Decision by Shura – 3

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, there is no go-no-go situation. You say, this person is not a Muslim yet. He or she is very inclined toward Islam. And it is very possible that they will become... Muslim, you know, soon after we get married or before. Just before. No, no, no. Are they Muslim or they're not Muslim? Simple. There's no vague or no gray area in that. Are you Muslim? Are you not Muslim? So similarly, whatever may be the essentials. So list those down. So you have the essentials. And as I mentioned to you, the more the number of essentials, the narrower the choice. So that's the payoff for that. So. You get the essentials. Then for each essential, you put down what are the desirables. So now, take the house example. I have this house. Must be 10 kilometers from my... Or must be less than 10 kilometers from my workplace. So this house is there. Now, this house must have three bedrooms with attached bathrooms. Now, is it essential? If it's essential, it means that if the house has three bathrooms, two are attached to the bedrooms, but one is a standalone bathroom where there is no... You know, it's not attached to a bedroom, then you will reject it because it's not attached. So be very clear. If it's a three bedroom, three bathroom, it means that the bathroom may or may not be attached. Doesn't matter. But if you are saying three bedrooms with attached bathrooms, it's a different meaning altogether. So make sure that you are clear in your mind. About the essentials and desirables. So with the desirables, now what you do is you list them. So you say it must have three bedrooms with attached bathrooms. It must have a study. It must have a garden. It must have a garage, a separate garage for the car. It must have seven quarters. List whatever you like, right? Now, each of these desirables, you weight it. You say three. Three bedrooms with attached bathrooms. I'm giving it on a scale of one to ten. I'm giving it a weightage of nine. Three bedrooms with three bathrooms may or may not be attached. I'm giving it a weightage of five. So then each of these desirables, you give it weightage. Then what you do is finally to come to a decision. Essentials. The correct. Decision would be something which satisfies all the essentials. That is critical. Something that does not satisfy an essential will be rejected. Even if it's one essential, it'll get rejected. Even if it satisfies all the others. So essential means that everything is essential. So something which satisfies all the essentials. And then in terms of desirables, you select what it what there is and you add up the weights. The one which has. The most weight. The choice which has all the essentials and the most of the desirables. This would be the best choice. Now that is the method which is called the Kepner-Trigot decision analysis. So when you are doing your Shura, you can perhaps use this. Take all the opinions and before you start itself, make sure that you. Are very clear with regard to your desired outcome. What is the goal you are trying to reach? And once you are clear about that. The write down the essentials and desirables for that goal. And then you do your analysis and say, well, this is the right decision because it satisfies all the essentials and it has the maximum number of desirables. So this is the. Way to go. Inshallah. We ask Allah to put khair and barakah. And all our actions and in all our decisions and we pleased with us and not to be displeased. I make very, very sure that whatever we decide is in keeping with the Sharia of Islam. Make sure you do not take any decision that goes against the Kitab and Sunnah. You make every decision in a way where Allah's laws are satisfied, satisfied in the way that Rasulullah taught us. Wasallamu alaikum. Wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.