Benjamin Franklin portrait attributed to Van Loo, image credit: American Philosophical Society
The title of this posting is from a recollection of Benjamin Franklin about making difficult decisions:
“…my Way is, to divide half a Sheet of Paper by a Line into two Columns, writing over the one Pro, and over the other Con. Then during three or four Days Consideration I put down under the different Heads short Hints of the different Motives that at different Times occur to me for or against the Measure. When I have thus got them all together in one View, I endeavour to estimate their respective Weights; and where I find two, one on each side, that seem equal, I strike them both out: If I find a Reason pro equal to some two Reasons con, I strike out the three. If I judge some two Reasons con equal to some three Reasons pro, I strike out the five; and thus proceeding I find at length where the Ballance lies; and if after a Day or two of farther Consideration nothing new that is of Importance occurs on either side, I come to a Determination accordingly.”
(References: Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
Although the founding father was a little skeptical about the “…Precision of Algebraic Quantities…” he wasn’t averse to innovation, so let’s imagine he lived today (instead of the 1730s when he developed his method) and had access to a spreadsheet…
Maybe he would have developed something like the ModelSheet custom spreadsheet for Decision Support, or the sister versions, which are simpler, more specialized tools for evaluating Job Opportunities and for rating Employment Candidates.
For example, the Job Opportunities custom spreadsheet supports your two-way decisions (like Ben’s Pro-Con situation: job offer versus current job, for example) or more complex cases with up an 18-way choice. You can take the default criteria as they are, or pick your own. I added three from Dan Pink’s book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
But there’s more: you can add risk of uncertainty, and your aversion to risk to the mix. For example, you might give a low but certain score to your present boss and a higher but more uncertain score to your (unproven) future boss. If you’re risk averse you might be better off with the devil you know.
We’ve launched a 7 day free trial period on these custom spreadsheets, so you’ve nothing to lose. Try one today!
