Early Decision
March 1st, 2022 by admin
Most every parent of high school seniors knows and covets the phrase “Early Decision.” If one of your children thoughtfully narrows their college search, applies for that college’s early admission program and is accepted, the exhilarating and sometimes exasperating search for the college of your child’s dreams can be over before the first snow of your child’s senior year in high school flies.
But early decisions on other issues can sometimes speed us too quickly to a decision and cause us to miss key considerations along the way.
WHEN I WAS IN COLLEGE fraternities were a big deal, although in retrospect maybe too big a deal. It has leveled off to a better balance over the years, but it was what it was back then, and most kids jumped into the rush process, including all my buddies and me.
One of the students in my freshman class was a great kid, but he did not fit the profile quite like the rest of us, shall we say kindly, when fitting the profile like the rest of us mattered more than it should have. He was not asked back to the second rush gathering.
One of the students I knew who was being rushed, and being rushed hard, knew this student from growing up in the same hometown, although they attended different high schools. He told the Rush Committee of the fraternity of choice he knew the student well, and he thought the student should be given a second look.
There was some push back on this idea—what group of folks wants to be told how to handle things a little differently, right? (Or possibly reminded, gently, of a less than deep view of what really does constitute possessing the qualities the students being rushed should have.) At which point the student still being rushed made an early decision of his own: he told the Rush Committee a fraternity that would pass on his friend without a more thoughtful second look would not be his choice of fraternities, either. A hard call at that age.
The other student got that second look, and in time he was invited to pledge the fraternity, as his wit and charm, too quickly missed on the first pass, became apparent. In time this student became one of the most popular members of his fraternity, confirming the decision of the chance-taking freshman to take a risk and speak up for his friend.
SOMETIMES EARLY DECISIONS we make about issues may rush us by considering a second and more rigorous look at other important issues. The markers we use may not be the best ones. And the impact of the answer is more significant than who gets asked back to a rush party.
Like the questions a careful lawyer asks in the cross-examination of a witness, a few more answers to the questions that are thoughtfully asked may reveal what matters most, well beyond what is seen, heard (or assumed) by the examiner’s too narrow initial inquiries. Quick assumptions your ego tells you are sure are wrong or certainly flawed more than you realize.
All of which is to say: the answers to the questions about important issues that matter most of all may need to take you deeper than your initial impressions.
IF THERE IS ONE TENET all of us should try to follow all the time it is to take our time to consider any number of reasonable options before we make decisions that may have a longer reach. The examples of two of our greatest presidents prove the point.
The experience of Abraham Lincoln on the national stage when he was elected president was very limited, which was a special concern to him since the Civil War was on the horizon. He assembled, therefore, a cabinet of leaders with diverse but thoughtful views. Many of whom with more experience on national issues (and sometimes arrogant attitudes) he had bested in the race for president. He focused on getting the hard choices right, regardless of whose idea it was. Which meant new ideas for new challenges, since the level of thinking that had gotten the nation there was not going to get it out of there.
Truth to power is nice in theory, but a real leader is secure enough to hear an idea which they may not want to hear, and which gives power to truth. Lincoln stayed focused on the key question in these challenges: What is our best chance to make the best decision for the betterment of the country? On the way to becoming a president who belongs to the ages.
FDR, WHATEVER ONE'S POLITICS, was one of our greatest presidents. He was known not so much for his intellect but his discerning judgment.
On one key decision in the lead-up to World War II, a room full of our nation’s military leaders believed the President should take a certain course. So did the President initially. Everyone in the meeting spoke but a lower-ranking officer.
FDR, who always had a sense of the room, asked the young officer, tucked away out of the way in a corner, what he thought. He believed something entirely different, and he laid out thoughtfully the reasons.
The President chose his plan.
That officer quickly ascended the military ranks, jumping over many senior officers for a high rank. That young officer was George C. Marshall, the greatest advocate to choose Dwight Eisenhower over more senior officers as the Supreme Allied Commander of the Allies, the key general who led the Allies to victory in WW II. And later, the author of the Marshall Plan, which saved post-WWII Europe. General Marshall is acknowledged now as one of the country’s finest military leaders. Ever.
Much like those diverse cabinet members did for Lincoln, Marshall brought to the President and the defining debates in and around WWII an enduring quality any seasoned leader should want and need: truth to power. To tell a leader not what the leader wants to hear but what the leader may need to hear to give power to truth. On our nation’s way to leading the Allies to victory in the War of Wars.
WHAT I HAVE LEARNED about life on the way to the courthouse is this: A careful discernment of the true issues at hand, and a character-based early decision to stand up for this more rigorous examination, are going to lead you to a better decision. “Change is good, until it happens” is a good punch line to a story, but it is not a good long-term strategy.
If you make too early a decision that concludes the discussion of an issue because you have never done it that way before, it may not get you very far now. You may need to ask new questions, and you may not like to hear the answers you get from others. Not unlike that teaching college experience so many years ago. But it may be the right answer to the fresh question you really need to hear.
At least that is what our most thoughtful business writers and thinkers tell us. This was proven in the working experience of two of our country’s greatest presidents when we needed it most. (And by that gutsy college freshman, too.)
Mike Wells
Posted in: On the Way to the Courthouse