Lead Yourself · Guide
The Four Lenses
Check a decision from all four angles before you commit, including the ones you usually skip
What it is
The Four Lenses is a way to look at a decision, a person, a project or a situation from four perspectives. The Benefits lens looks for the upside and the opportunities. The Risks lens looks for what could go wrong so you can plan for it. The Data lens weighs the numbers and the facts. The Gut lens draws on intuition and experience, which helps when the data is incomplete or ambiguous.
Most people default to one lens and overlook the others. Looking through all four gives you a fuller picture than any one of them alone, and knowing your own default tells you which lens to ask for deliberately.
When to reach for it
- Choosing between strategic options when the discussion keeps coming back to the same angle
- Deciding what to do about a person or a project that is underperforming
- Drafting a message to a group whose members will read it from different perspectives
Try it this week
Pick one decision you need to make this week and work through it one lens at a time.
- Write the decision at the top of a page or a flip chart, and draw four boxes labelled Benefits, Risks, Data and Gut.
- Fill in the Benefits box with the upside and the opportunities the decision would open up.
- Fill in the Risks box with what could go wrong and how you would plan for it.
- Fill in the Data box with the numbers and facts you have, then fill in the Gut box with what your experience and instinct tell you.
- Notice which box was hardest to fill, ask someone who favours that lens for their view, and then make the decision.
Go deeper
Related tools
An original model by Colin Cox
Want help putting this to work with your team? Book a free thirty minutes with Colin.