make, or help make, another big decision for your organization De Bono’s techniques will help.
Comments
Post a Comment