Auto-generated transcript:My brothers and sisters, this is the third part of the three-part series on decision-making in the Islamic way.
Here I want to share with you a decision-making tool.
And that tool is called Keppner-Tragot decision-making analysis.
Keppner-Tragot decision analysis.
K-E-P-N-E-R hyphen T-R-E-G-O-E decision analysis.
It's there on the net also.
You can read it up.
I teach this in my leadership programs.
Now, what they advise, they teach us a very nice method.
In any decision, one of the reasons why people have difficulty
making decisions is because they are not clear about what they want.
And this might sound like, you know, might sound funny in an unamusing sense.
But take, for example, if you say, people come to me and they say,
I want to get married.
I say, okay.
So what kind of person are you looking for?
What kind of, you know, girl or man or woman are you looking for?
They're not clear, right?
They say, oh, this person should be.
A good Muslim.
What is a good Muslim?
A person should be from a good family.
You know, what's a good family?
So there are any number of questions.
So the point being that it is very important.
People get into confusion because they are not clear about what they want.
So Keppner-Tragot gets this clear for us.
And that's the method I want to teach you.
The first thing to do when you are doing decision analysis,
by using this method is to be clear about your goal.
So what we advise people to do is we say, write down your goal.
What exactly do you want?
Write this goal down.
You can write it in as much detail as you want, but write it down.
Not verbally.
Because unless you concretize this, it's like a soup in your head.
Just floating around.
And that's no good.
So you need clarity on that.
So write it down clearly.
As clearly as you can.
What is it that I want?
As clearly as you can.
Then what you do is, you take that description of yours, of what you want.
And you write down, you analyze that.
And you say, what are the essentials in this?
And what are the desirables?
So for example, you say, well, I want to buy a house.
So what is the goal?
The goal is to buy a house.
All right.
So when you want, so I ask you, well, what kind of house?
Well, what are the essentials and what are the desirables?
So you might say, well, you know, I want a house which is within 10 kilometers from my place of work.
Now, I will ask you, is that essential or is it a desirable?
Now, let me explain to you why I'm saying that.
Okay.
Now, essentials are go, no go.
Black and white.
So if you say that my, the house that I want to buy must be within 10 kilometers from my place of work.
And I find you a house which is 11 kilometers, not 10, 11 kilometers from your place of work.
Will you accept it or will you reject it?
You might say, I will accept it.
Then I will tell you you are not clear.
Because if you...
You are clear, then if the place is 11 kilometers away, no matter how stupid that sounds, you will reject that house.
Say, sorry, not part of my essential.
My essential is within 10 kilometers from 1 to 10.
If it is from my place of work, I will buy it.
If it is 11 kilometers, I will reject it.
That is the reason why decisions don't happen because people have very vague requirements.
So clarifying the requirement is absolutely critical.
So what are the essentials?
Obviously, the more number of essentials you have, the more difficult the decision becomes.
You are narrowing the choices.
Not difficult, but you are narrowing the choices.
If you say house must be only 10 kilometers away, as I said, 11 is not good enough.
So if there is a beautiful house which is 11 kilometers away, in reality, what difference does it make?
It's a matter of 1 kilometer.
But you say, no, this is 10.
10 is 10.
10 is not 11.
10 is 11.
So it is very important to be clear about what are the essentials.
I want to get married.
Okay.
What kind of person?
Absolute clarity.
For example, you might say the person must be Muslim.
Now,