Suzy Welch: How to make a difficult decision

Recounting poignant stories from her own life and the lives of many others, Suzy Welch reveals her secret to life management — “10-10-10.” She explains how thinking about the impact of our decisions in multiple time frames invariably surfaces our unconscious agendas, fears, needs and desires — and ultimately helps us identify and live according to our deepest goals and values. An excerpt.

Chapter One: It was what? 10-10-10 in the light of day
To tell you the truth, I ­didn’t know precisely what 10-10-10 was at the moment of its inception, except that I suddenly felt as if I had a new, different, and massively better operating principle in my (albeit tenuous) grasp. I had come upon, it seemed, an enhanced thinking process of sorts, a methodology for getting systematic about things. All I really had to do to reclaim my life, I realized that morning on my Hawaiian balcony, was to start making my decisions differently — proactively — by deliberately considering their consequences in the immediate present, near term, and distant future.

In ten minutes ... ten months ... and ten years.

If I did that, I figured with a fair amount of wonder, I might actually have my very own “life management tool.”

And thirteen years later, that term continues to be how I define 10-10-10 in quick and easy shorthand. That said, I’ve certainly heard 10-10-10 described in other ways. One dedicated 10-10-10 practitioner I know calls it “a road map for clarity and courage,” another, “my little guilt eraser.” A grandmother from Houston once told me she refers to 10-10-10 as her “kick-start to get unfrozen.” A Canadian minister who has preached about 10-10-10 describes it as “a great bridge enabling us to put things in perspective.”

But none of those handles for 10-10-10 — mine included — really describe the nitty-gritty logistics of the process. So before we go any further, let’s break them down.

The how of 10-10-10
Every 10-10-10 process starts with a question. That is, every 10-10-10 begins with posing your dilemma, crisis, or problem in the form of a query. Should I quit my job? Should I buy the house with the great backyard and leaky roof? Should I hold my son back a year in school? Should I stay in my relationship or end it?

Having a defined question is essential to 10-10-10, I’ve come to discover, because so many messy problems are intertwined with side issues and sub-issues, distractions and digressions, red herrings and bit players. Thus, the most effective 10-10-10s always tend to start with determining exactly what issue, underneath it all, ­you’re trying to resolve.

The next stage of 10-10-10 is data collection. Not to worry; you can conduct this part of the process in your head, on your computer, with pen and paper, or in conversation with a friend or partner — whatever works. The only real “requirement” is that you be honest and exhaustive in answering the following prompts:

Given my question, what are the consequences of each of my options in ten minutes?

In ten months?

In ten years?

Now, to be clear, there is nothing literal about each ten in 10-10-10. The first 10 basically stands for “right now” — as in, one minute, one hour, or one week. The second 10 represents that point in the foreseeable future when the initial reaction to your decision has passed but its consequences continue to play out in ways you can reasonably predict. And the third 10 stands for a time in a future that is so far off that its particulars are entirely vague. So, really, 10-10-10 could just as well be referring to nine days, fifteen months, and twenty years, or two hours, six months, and eight years. The name of the process is just a totem meant to directionally suggest time frames along the lines of: in the heat of the moment, somewhat later, and when all is said and done.

The last step of the 10-10-10 process is analysis. For this stage, you need to take all the information ­you’ve just compiled and compare it to your innermost values — your beliefs, goals, dreams, and needs. In short, this part of 10-10-10 impels you to ask: “Knowing what I now know about all of my options and their consequences, which decision will best help me create a life of my own making?”

And with the answer to that, you have your 10-10-10 solution.

In the beginning
As I’ve said, a fully conceptualized version of 10-10-10, logistics and all, ­didn’t exactly strike me like a thunderbolt that Hawaiian morning. Rather, my thinking was more like, “I have to stop running around tamping down fires and trying to make everyone happy. When the kids are in their twenties, ­they’re going to love me or hate me for decisions far bigger than whether or not I took them on a four-day business trip in February 1996. I’m just living too much in the moment, for God’s sake.”

And with that, I formed the concept of “10-10.” I was going to start making my decisions based on a balance of short-term and long-term considerations. What nonsense it had been, I told myself, to have schlepped the kids five thousand miles for a few piddling swims on the beach together. If I had left them home, their pouting would have lasted a day at most, had there even been any.

Almost instantly, however, I became aware of the incompleteness of my emergent idea. Over the next few months, I was actually going to be away from home twice more, for a wedding and then for another conference. Maybe my trip to Hawaii, taken cumulatively, had me absent from the children too much. Maybe, for true balance and perspective, my new decision-making process needed to consider a more middle-term horizon as well.

Thus 10-10-10 was officially born.

With nothing to lose, I started applying the process to all sorts of dilemmas both at home and work as soon as we returned to Boston. Should I stay at the office for an emergency when I promised the kids I’d be home at six? Should I spend the holidays with my parents or my in-laws? Should I confront a difficult writer about a late manuscript? Should I focus my time on an article submitted by a promising newcomer or a steady old-timer? Much to my surprise, I found that the process invariably led me to faster, cleaner, and sounder decisions. And as an unexpected bonus, it also gave me a way to explain myself to all the relevant “constituents” — my kids or parents or boss — with clarity and confidence. “Let me tell you how I came to that decision,” I could finally say, and go from there.

Within months, 10-10-10 had served me so well that I ­couldn’t resist sharing it with my sisters, Elin and Della, as well as a cadre of close friends and colleagues.

And so it was that the process first started to spread. One of my coworkers told his wife, who used it to untangle herself from a state of job-search paralysis. A friend “gave” 10-10-10 to her just-married daughter, who was struggling with whether to continue working or return to graduate school. Another acquaintance of mine described 10-10-10 to her husband, a doctor, and he brought it to work, where a group of nurses adopted it to confront — and resolve — a contentious dispute over patient visiting hours that had been simmering for months.

Eventually, 10-10-10 stories from outside my immediate circle began to trickle back to me. One day, for instance, I answered my phone to hear, “Are you the 10-10-10 lady?”

When I figured out that I was and said as much, my caller burst into friendly laughter and identified herself as Gwen, the sister of one of the nurses. “Sorry to surprise you,” she said, “but I’m calling because I’m sitting here wishing you could see me. I’m smiling for the first time in months.”

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Gwen, it turned out, was a stay-at-home mother in Chicago. Like her sister, she had started with a career in nursing, but she had changed course after a few years to become a sales rep for a pharmaceutical company. The job was a perfect fit for Gwen’s outgoing personality and professional drive. “You ­couldn’t peel me away from my sales rounds,” she told me. “It ­wasn’t work to me. It was fun. Oh — and the money! It ­couldn’t have been better.”

Gwen enjoyed her career so thoroughly that she barely missed a beat through the pregnancies and births of her three children. Sure, there were challenging times when her job and motherhood collided, but she always felt supported by her husband, who was also a sales rep, in her choice to keep working. The couple hired a live-in nanny and communicated with her constantly by cell phone. They spent weekends reconnecting with each other and their kids.

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