Trust doesn’t have to be universally offered. In truth, it’s usually offered in degrees and is very topic-specific. It also comes in two flavors—motive and ability. For example, you can trust me to administer CPR if needed; I’m motivated. But you can’t trust me to do a good job; I know nothing about it.

To quote an English proverb, “Everybody’s business is nobody’s business.” If you don’t make an actual assignment to an actual person, there’s a good chance that nothing will ever come of all the work you’ve gone through to make a decision. When it’s time to pass out assignments, remember, there is no “we.” “We” when it comes to assignments actually

Once you’ve decided how you’ll decide, make sure everyone knows. It can be as simple as saying: “Your input is critical here. And please be aware, this is a consult decision. I’ll take your input along with that of others and make the decision.”

You want to gather a lot of meaning from various experts. You send out a meeting invite to “discuss new product features.” The discussion is robust. You end the meeting with a pretty clear consensus among the gathered experts. Next, you review some market research, get feedback from the finance team, and do some limited customer testing. You take

There are four common ways of making decisions: command, consult, vote, and consensus. These four options represent increasing degrees of involvement. Increased involvement brings the benefit of increased commitment, but also the curse of decreased decision-making efficiency. So how do you decide who gets to decide? Savvy people choose whichever of

When we’re on the receiving end of someone’s accusations and cheap shots, we rarely think: “My, they have a lot of strong emotions right now. They must have told an interesting story. I wonder what it was and what led to it?” Instead, we match this unhealthy behavior.

But there’s a difference between getting feedback and being feedsmacked. Most of us have been “feedsmacked” at some point in our life.

While it’s natural to move quickly from one thought to the next, strong emotions take a while to subside. Thoughts are all electricity. Emotions add chemistry. Once the chemicals that fuel emotions are released, they hang around in the bloodstream for a time—in some cases, long after thoughts have changed. So be patient while the chemistry catches

A good way to distract your brain from spinning up stories of others’ malicious motives is to give it a different problem to focus on. Like this one: “Why would a reasonable, rational, and decent person say this?”