Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks, often uses a mental model for decision making that I love.
Howard imagines that at his board room table (that’s where he’s making decisions) there are two empty chairs.
In the two empty chairs sit the metaphorical employee (Howard calls them “Partners”) and customer.
When presented with a decision, Howard asks himself, “would the employee (partner) and the customer seated at the table be proud of our decision?”
If the answer is “no,” then he has to go back to the drawing board and re-work the decision.
What would change about the decisions you make if you applied a similar mental model?
Who would be seated at your board room table?
Would they be proud?