Decision making. It stumps me. It stumps many. Can I share with you today an approach I was taught by my publisher Pat while I was editing Cosmopolitan?
Pat wasn’t really a philosophizer, and I’ve kind of repackaged her thoughts for present puposes. But Pat could certainly make decisions.
I’d asked her to sit down with the Cosmo team one afternoon for something I guess people in banking or IT sales would call a “developmental day”. At the end of the session, the art director raised her hand and asked Pat how she made decisions.
She answered without deliberating. “Well, let’s use an example. An editor comes to me with two cover options and I have to choose between Angelina in a green dress or Angelina in a black dress.
“If we’re actually debating the two covers, then it means both are good options. Right?