This chapter covers how to utilize the Neuron Decision Matrix™ and the Neuron Priority Planner™ to make and implement important leadership decisions and tasks (Figure 17.1).

I mentioned earlier that I've spent the past decade as an executive coach and consultant working with C‐level and VP‐level executives at dozens of leading firms worldwide. In most cases, these executives are excellent decision makers who exhibit calm confidence when deciding courses of action. Most do a great job of also seeking input from their team and inspiring them to follow the courses selected. Some, however, when subjected to environments of high stress, can make emotionally or instinctually charged decisions that lead to disaster.

Aristotle taught us that to be persuasive, we need to engage all three parts of our brain. Making a decision is all about persuasion. We need to persuade ourselves that we're making the right and best decision, and then we need to persuade our teams to execute on those decisions. The best way to do this is to ensure that all three parts of our brain get an equal say in the matter. I've designed a Neuron Decision Matrix that can help us do that more effectively. Here's how it works.

First, be sure that you have already clearly defined your personal or company mission, passion, and purpose. This should become the most important factor in making every important decision. Will the decision you make drive you toward your vision, or away from it?

Once you know where you're headed, draw three vertical lines on a whiteboard, a PowerPoint slide, or wherever to create three columns. Label the first column Emotional, the second Instinctual, and the third Logical. In the Emotional column, create purpose and passion statements that are emotional in nature, for example: “Our overarching purpose is to bring joy to millions of people by allowing them to connect and communicate easier with our solutions.”

Do the same in the Instinctual column. You might write: “Our passion is to help our customers avoid risks and harm via solutions that offer greater security.” Finally, write your Logical statements, for example: “Our goal is to provide affordable solutions that are 50 percent more efficient than any others.”

Now, when making a major decision, place the document you've just created front and center. Brainstorm decisions with your team and list all of them on a whiteboard. Include everything, whether you think they are good, bad, or ugly. Refrain from making comments or expressing opinions about any of them, but do seek to clarify them so they're understood by all.

Once you have a plethora of decision points on the board, examine each one against the backdrop of your firm's passion, purpose, and vision. Does it take you toward or away from your destination? Narrow your decision choices down to three finalists, because again, the human brain works best when given only three options to choose from.

Now, draw two intersecting lines on the board, one vertical and one horizontal, to create four equal quadrants. Label the upper left quadrant Emotional, the upper right one Instinctual, the lower right one Logical, and the lower left Summary.

Look at decision possibility number one. In the upper left quadrant, list three emotional reasons why this decision is a good one (fulfills your firm's purpose) and three reasons why it's bad. Do the same for the Instinctual and Logical quadrants. Be sure they are actually Emotional, or from whichever category they pertain to. The object of this exercise is to engage all three parts of everyone's brain to make more balanced decisions. Once you have three good and bad reasons in each quadrant, rank them all with a number between one and five, with five as the most important to you and your team. For example, if reason number one resonates strongly (i.e., it aligns well with your passion and purpose), then rate it as a five. Use negative numbers for the three reasons you should not make this decision. It's important here to be as honest as possible. While a leader can help guide a team, he or she should not try to manipulate or coerce others into “doing their bidding” by scoring a reason a certain way.

Once all the reasons have been scored, do the math. Select the most important “should do it” and “should not do it” reasons from each quadrant and place them in the fourth bottom left quadrant. Then, add up the positive numbers for the three “should do it” reasons and compare it to the total of the negative “should not do it” numbers. Which number is higher? There's your answer. If the “should do it” number is higher, go for it. If not, don't do it or re‐evaluate.

In the visual example shown in Figure 17.2, I use the decision to buy a convertible automobile or not. Some of the “should do it” reasons are less stress, less repair risk, and high maintenance costs for my current car. I compared those against the “should not” reasons of more stress, more financial risk, and higher payments. The “should” reasons won so it's obvious that I should buy that convertible.

NEURON PRIORITY PLANNER™

The Greek philosopher Seneca once wisely said that we should “Count each day as a separate life.” Each new dawn brings with it the promise of a new beginning. There is much we can and should learn from the past—especially our mistakes—but we gain more ground by focusing on only one day at a time. Long‐term goals are important and should align with our mission, passion, and purpose, but I recommend having each team and individual create only three primary weekly tasks per goal and updating these daily to ensure progression toward each goal rather than making a long list of “checkoff” tasks. Doing the latter can be overwhelming and lead to busy work instead of important work.

I use the Neuron Priority Planner tool and methodology daily and teach client teams how to do this in workshops and webinars. My clients love it and swear by it. You may recall the “Time Management Grids” offered by Stephen R. Covey in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Covey popularized a matrix grid with four quadrants. This matrix was actually created by President Eisenhower, who once said, “What is important is seldom urgent, and what is urgent is seldom important” (Figure 17.3).

Eisenhower placed tasks or projects that were Urgent and Important in the upper left quadrant of the matrix for immediate action. Not Urgent and Important items went into the upper right quadrant for further decision. Not Important but Urgent in the lower left for delegation, and Not Urgent and Not Important in the lower right for deletion.

This grid has proven effective for millions and is an excellent and simple way to keep your priorities straight. However, Eisenhower created this grid decades before modern neuroscientists had a more mature understanding of how our brains work. Also, long before we had such an abundance of social media, web content, and communication sources. In today's dynamic and hectic world, we need a better way to simplify our projects and tasks and prioritize our time. It's not enough to make four lists in four quadrants and check them off as you go. That might have worked in the seventies and eighties, perhaps even in the nineties, but not anymore.

The simplified spreadsheet version of the patent‐pending Neuron Priority Planner is free and available at www.neuronleaders.com. My team and I have also created more sophisticated and customized web and mobile app versions for clients. Here's how it works:

Recall that our brains think in threes, not fours. Therefore, a four‐quadrant grid is not ideal. Instead, let's use three boxes to represent Priority 1, 2, and 3 Goals (Figure 17.4). These are not projects or tasks, they are goals that are directly related to our overarching passion and purpose. Goal 1 is the most important thing we can do to take a giant stride toward accomplishing the passion and purpose, vision, or mission we've identified for our organization, department, or team. Think of this as Urgent and Important. Keep this simple, clear, and use only one sentence.

Goal 2 is the second most important thing we can do to reach our objective, which might be akin to Not Urgent and Important. Goal 3 is the third thing, perhaps akin to Urgent and Not Important. There is no box for Not Urgent and Not Important. Listing things in this box forces our mind to spend time thinking about the things we should not be thinking about. Do we really need to waste time writing down what we should delete?

Next, we need to decide what percentage of our personal or team time will be devoted to each goal. The experts who impart Lean and Six Sigma expertise often talk about the age‐old 80/20 Pareto Principle wherein 80 percent of the effects come from 20 percent of the causes. Translated for our purposes, 80 percent of our time should be spent on 20 percent of our projects or tasks—those that will gain us 80 percent of our objective.

I recommend spending 60 to 65 percent of your time on Goal 1 items, around 20 percent on Goal 2, and 15 to 20 percent on Goal 3. Note that Goals 1 and 2 add up to around 80 percent, which is in sync with the Pareto Principle. Now comes the fun part.

Tab two in this spreadsheet allows you to type in a sentence for your Priority 1 Goal 1. Under this, you can list three projects to accomplish this goal. Under each project, you list three immediate tasks to complete the projects. Why only three? You guessed it, our minds prefer threes. Long lists of 20 tasks are far too complex. This approach provides a good way to “train your brain” to simplify your projects, tasks, and your life. If you work at it, you can find a way to structure or combine tasks to create only three immediate ones. The operative word here is immediate. There may be other tasks that are long term. If so, on the spreadsheet example (found at www.neuronleaders.com), there are tabs for each month. You can list various future projects and subtasks there.

For my own personal version of this, I only list tasks I will accomplish this week and update them daily. To the right of each task, I list who will do this, me or someone else or several people. I also type in how many hours I will devote to that task. These add up to show me how many total hours I'll spend on all Priority 1 Goal 1 tasks.

I do this for my Priority 2 and 3 Goals, as well as my Priority 2 and 3 tasks. When done, I click on the Dashboard sheet where a large graph shows me how much time I will devote for each area today or this week (Figure 17.5). Also listed is each project under each priority.

For team purposes, I use a version of this in our weekly meetings (Figure 17.6). We first review our overall passion and purpose as a reminder of why we're all in the meeting in the first place. Then we review each goal and the amount of time we're spending on each. We adjust this as needed. On each goal sheet, we review a graph that depicts our progress toward each goal. We look at last week's goal, last week's actual, this week's goal, month‐to‐date, and year‐to‐date metrics. The focus is on our trending. Are we making the progress we desire?

On each sheet are two visuals in the upper right section. One shows a “reward” picture of what we'll receive if we accomplish our goals. This speaks to our emotional brain. The other photo depicts a consequence if we fail to meet our goals. This taps on our instinctual brain. All the numbers and charts on the page appeal to our logical brain, so all the neuron bases are covered.

This is one example of how to simplify and prioritize your goals, projects, tasks, and life. There are others, but I encourage using only three boxes, circles, or whatever, and quantifying a percentage for each. Also, be sure to keep track of how much time you're spending in each area. I was shocked when I did this. I'm ashamed to admit that I was concentrating far too much time on Priority 2 and 3 stuff, usually because some of these were more interesting or fun. While it's a good thing to take an occasional fun break (ludus love), it's not good to flip the 80/20 rule on its head.

The above illustrates that time and task management are mostly logical but should also include some emotional and instinctual elements. This is primarily related to pragma love as it needs to align with and drive us toward our long‐term goals, vision, passion, and purpose.