Steve Lear

While several versions of the TRIP decision-making process are available on this site (see the short Outline or complete Manual), we’re also spotlighting the content as individual chapters, making it easier for readers to get a step-by-step understanding of TRIP’s benefits. Let’s keep going! 

Chapter Two provides an important overview of this decision-making process by answering the key questions: What is TRIP?  Why Take a TRIP, and When to Go On a TRIP? 

WHAT IS TRIP?

Too many good ideas never get off the ground. They get buried on legal pads or unfinished Google Docs, unfortunate casualties of ineffective decision-making.

Community organizations have no lack of people with good intentions and bold ideas, but these ideas need a systemized way to come to fruition. Without an effective system to navigate the inevitable roadblocks to reaching goals, good intentions remain just that. Intention.

That’s where TRIP comes in. TRIP is a unique decision-making system that guides ideas into resolutions and implementations. TRIP provides each participant (Traveler) with a voice. It creates a roadmap to lead your team from initial decision-making to an action plan that achieves your goal. The TRIP process guides your team through challenges that:

• Are complex
• Involve many people
• Take a long time to execute
• Have a long-lasting impact

TRIP is useful when you need to:

• Plan a project
• Resolve an issue
• Achieve a goal

WHY TAKE A TRIP?

TRIP streamlines the decision-making process, allowing your team to succeed or fail more quickly and with less frustration. While it’s great to succeed, it’s also okay to fail. Failing builds character, creates learning opportunities, and prepares you for the joy of success.

So, how will TRIP help you?

You’ll save time! This process quickly identifies areas of agreement that don’t require further debate, and areas of disagreement that need attention. Your team can quickly focus on identifying, discussing, and resolving contentious issues.

Saving time is a huge benefit because time is a precious resource that’s not renewable. When a decision takes too long to make, you run the following risks: An important person may get sick or die, and the process may need to be postponed or restarted; Team members may quit, disrupting group morale and creating burnout or apathy (and apathy is the worst thing that can happen to a team); Travelers burned out by the process may not have the energy to participate in the action plan.

Making the decision is a critical first step, but if it never results in action, then everyone’s most precious assets—time and a sense of purpose—have been wasted.

ALL Travelers—the Dreamers, Thinkers, and Doers—contribute to resolving the issues and enacting a plan. Successful teams learn to appreciate the unique contributions each Traveler makes to the journey. Dreamers are the “everything-is-possible” people. They are innovative and imaginative, but sometimes not practical. They focus on the goal and how the destination will look and feel. They develop a way of speaking about the activity, but spend no time thinking about the roadblocks (obstacles). Thinkers are practical and realistic people. Halfway through the journey, Thinkers describe the gas tank as “half empty.” They’re often skeptical, but never cynical. Their job is to see all the roadblocks that prevent the team from getting to their destination. Doers are the people who get things done, clearing away the roadblocks to put the plan into action.

Teams that utilize their collaborative strengths increase engagement, motivating Travelers to achieve their goal.

Your action plan will be more effective. Documenting the decision-making and action strategies results in a roadmap. This map creates accountability, and that leads to getting the job done.

As entrepreneur Michael Altshuler observed, “The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.”¹

Dan Scalco, “22 Time Management Quotes to Inspire You to Achieve Your Goals,” Inc. This Morning Newsletter, September 17, 2017. https://www.inc.com/dan-scalco/22-time-management-quotes-to-inspire-you-to-achieve-your-goals.html

WHEN TO GO ON A TRIP?

TRIP is a great tool in some situations and much less effective in others.

TRIP is the right process when:

An organization’s leadership (staff or volunteer) solicits input from others to make wise decisions.

The leadership model is participatory (“open and honest”) vs. authoritative (“control and command”). Open and honest leadership is inclusive. It’s willing to “lower its armor” and listen to other opinions, realizing it doesn’t need to have the best answer and might even be wrong. Control and command leadership features one (or a few) stakeholders controlling the direction and operation of the organization. It directs other stakeholders to execute decisions.

There is a greater need for the right decision than for an immediate decision.

You’ve reached a decision but haven’t been able to implement it.

The challenges are complex, include many people, take a long time to enact, and have a long-lasting impact.

TRIP is less likely to work when:

Leadership is not interested in getting feedback from stakeholders. (Stakeholders include the leadership/management team, staff, board leadership, funders, investors, clients, customers, media, and government.)

Stakeholders believe that great leaders create effective organizations, vs. effective organizations create great leaders.

An organization is in chaos. “Chaos causes organizations to lose two things: confidence and strategic focus. Under duress, leaders and their teams often lose confidence in their ability to make decisions, which leads to operational inefficiencies, performance setbacks, and competing operational goals. Chaotic leadership teams miss opportunities to predict and mobilize for change. They will end up reacting to change instead, which leaves them without strategic focus.”² (Note: TRIP will work when an organization comes out of chaos to help prevent another crisis.)

Decisions involve urgent situations. If deciding now is crucial, don’t take a TRIP. Instead, assign three people to make the decision. (Note: TRIP will work to develop protocols for handling emergencies.)

²Kelly Tyler Byrnes, “Seven Ways to Prevent the Dangers of Organizational Chaos,” Forbes Coaches Council (blog), September 18, 2018. https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbescoachescouncil/2018/09/18/seven-ways-to-prevent-the-dangers-of-organizational-chaos/

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