This is my first official blog for Crossroads. My intention is to start a flow of conversations about a number of perplexing issues that seem to haunt those of us who have discovered that decision making in the early 21^st Century requires more than the tools we acquired in our youth. Even if that youth is not yet spent. Or, as in my case, long gone.

The idea of a blog called Crossroads, initially inhabited by four former graduates of the Thunderbird School of Global Management, seemed like a really intriguing place to stir the pot of ideas that had bubbled up during our informal discussions over the past six months.

So here goes.

Crossroads are commonplace. But in the past, the really challenging, life-changing crossroads usually came at a languid pace for most of us.

But not anymore.

The Digital Age has accelerated everything. What used to take hours or days now takes seconds or nanoseconds. So often we are parachuted into a crossroads situation that confronts us with not just one or two options but dozens. And a poor choice, or even just an unfortunate one, can have ramifications that rattle cages in all sorts of strange directions. With responses equally sudden and full of repercussions.

And that’s the conundrum.

How do you handle a critical crossroad situation that blindsides you? Demands decisions you aren’t ready to make? And requires tools you don’t have, and even if you did, wouldn’t know how to use? Chances are at about this moment the desire for a magical device like the Wicked Queen’s “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall” in the tale of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs will seem definitely worth selling your soul, or at least your last bonus, for.

So lets pretend we are going to plunge through that future-casting mirror and survey some of the tools that might come in handy for this quasi-Dungeons and Dragons game we all find ourselves living in today.

Oddly enough, the September 2010 issue of the Harvard Business Review had a remarkable bunch of useful articles that I found as a good starting point for our discussion of tools to help us get beyond the frequent and never-ending crossroad events that now plague us on a regular basis. I won’t dwell on them…but will hint at why reading these articles is an important revving up exercise for what will roll out later in these blog-posts:

Be a Better Manager: Live Abroad Page 24

As Thunderbirders, have long suspected international experience increases a person’s problem solving ability as well as raising their level of creativity.  It also means they are more likely to create new businesses and products. And it bodes well for those who like to be promoted. Now these things are not only a Thunderbird obsession, they are backed-up by solid research.

How Anger Poisons Decision Making Page 26

When you’re at a crucial crossroad decision point, anger can really be an albatross around the neck of your performance capabilities. It can make you take cognitive shortcuts rather than do more systematic reasoning. It also can make things get personal when it would be  much better to just stay focused on the task. This article has some interesting insights into how to tame the anger animal in all of us.

When Emotional Reasoning Trumps IQ Page 27

The illustration in the article sums up why it is important to realize: “People associate strategy with rational thinking and other high-level functions of the prefrontal cortex…but best strategic thinkers show more activity in parts of the brain linked with emotion and intuition. Their nervous systems may even repress rational thought to free those areas up.” These are observations made using brain scans. And it confirms my long-held suspicions as an ad agency creative director that the most important strategic breakthroughs seldom come from the bottom-line, pragmatic, left-brain number crunchers.

It’s Not “Unprofessional” to Gossip at Work Page 28

This has been a hot topic for me for a long time. The study referenced here indicates that gossip is a critical element of an organization and understanding how it works is a critical management need. As the article points out, “Too often managers try to squelch gossip without addressing the problems that are generating it. Gossip is a symptom of a larger organizational issue.” The other really important point in this essay is that top management has its own form of gossip and a higher rate of gossiping partners than frontline workers. Hmmmm. What CEO will confess to that?

Redefining Failure Page 34

This column by Seth Godin points to the importance of expanding an organization’s definition of “failure.” Not doing so risks eternally being stuck with the status quo.

The Judgment Deficit Page 44

This is a brilliant article about the threats slavish attachment to statistical models generate and how we must put good judgment back in the decision making mix.

“Mechanistic decision making has value, but when misused it can be every bit as dysfunctional as a Muscovite politburo.” This is all about deciding as humans what story we want to live in and not settle for the powerful obsessions of a few to dictate what our critical crossroads decisions will be.

Turning Uncertainty into Risk Page 73

This brief little insert from an article on Making Social Ventures Work is one of the most compact explanations of how to turn uncertainty…which is not very manageable and almost always messy…into risk…which is both manageable and planable.

Mistakes Leaders Keep Making Page 86

This article explores four behaviors deeply rooted in the managerial psyche that block organizational change. As a consultant, I have run across all of them and sometimes all four in one organization. Overcoming these behavioral traps for my clients I must admit provides me with a lot of business. But helping executives get clarity on issues they often can’t see from where they sit, is one of the real contributions an ethical consultant can bring to the agonizing paralysis of leaders who make the same mistakes over and over again. Which as we all have heard…is a kind of definition for insanity.

Beyond the articles I’ve listed above is a lengthy section on entrepreneurs. It is well worth reading through and has some very cogent thoughts on the global entrepreneuring scene.

So there you have it.

Multiple starting points for us to pursue various ways to meet future crossroad events with new tools and new perspectives. Hopefully discovering much more creative and effective ways to manage the choices we have and turning them into the successes we desire.

I look forward to the back flow.

John Carter–Thunderbird ‘60

The temptation or the insistence to stay with the past, the proven system, “what works,” is persistent. And that makes sense in many situations. But we can’t make it law. Instead of protecting the past, standing arms out and backs to yesterday, we have to stand back and consider the larger picture and consider options for progressive actions to capitalize on the change, to adjust, even if slowly, to the new momentum.

Of course the new catalyst is digitalization of almost everything, and the role of technology and especially the Internet. We cannot be victims of all this, but use it as tools to our future success.  That requires aggressive humility. In a new mode of clarity, we have to watch, listen, and move forward, even if there are rocks in the new road.

“World Attacked by Aliens” it says in bold letters across the front page, which makes you almost spit out your coffee. While you were silently asleep, the world around you has changed, significantly. A million questions are running through your mind. What aliens? Where did they attack? Are your loved ones, spread around the globe, safe? The list continues… While you were in sheer bliss, the world around you seemingly collapsed. You didn’t ask for this change and you didn’t initiate it. It just happened. While you are trying to understand the impact of this change on you, leaders in several countries are scrambling. The situation begs for a leader, someone who will pick up the baton and run with it, someone who will speak for all, even if not all are in agreement, someone who will speak and act for the good of all, someone who can rally the troops, to proceed in a united approach. This begs the question: Do we have such a leader? Or maybe a council? An entity that has the well-being of all in mind? An entity that can act logically but is able to evaluate emotional risks? An entity respected by all and yet with the vision to succeed for the benefit of all. The UN maybe? Or how about THE ELDERS? All the military leaders? All CEO’s?

You might think this is a far-fetched scenario, but it isn’t. It’s happening every day in millions of locations around the world: Oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico, flooding in Pakistan, Volcano Eruptions in Europe, Financial Instability in Global Markets. Aliens attack us every day!

It takes trust to succeed. It takes a willingness to be vulnerable and accept no one person has the answer, the one solution. In a sense global warming is an attack on the world, as we know it, regardless if you think it’s happening or not. So when will we step up as leaders? And when will we let our leaders lead rather than question every move they make?

Steven B. Sample, the past-president of University of Southern California, wrote in his book The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership (Jossey-Bass, 2003) that while managers are expected to make judgments quickly, for leaders, “judgments as to the truth or falsity of information or the merits of new ideas should be arrived at as slowly and subtly as possible—and in many cases not at all.” It was that “not at all” comment that hit me. In facing a decision, business managers learn to gather the facts, assess the options, decide on the best solution, and act.

Conventional wisdom tells us that surely is the right process to manage intelligently. But still, standing back and listening, often brings exciting success.  Humble hesitation is not inaction. Intuition is not unscientific. As leaders at the point of decision, how often have we “trusted our feelings” and found ourselves right? A combination of careful decision making and positive fresh thinking has often opened new and profitable paths to victory.

The whole issue can be looked at as an opportunity, not a dilemma. How to meet and succeed in the new world requires a step back and a consideration of the widening horizon of potential. That outlines what we at Crossroads are all about.

This great painting hangs in the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg and is the last version of this story, painted in 1882. There are two earlier versions by Vasnetsov in other museums.

We have found our conversations so rich that we want to share them with you. And we want to encourage you to engage in the conversation. This blog is meant to give us the platform to have this conversation meaningfully and openly. We live in unusual times. Unusual minds leading to unusual conversations is what the world needs right now. Let the conversation begin!