The 1-3-1 Tool: The Decision Framework that Stops Overthinking

It makes me want to bring up a study that I think we've shared a few times, but it's just so powerful when it gets back to psychological safety viewpoint of Amy Edmondson and that team of surgeons.

And the most successful teams reported the most failures.

And it wasn't that they made the most failures.

The most successful teams reported making the most failures.

And that's an important distinction.

You know, when you have that environment where people can report and acknowledge where they made mistakes, where things didn't turn out right, it actually created a team environment in which overall performance and productivity was improved.

That's a great one.

And so for our listeners, Amy Edmondson, who we've mentioned, a Harvard professor, really has done some of the most seminal work related to psychological safety, really coined the term.

We encourage you to look her up and read some of her work.

But one of her initial great findings and studies was looking at surgeons and these groups.

And yeah, the irony is the most successful surgery groups were those who reported the most errors, which just boggles your mind until you realize it actually wasn't the most errors.

It was the willingness to report the errors and to talk about it and to learn about it.

Which, if I may, as a segue, Peter, is a perfect segue into how we make decisions as leaders.

Because the unit of analysis for leaders is the decision.

The leadership that we all try to do and have, it's all based upon how we make decisions.

Because leadership equates with decision-making rights.

You as a leader are officially granted certain decision-making rights.

That's your prerogative.

That's your role.

How you go about executing that...

There are so many factors and considerations and ways to do it.

But in the end, you need to make a decision.

Now, not just you alone, but you can involve others as well.

And how you learn the decision-making art, how you iterate, how you are open to feedback is critical because the first set of decisions, it might be an NG decision.

It might be so bad.

It makes me want to bring up a study that I think we've shared a few times, but it's just so powerful when it gets back to psychological safety viewpoint of Amy Edmondson and that team of surgeons.

And the most successful teams reported the most failures.

And it wasn't that they made the most failures.

The most successful teams reported making the most failures.

And that's an important distinction.

You know, when you have that environment where people can report and acknowledge where they made mistakes, where things didn't turn out right, it actually created a team environment in which overall performance and productivity was improved.

That's a great one.

And so for our listeners, Amy Edmondson, who we've mentioned, a Harvard professor, really has done some of the most seminal work related to psychological safety, really coined the term.

We encourage you to look her up and read some of her work.

But one of her initial great findings and studies was looking at surgeons and these groups.

And yeah, the irony is the most successful surgery groups were those who reported the most errors, which just boggles your mind until you realize it actually wasn't the most errors.

It was the willingness to report the errors and to talk about it and to learn about it.

Which, if I may, as a segue, Peter, is a perfect segue into how we make decisions as leaders.

Because the unit of analysis for leaders is the decision.

The leadership that we all try to do and have, it's all based upon how we make decisions.

Because leadership equates with decision-making rights.

You as a leader are officially granted certain decision-making rights.

That's your prerogative.

That's your role.

How you go about executing that...

There are so many factors and considerations and ways to do it.

But in the end, you need to make a decision.

Now, not just you alone, but you can involve others as well.

And how you learn the decision-making art, how you iterate, how you are open to feedback is critical because the first set of decisions, it might be an NG decision.

It might be so bad.