What’s your favorite restaurant? Where is the best place to vacation? What’s your favorite song? Are you Republican or Democrat? Who’s your best friend? Should we hire another full-time employee or just have everyone work extra hours?
This past month I’ve started noticing something I’ve decided to call “false choices.” I began to recognize this strange feeling I’d get when confronted with questions about the current political scene. The assumption would be that when I gave an answer to any specific question that agreed with a political party, then I must agree with everything that party believed. That made me feel uncomfortable because it wasn’t true. It felt like someone had forced a straightjacket on me. I began to wonder how I had been painted in a corner, so I utilized a strategy I use when consulting to help discover and fix problems. I worked from the end backwards. I finally realized the beginning of the conversation is where everything went off track. I was being presented with a false choice.
I began to look for more situations where these false choices were being forced on me and stealing my freedom. I began to see patterns. A lot of times I would recognize a false choice was present because I would get a strange, churning feeling in my stomach when faced with a question where I didn’t like any of the choices I was given. Think of the feeling you get when you play the game “Would You Rather.” Would you rather get stung by a wasp or a hornet? Yes, that feeling you just got of frustration is a great indicator that you are being forced to make a false choice. The answer is “Neither! I don’t want to get stung at all!” You’ll feel it again when asked “Which of your children do you love the most?” As I’d get this feeling I’d immediately start playing the situations back in my head and it would inevitably lead to a false choice I had been presented with. Other indicators besides frustration and stomach churning that I saw were the use of either/or scenarios, scenarios where people or things are ranked and the use of superlatives like: favorite, worst, best.
What’s your favorite song? I listen to every genre of music that I know of. My Pandora stations include: 80s Pop, Acoustic, Amy Winehouse, Barry Manilow, Beck, Boyz II Men, Bruno Mars, Buena Vista Social Club, Chris Stapleton, Christina Aguilera, Classic Rock, Cloud Rap, Corinne Bailey Rae, Craig David, Cypress Hill, David Phelps, Donnie McClurkin, Dr. Dre, Drake and Eddie Money; and that’s just through the letter “E”! This list includes everything from Rock to Rap, English to Spanish, Country to Christian. To pick a favorite song I first have to pick my favorite genre. So, is it Spanish Mariachi music or English 70’s Rock? If I could pick a genre I then have to pic an artist, then a song. It’s all a false choice. It’s assuming that one is better than another. It’s apples and oranges. It’s like asking “Which do you like better: swimming or spaghetti?” I can like both because they both have characteristics that are different from each other, but also appealing to me. The correct answer is “There are lots of songs that I like.” I don’t have to pick a favorite. To be able to recognize and avoid the trap of a false choice will be both freeing to you, and frustrating to others because they are trying to force you into a box and control your choices. I realize that this can seem like a huge overreaction. But once you see how it applies to actual significant life situations and choices, then you will see how vital it is to recognize and avoid false choices in your life.
Let’s step it up a notch by looking at how this can affect your personal life, then we’ll see how it applies to business. Who’s your best friend? Take a moment to think about it and come up with a single name. Now think about all of the great friends you have whom you’ve just excluded. Many friendships have been gravely harmed because someone overheard that another person had been given the designation of best friend. A relationship was harmed and for what? Best friend isn’t even a real thing. Do you get an award? No. Do you get fame or fortune? No. Just like musical genres, artists and songs, can’t there just be some people that you like and whom you choose to be friends with? Why must they be ranked? Avoid the false choice of DTR (defining the relationship) in your personal life and save yourself and others from unnecessary hurt feelings. Just hang around people you like and be kind to each other. Doesn’t that feel nice? Isn’t that freeing? You don’t have to rank your friends. Just get together with people you like whenever you want. Steering clear of false choices avoids unnecessarily hurting others’ feelings and leads to great freedom.
Here’s what a false choice looks like in business and how it can cost you lots of money and great employees. Business is good and you’re needing to make a choice: do you hire another full-time employee or do you ask your current staff to each put in extra hours to help bear the increased burden? If you hire another full-time employee it could be too soon, and although your business is growing it might not be at the place where it can sustain the added burden of an additional full-time employee. Taking on another employee and getting it wrong could negatively affect not only the business, but also that person’s life and family. On the other hand, asking current employees to work extra could have equally disastrous effects. You’re making money because you’re busy and your current employees are working hard. They are already having to have conversations with their spouses about why they’re working late, and having to have conversations with their kids about why they’re too tired to play catch in the backyard. Working them more could easily cause your great employees to leave. Then you’d be just as busy, but with even fewer employees and the snowball effect would grow from there. So, which should you choose? Neither! Recognize the either/or scenario. It assumes that those are the only two possible solutions in the world. If you would get together a small group of employees and brainstorm for only 5 minutes you could easily come up with a dozen possible creative solutions. The answer is to find what tasks you can farm out to a third-party company or person. Hire a graphic artist on an as-needed basis to complete specific projects. As business increases then contract them for 5, then 10, then 20 hours. When you can justify it, bring them on full-time.
When you recognize the extreme words and either/or situations that indicate false choices, you can then avoid them and the negative consequences that come packed with them. You can also begin to enjoy the great freedom that comes with not following the same path that everyone who went before you followed. Most others will say that you have to do this or that, but you will be able to blaze your own trail and make your journey whatever you want it to be.