Make Practical Choices

Each of us is tasked with making choices about what we are going to do, where we are going to use our resources. In many cases, we have to first identify the available choices that we have. It may be helpful to describe the "Triage" term to see what I mean.

TRIAGE- Origins of the term Triage was originally a battlefield term invented by the French. During or immediately after a battle, medical corpsmen or their equivalents had to attend to many casualties, more than they could handle.

The triage decision process divided the wounded into three general categories:

1. The slightly wounded who would survive with no special medical attention.
2. The mortally wounded, whom the corpsmen thought were unlikely to survive no matter what kind of medical help they could receive.
3. The severely wounded who would be likely to live if they got prompt help, but who would be likely to die if they did not receive prompt medical attention.

This means that the wounded in category 3 got the first medical attention, with categories 1 and 2 attended to if there were enough corpsmen and medical supplies.

This process of sorting casualties into three classes is never easy. You want to help anyone who is hurt. But if you can't, you will be more useful in your medical role if you practice triage than if you help the wounded in the order that the casualties occur. And you don't have a lot of time. If you hesitate to make triage decisions on a battlefield you are worse than useless; you interfere with the work of other corpsmen.

TRIAGE in business and financial decisions.

In any situation where resources and time are limited, which means most situations, important decisions need to be subject to a decision process similar to triage.

For example, you hear that there is a special tax break that might help your business, and you ask you tax advisor to check it out. You expect that if your advisor learns the potential benefit to you is less than the cost of the research, he should stop the process and let you know the results, even if they are not what you hoped for. The ability of an advisor or consultant to make a difference to your decision process at a cost you can afford is what separates the minor leaguer from the major leaguers.