🎯 Decisiveness
#19: One of the essential elements behind Apple's success
"We only need one of these, right?" asked the man in the black turtleneck, giving the designer an unblinking gaze and a half-shrug.
The designer replied, "Yeah...uh...I guess so."
The man asked, "Which one do you think we should use?"
It was a simple question, yet it demanded a substantive answer. The designer responded, "Well, I've been using these demos for the past few days, and I've started to like the keyboard layout with the bigger keys. I think I could learn to touch type on it, and I think other people could too. Autocorrection has been a big help."
This was a conversation between Steve Jobs and Ken Kocienda when Ken demonstrated the iPad's keyboard. Ken had brought two alternative keyboard designs for the iPad: a large version with more keys and a bigger one.
According to Ken, Steve's questions were tests of Ken's decisiveness and whether he could make his demo better than it already was. Decisiveness was a part of the values that led to Apple's software success. Ken described decisiveness as a quality required to make tough decisions.
"OK. We'll go with the bigger keys." Steve concluded the demo. After a long silence, everyone who came to the demo offered a few encouraging comments.
It was pretty much a happy ending.
As a designer, you may relate to Ken's situation, where you show your work and are asked for your opinion. It is crucial to explain your thought process, which can convince stakeholders.
Being opinionated can be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, you need to express opinions to build confidence in other people about what you think. On the other hand, if you appear to hold an argument too firmly, people may see you as subjective and be reluctant to discuss it with you. Try to balance having a strong opinion while creating a conducive situation for everyone to contribute.
Diverge hard, Converge harder.
Designers diverge ideas in their process while also understanding the pros, cons, and trade-offs. All ideas are beautifully crafted because designers are afraid to show bad ideas that could backfire on them—people choose the worst idea.
But somehow, having alternative ideas can make you indecisive. You may feel paralyzed when weighing one idea as possibly the best.
Even if you are not the final decision-maker, you still have the power and chance to provoke and persuade others with your thought processes. Because you have spent hours, days, or weeks on the idea, your stakeholders might only see your ideas for probably 15 minutes.
Even if you are not the final decision-maker, your convictions can help others make decisions.
If you appear confused and lack the ability or knowledge to narrow down choices and make a strong selection, others may lose confidence in them. As Steve Jobs did to Ken, stakeholders want to see that you could improve the work even further.
So, converge harder.
Decisiveness comes from rigor.
Yes, having a point of view doesn't come from ego or subjectivity. It's not about being stubborn or overconfident. It comes from deliberate and thorough efforts to bring precision and excellence to your work. Spend more time developing a point of view, either through heuristics or based on research and testing.
You could be wrong but don't forget that everyone in the room could be wrong too. Additionally, they haven't spent as much time in the creator's shoes as you have.
You could be wrong, but you've done thorough work and have calculated all the risks to move forward with your ideas.
You could be wrong, but you've set out what you want to learn moving forward.
Decisiveness doesn’t mean negating second guesses.
Even though you may appear confident, it's important not to cast away your doubts. You must be aware of your doubts and work on them to increase precision in your decision-making. Neglecting doubts is an act of overconfidence. Embracing doubts while being decisive is a sign of confidence with humility, as Adam Grant said in his book, Think Again.
Acknowledge any second guesses you have, and be comfortable communicating what you don’t yet know. It's not easy, but it's crucial. And it’s okay if you don’t know the answer yet. Others want to see that you are confident enough to push your work to make it better than what you’ve done.
Decisiveness: Making tough choices and refusing to delay or procrastinate
~Kocienda, Ken. Creative Selection
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#17 – The paradox mindset