5 Steps That Enable Bold Decisions

Opinions. Feedback. Advice. Guidance. Counsel. Consensus!

Ugh.

Granted, it’s natural to look for input when we need to make decisions. And if asking for advice doesn’t come naturally, the business world trains us to actively solicit opinions, bounce ideas off other people, and run our ideas up proverbial flagpoles in order to harness the amazing brain power of the many to make awesomely incredible decisions.

Sometimes that approach works… but sometimes it’s the worst approach to take when you need to make a huge decision.

The main power wielded by group thinking is the power of the middle ground. Groups grind away the edges and the sharp corners. After all of the input and feedback and devil’s advocacy, what remains is safe, secure… and similar. One person making a decision enables boldness and originality — a “committee” making a decision ensures timidity and conventionality.

If you want to be different—if you want to achieve “different”—the only opinion that truly matters is yours. Group decisions give you an out. Other people can be at least partly responsible. Other people can be wrong.

When you make the decision, everything rests on you: your vision, your passion, your motivation, and your sense of responsibility. So you’ll try harder if only to prove others wrong. You’ll fight through every obstacle and roadblock, if only to prove yourself right.

You will do everything possible to make it happen.

So when you need to make a huge decision, this is how to get input and opinions—while still making sure you, and only you, make the final decision:

1. Take a “crazy” idea.

Choose something you believe in late at night but in the cold light of day hesitate to try.

Or choose an idea you’ve been told will never work.

2. Then seek data, not opinions.

Input from other people is useful, but only if you see that input as data points and not opinions.

Opinions carry extra weight, like the weight of credibility (he’s really smart, so I’m sure he’s right), the weight of guilt (if it turns out he’s right, I’ll never hear the end of it), or the weight of safety (yeah, there probably is a reason no one has tried this before).

“I think you’re crazy to try to open a store in that market,” is an opinion. It may be accurate or may not be accurate; either way, it’s still just an opinion.

If you value the person’s perspective, ask how he or she arrived at that opinion. Always look for the data behind the conclusion.

Otherwise ignore everything that isn’t data—warnings, cautionary tales, and well-intentioned but poorly founded advice—since you already know all those things anyway.

3. Evaluate the data.

Data analysis is easy when opinions and “weight” are stripped away.

Make a pros and cons list. Apply sensitivities. Be objective. Be smart. You know how.

4. Decide how strongly you believe.

Analysis will only take you so far, since critical thinking tends to steer decisions towards conventional wisdom.

An innovative product only looks like a sure thing in hindsight. The emergence of a new industry only seems inevitable after it has emerged.

At some point, someone believed when others didn’t, so then…

5. … decide if that someone is you.

If you believe when others don’t–and a major portion of your belief is based on analysis and not gut feel—then go for it. Start a new initiative. End a struggling initiative. Enter a new market. Take a chance on a new product.

Go for it, knowing you’ll go harder and faster and longer because the only person that really matters made the decision.

You

No Job Land

La prensa británica se ensaña con España: "Una tierra sin trabajo"

The Telegraph lanzó hace una semana el vídeo sobre España "No Job Land"

"Hace cinco años, en España fluía el crédito y el límite era el cielo"

El periódico británico The Telegraphlanzó hace una semana el vídeo sobre España “No Job Land” ("Una tierra sin trabajo").

El vídeo, de siete minutos, narra la historiade tres familias desempleadas de un un barrio de las afueras de Madrid,

Los autores, tres tres jóvenes periodistasfreelance, explican como los algunos ciudadanos se enfrentan al paro de larga duración.

Olmo Calvo  es argentino y fundó una cooperativa fotográfica en Buenos Aires, pero vive en Madrid.

Eva Filgueira  está basada también en la capital de España y ha hecho algún trabajo para Magnum Photos (NYC).

Gabriel Pecot es un productor multimedia.

Algunos protagonistas del vídeo, participan en un movimiento local de protesta.

En la grabación, Calvo, Filgueira y Pecot dan voz a varios vecinos de Vallecas y muestran la Acampada realizada en Fontarrón por la Asamblea de Parados y la actuación policial que la desmanteló.

La voz en off que va narrando, cuenta al público:

Hace cinco años, en España fluía el crédito y el límite era el cielo. A día de hoy, millones de ciudadanos están en paro y se aferran a sus casas, desesperados por el futuro y exigiendo/demandando al gobierno que finalmente tome una posición sobre esta situación social.

La crisis financiera mundial y una cultura de la especulación inmobiliaria, ha llevado a muchos ciudadanos españoles a la exclusión social.

Ahora, ellos se Auto-organizan y llevan sus protestas y dolor a las calles, exigiendo que el gobierno adopte una posición para defender el futuro de sus familias.

 
El trabajo se ha viralizado a través de las redes sociales y ahonda en la dramática situación del empleo en España y en las abultadas cifras de parados.
http://youtu.be/bdYQWgn7eec

The massive deterioration of the labor market in Spain

One of the things that has impacted more negatively the welfare and quality of life of Spanish has been the great deterioration of working conditions for workers , a result in part of the various public interventions, including mass labor reforms carried out by the first government of the PSOE and the PP later reforms that were made with the support of CiU , the Catalan keeper has developed public policies when same has been ruling in Catalonia in recent years . The theoretical objective of these reforms was flexible labor market in order to create jobs and reduce unemployment . This objective , however , lacked credibility from the start, since it could easily be predicted to destroy jobs rather than create it ( as we advance and analysts ) . And the data , unfortunately , have proved us right . Let's see .

Consider the latest data from Eurostat ( the data collection agency of the European Union ), comparing Spain with the European Union average of Fifteen (EU -15) , which is the group most economically developed countries in the first EU , among which is Spain . These data clearly show the failure of such policies on job creation . In fact, the characteristics of the labor market show a very marked decrease in the working population , ie the working population , which is important to stress , as Spain ( including Catalonia ) and were countries with low occupancy. In Spain and Catalonia few jobs are produced. In 2012 , for example , the percentage of the adult working population (15 to 64) in Spain and Catalonia was 55.4% and 59.5 % respectively ( compared to 65.2% in average EU15 and 73.8 % in Sweden). And these low rates have been declining with successive labor reforms since the crisis began in 2007 ( at which time the rates were 65.6 % and 71 % respectively). This downturn in Spain has been more pronounced among men , from 76.2 % in 2007 to 60.2% in 2012, among women , 54.7 % to 50.6 % during the same period , although the percentage of women in the labor market has always been lower ( 50.6 % ) than men ( 60.2 %).

This reflects the great destruction and poor production jobs, due in large part , of said labor reforms . It is important to note that in other countries with highly regulated labor markets , such as Sweden , the employment rate ( 73.8%) is much higher than in Spain ( 55.4%) , and has declined much less than in Spain ( 74.2 % in 2007 to 73.8% in 2012) during the years of the crisis. One consequence of this is that unemployment has grown much more rapidly in Spain ( 8.3% in 2007 to 25 % in 2012 ) than in Sweden (from 6.1 % to 8 % ) , as there are many fewer jobs jobs available in Spain than in Sweden , unemployment reached intense levels among young people (15-24 years , 53.2 %).

These data question the constant argument of neoliberal authors, who constantly alleged rigidity of the labor market (ie , excessive difficulties entrepreneurs to lay off workers ) in Spain refer , speaking of excessive security " insiders " , those with permanent contracts, versus the "outsiders " who have temporary contracts. In fact, Spain is one of the countries with a lower percentage of permanent contracts , while being one of the countries that have fewer people working and more unemployment. The thesis of Professor Juan José Dolado , the greatest exponent of this theory , as well as economists FEDEA are unsustainable based on the data. If the labor market regulations are the problem, how is it then that some of the most regulated countries have higher employment and lower unemployment ?

The causes of lower occupancy and higher unemployment in Spain

The problem is not the supposed ( and nonexistent ) rigidity of the labor market , but sluggish economic growth and job production . If we look at the percentage of the population employed in normal (non- crisis) times , we see that the percentage of men working is closer to the average of the EU -15 ( EU -15 74.1% versus 73.5 % in Spain). This is where , incidentally, permanent contracts more concentrated. Impairment shows that this does not preclude dropped more quickly than women . Where there are fewer people employed is among women, with a lower percentage (60.1% versus 54.9 EU 15 % Spain ) . And therein lies one of the reasons that there are few people (mostly women) working reality continues to be ignored by a macho culture that is not economically able to see what the data will show an obvious and clear. Is needed to facilitate the integration of women into the labor market through a network of services to facilitate such integration , such as schools and childhood home services for reconciling family responsibilities with professional tasks , and change man's attitude to sitting steward of household tasks . Out came the famous fourth pillar of the welfare I suggested the socialist government , and later made fortune , even when cut , merely the dependency services .

These measures represent a large investment to create jobs , as the integration of women generates the need to create new jobs ( to perform the tasks that women performed in the home when a housewife ) . But this incorporation , as any new employee , create the need for other workers, as consumption increases also increases economic activity. And that's where to look for the roots of the problem: the limited development of public services of the welfare state , health, social services , social housing, services the macho mentality of economic culture sees as mere consumption , when in reality a huge and profitable investment , they create jobs. If Spain , instead of having only one adult for every ten , had about one in four working in these services, such as Sweden, Spain was about more than 3.5 million jobs , canceling part very important in unemployment. There's the rub.

However , for this increasing number of workers have even greater impact on stimulating the economy , you have to reduce the large wage gap between women and men . As for current policies pertaining to youth , it is obvious that these are insensitive to facilitate articulation of young in the labor market , with greater emphasis on university education in vocational training , which is considered as target youth " without intellectual quality to be university " , a class perception is damaging not only to the youth but the whole society . The mixture of classism ( social class discrimination ) and sexism ( discrimination against women ) leads to inefficient and contrary to the welfare of the majority of the population public policy.

Hence the need for profound changes (almost 180 °) with respect to policies that are being made today in the Spanish Cortes and the Catalan Parliament . This will not happen unless there is a strengthening of trade unions as well as a great social upheaval . In fact, the aim of the reforms was to weaken labor unions and lower wages , which has been achieved, significantly delaying the economic stimulus and damaging the quality of life of most citizens. Meanwhile, Spanish and Catalan rights rights ( whose policies are causing huge damage to the labor market) are waving flags , trying to replace the national social issue by issue.

XXI_Maratón ,Picanya-Paiporta_2300 Runners. (+lista de reproducción)