Coaching practices for De Bono Decision Framework
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For De Bono Decision Framework, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- I beat myself up over a call that went badly even though it was the right move with what I knew, and I let myself off the hook for reckless ones that happened to work out
- Under all this pressure to please people and react, I’m about to make a call that I already sense doesn’t square with who I actually want to be
- I keep framing this as all-or-nothing
- I’m weighing a dozen factors on the same choice I face over and over, and they all blur together
- I’m agonizing over this choice like it’s carved in stone and I can never come back from it, paralyzed by a downside that has me frozen
Practices that may help
- Separate the quality of the decision from the outcome
A good decision can produce a bad outcome, and a bad decision can produce a good outcome — do not confuse them.
Thinking in Bets - Thinking in Bets
Annie Duke's thinking in bets framework treats decisions as bets with uncertain outcomes, separating the quality of the decision from the quality of the outcome. Most real decisions involve incomplete information, so good decision-making is about process and probability, not about being right every time. The core skill is evaluating decisions on the information available at the time, not on how they turned out. - Use the 10-year view to check values alignment
Ask: is the 10-year version of this choice consistent with what I actually care about?
The 10-10-10 Rule - The COM-B Model and Behavior Change Wheel
COM-B (Capability, Opportunity, Motivation, Behavior) is a diagnostic framework developed by Michie and colleagues that maps the three conditions any behavior requires: you must be able to do it, have the opportunity to do it, and want to do it. Research supporting COM-B as a systematic intervention framework is largely expert-consensus and observational rather than RCT; its main value is stopping you from applying the wrong lever. - The Regret-Minimization Framework
Jeff Bezos’s regret-minimization framework asks you to project to old age and choose the option you’ll least regret from that vantage point — which reframes a scary present-day decision around a lifetime, not a moment. It is a decision heuristic rather than a tested intervention, but it leans on a real finding: over the long run people tend to regret inactions (the things they didn’t try) more than actions. - Design decisions to be reversible where possible
Before accepting that a decision is one-way, ask whether you can redesign it to be two-way.
The Two-Way Door - Use "take the best": choose on your single most informative cue
When choosing between options, identify the most diagnostic cue and use it — stop searching for more.
Simple Heuristics: Gerd Gigerenzer’s Case for Fast and Frugal Thinking - Check reversibility before you fear the downside
Most decisions are reversible; reserve maximum caution for the few that aren’t.
The Regret-Minimization Framework - Score decision quality separately from outcome quality
Judge the process you used — not whether it worked — when you review a past decision.
Decision Journaling: Learning to Decide Better Over Time - Slow down on one-way doors
For irreversible decisions, invest in deliberation proportional to the downside — not to your confidence.
The Two-Way Door
Related concerns
- Annie Duke Decision Making
Annie Duke's thinking in bets framework treats decisions as bets with uncertain outcomes, separating the quality of the decision from the quality of the outcome. Most real decisions involve incomplete information, so good decision-making is about process and probability, not about being right every time. The core skill is evaluating decisions on the information available at the time, not on how they turned out.
- Decision Making Frameworks
Rate each solution on likelihood of success, personal costs, and fit with your values.
Evaluate solutions against costs, benefits, and fit
- Good Decision Bad Outcome
A good decision that produces a bad outcome is still a good decision.
Judge decisions by the process, not the result
- How To Make Better Decisions
A decision journal is a written record of significant decisions — what you decided, why, what you expected to happen, and what actually happened. It counteracts hindsight bias and outcome bias by preserving your actual reasoning before the outcome arrives, and it creates the only feedback loop that produces real calibration: comparing your predictions to results across many decisions over time.
- Iia Decision Theory
If a new option makes you change your preference between existing options, ask whether the new option should have that power.
Check whether a third option is changing your view of the original two
- Irreversible Decision Framework
Most decisions are reversible; reserve maximum caution for the few that aren’t.
Check reversibility before you fear the downside
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