{"id":45,"date":"2007-01-04T00:11:00","date_gmt":"2007-01-04T05:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.leadershipintherealworldblog.com\/?p=45"},"modified":"2007-01-04T00:11:00","modified_gmt":"2007-01-04T05:11:00","slug":"the-power-of-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.leadershipintherealworldblog.com\/index.php\/2007\/01\/the-power-of-choice\/","title":{"rendered":"The Power of Choice"},"content":{"rendered":"

We recently had the opportunity to spend some time with my wife’s 96 year old grandmother. Grandma Alice lives in a nursing home south of the Twin Cites in Minnesota. By nursing home standards, this place is a palace, with nice facilities and even nicer staff.<\/p>\n

At meal times the residents are now given a menu, allowing them to choose between a couple different entrees. A cute elderly lady at Grandma’s table made a wise observation at dinner: “The food seems to taste better when you have a choice.”<\/p>\n

Let’s face it: nursing home food doesn’t typically have the reputation of Wolfgang Puck! But, given a choice, somehow the food tastes better.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>There are times when leaders need to send their teams down a path as exciting as meatloaf surprise. When you are about to inflict change on a person, a team, or even a boss, see if you can employ some nursing wisdom on choices.<\/p>\n

Can you offer them a choice? Or can you show how there were some choices, and the one being selected is the best path, all things considered?<\/p>\n

The wisdom of choices can be seen when managing up as well. I know an executive who coaches his teams to “Never say ‘No.’ Say, ‘Yes, but….'”. Personally I think that’s a little cheesy. I prefer what another executive told me: “I don’t say ‘No.’ I say ‘Choose.'”<\/p>\n

Her point is that instead of being the “No Person”, she brings options. I suggest you also bring a recommendation. Bringing choices shows your boss that you have thought it through and are taking responsibility.<\/p>\n

The result might be as exciting as macaroni hot dish. But bringing choices might make it all more palatable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We recently had the opportunity to spend some time with my wife’s 96 year old grandmother. Grandma Alice lives in a nursing home south of the Twin Cites in Minnesota. By nursing home standards, this place is a palace, with nice facilities and even nicer staff. At meal times the residents are now given a… Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[34,36,6,35],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p488Wj-J","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leadershipintherealworldblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leadershipintherealworldblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leadershipintherealworldblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leadershipintherealworldblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leadershipintherealworldblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.leadershipintherealworldblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leadershipintherealworldblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leadershipintherealworldblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leadershipintherealworldblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}