Authors of Our Own Lives - In the Space of Hard Choices

"Far from being sources of agony and dread, hard choices are precious opportunities for us to celebrate what is special about the human condition, that the reasons that govern our choices as correct or incorrect sometimes run out, and it is here, in the space of hard choices, that we have the power to create reasons for ourselves to become the distinctive people that we are." ~ Ruth Chang

 In Leading in the Wildland Fire Service, we state: "Leaders often face difficult problems to which there are no simple, clear cut, by-the-book solutions. In these situations, leaders must use their knowledge, skill, experience, education, values, and judgment to make decisions and to take or direct action—in short, to provide leadership."

Wildland fire leaders are required to make hard decisions--decisions that affect others. Knowing what makes a decision hard and how to manuever within the decision space requires a leader to reflect upon themselves, to know their values and how their "normative power" creates reason.

Take a moment and watch Ruth Chang's video "How to Make Hard Choices" TedTalk video.



Video Highlights

• Understanding hard choices uncovers a hidden power each of us possesses.
• In a hard choice, one alternative is better ins some ways, the other alternative is better in other ways, and neither is better than the other overall.
• Hard choices are hard not because of us or our ignorance; they're hard because there is no best option.
• We unwittingly assume that values like justice, beauty, kindness, are akin to scientific quantities, like length, mass and weight.
• Each of us has the power to create reasons.
• When alternatives are on a par, the reasons given to us, the ones that determine whether we're making a mistake, are silent as to what to do. It's here, in the space of hard choices, that we get to exercise our normative power, the power to create reasons for yourself... 
• People who don't exercise their normative powers in hard choices are drifters. Drifters allow the world to write the story of their lives.

Hard choices are precious opportunities for us to celebrate what is special about the human condition. - Ruth Chang

Wildland Fire Leadership Challenge - Digging a Little Deeper

•  Read Mark Stanford's, Fire Chief for Texas A&M Forest Service, blog "Doing the 'Right' Thing."
• Watch Rushworth Kidder's "Where Right Versus Right Dilemmas Come From."