Hard choices slow us down. One type of hard choice is taking the harder path. Like when Boards are asked to set the organisation’s risk appetite for staff to follow.

The easy road is to use terms like Zero Harm and stick to risk categories like reputation, financial, safety and compliance. The harder choice is to articulate the lines in the sand the organisation must cross – and must not cross – in pursuit of its strategic objectives.

This slows us down in the short term, however, the outcome is greater clarity for leaders so they can make decisions faster.

Another type of hard choice is when two alternatives are neither better, worse or equal to the other. Ruth Chang, in her TED talk ‘How to make hard choices’, describes them as being “on par”.  She says that faced with hard choices we often take the safest option.

However, she goes on to say that when there is no obvious best alternative, we can’t use rational reasoning to make the right choice.  We should use reasons that lie within us for the answer.  That is, we should create our own destiny based on our beliefs, our values.

This brings me back to blog after blog I have written about the importance of applying a “values lens” when making tough decisions like ones around risk vs reward. None more important than my one using a pressure cooker analogy to explain how applying a values lens allows organisations to push hard without pushing boundaries that may have adverse consequences years after the event, when uncovered in Royal Commissions, for example.

Over the years I have helped organisations as diverse as aged care providers, utilities and a not-for-profit in the mental health sector to revise their risk management frameworks and/or their risk appetite statements. Each time I have started from the same point. I ask for a copy of their strategic plan and I go looking for their organisational values.

Whether you are a C-Suite Leader or a Risk Leader, develop your “values lens’. A good way is to apply the pub test and ask, what would they be saying about it down at the local pub (bar).