As I was helping my daughter with decimal math the other night I realized something. A simple example of our management buzzwords Analysis Paralysis and Cowboy.
Analysis Paralysis
If she thought about the questions and worked it through in her head a disturbing trend appeared. She substituted something easier when things got hard (even though it wasn’t a part of the equation). Now with all of this new, easy and irrelevant additions she was in an endless loop of finding where she was and what she should do next.
Cowboy
If I gave her the pencil to hold she would just write an answer, no thought, no words, just an answer completely unrelated to the question.
I was quite baffled by all of this so I asked her to SAY what she was thinking so that I could better understand where she was going with her work. This resulted in her meltdown and my realization.
I now understand how we get to both analysis paralysis and the cowboy approach. It seems when we do not have the proper vocabulary to SAY what we are working through we are left with one of two choices. Do nothing or do anything.
The moral of this story is to READ. Your vocabulary is the key to your strategic thinking.
