Planning and Decision Making with the Four Parts of Your Body

Every plan and every decision must be filtered through these four parts of your body so that it will be successful.

A chat with a successful entrepreneur reveals his secrets for success. It has all to do with the four parts of our body. Speaking crudely, they are the head, heart, guts(intuition) and 'balls'(boldness). Someone put it as "have the guts to go with your guts"! So, every plan and every decision must be filtered through these four parts of your body.

1. Go through the Head first.

Gui Gu Zi gives us the following advice on planning 故謀必欲周密 (plan must be both thorough and tight.

• head/mind
• thorough/complete 5W1H+
• identify and consider all factors and all stakeholders
• maximize benefits and minimize costs and risks.
• use your past experience, historical evidence, and all points of view.
• what if, why not, any other contingencies?
• tight
• rational & logical
• collect intelligence, not just hearsays.
• validate assumptions, decision-making models
• critical & details
• measure and calculate and compare

2. Filter Through the Heart - Love & Relationship & Ethics

• Consideration for the needs, feelings, and 'face'(honor) of others.
• Should money be the only criteria? What about social and psychological needs? Environmental impact? Societal impact?
• Can you sleep peacefully with your decision?

3 Check Once More with Your Guts - Intuition.

• What do your guts say? What does your intuition tell you? 
• Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book on "Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking"

4. Finally, Have the Boldness to Act

• All the planning will result in nothing if there is no action to follow-up the decision made.
• Often, after minimizing all the risks, do we have the boldness to take the first step out. Nothing is without risks. Nothing can be absolutely sure. 
• Stepping out is just a 1st step, there should have been plans to monitor progress, learn from the implementation incrementally, bringing in the contingency plans when needed.

Lim Liat (c) 22 May 2017

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