Teaching About Decisions

We were at MAPLE in a meeting of the department leads. When Soryu walked in, he began by talking about how strategic decisions work. Strategic decisions with 1 person are good, decisions with 2 people are good, decisions with 3 people are ok, decisions with 4 people are about as good as decisions with 0 people.

There were about 6 people in the meeting. So Soryu asked us to be in the meeting to support him in making this strategic decision.

As we began to talk, with Soryu’s decision in mind, I found myself unable to remember that I was supposed to be support. I would get attached to what was being said, and share my view instead of doing the thing that would best support Soryu in making a decision.

As the meeting went on, we didn’t appear to be making any progress in helping Soryu make a decision, even though the leads were making progress in our own understanding and views.

Eventually, Soryu said that we were unable to do the thing he asked for, and so he would not participate in the meeting anymore. But he recommended we continue the meeting as it appeared helpful to us.

I kept wondering, how was it helpful to us, to get caught up in our views like this?