The Readiness Protocol: Preparing for an executive career decision
Updated: Oct 12
Preparing for an executive career decision means clarifying the options, facts and limits that could affect your choice. A difficult career decision is not necessarily one you are unprepared to make.
You can have doubts, competing priorities, and serious consequences to consider and still be ready to decide.
The real question is whether the decision is clear enough to work through.
Preparing for an executive career decision
Do you know what you are deciding? Are the main options real? Do you have the information that could change them?
Use the following questions to find out.
1. What decision are you actually making?
Start by stating the decision as clearly as you can.
Questions such as these may signal that something needs to change, but they do not yet describe a specific decision:
What should I do next?
Am I still happy here?
Is it time for a change?
What would be best for my career?
A decision becomes clearer when you can name the paths you are considering:
Remain in my current role or accept a specific opportunity
Stay, leave, or pursue a defined internal change
Accept or decline an international relocation
Continue in my current scope or move into a narrower role
Ask yourself: Can I describe the decision as a choice between identifiable paths? If you are still trying to determine what the possible paths are, that is the work to complete first.
2. Are the options real?
An option does not need to be guaranteed, but it needs to be more than an idea.
A role that has been offered is a real option. So is leaving a position when that choice is within your control. An internal change may also be a real option if there is a credible way to propose or pursue it.
An undefined possibility with no clear path, timing, or conditions may not yet be ready to compare with the other choices.
Ask yourself:
Is this option available now?
If not, is there a realistic way to make it available?
Do I understand what choosing it would require?
Am I treating something I hope will happen as though it has already been confirmed?
The purpose is not to eliminate every unknown. It is to make sure you are comparing genuine possibilities.
3. What do you still need to know?
You do not need every detail before making a career decision.
Focus on the information that could change the options themselves.
A missing fact matters when it could:
Remove an option
Create another option
Significantly change what an option involves
Push an option beyond a financial, geographic, timing or lifestyle limit
For example, an approximate compensation range may be enough when a small difference would not affect the decision. A final figure may be essential when it determines whether the opportunity is financially possible.
Ask yourself: If this missing information turned out differently than I expect, could it change what I am deciding between? If yes, try to obtain it. If no, you may be able to consider the uncertainty as part of the decision.
4. Does someone else control an important condition?
Some career decisions affect other people or depend on circumstances you do not control alone.
A partner may have a firm geographic or financial boundary. A change to your mandate, responsibilities, or ownership arrangements may require approval from a board or agreement with a co-founder or business partner.
This does not mean everyone involved must agree about what you should choose.
It means you need to know:
Who can influence the outcome
Who has the authority to approve or prevent something
Which limits are fixed
Which conditions are open to discussion
Whether an unresolved condition could remove an option
When another person will be directly affected, you may need to understand their boundaries before you can compare the options properly. You do not necessarily need to make the final decision together.
Ask yourself: Do I know which options are genuinely possible within the limits that apply?
5. Do you need information or professional expertise?
Sometimes you need a fact. Sometimes you need a qualified professional to explain what that fact means.
You may be able to confirm a compensation figure, reporting relationship, or relocation requirement yourself.
Interpreting a non-compete clause, calculating tax consequences, assessing financial exposure or evaluating a health-related issue is different. Those questions require the appropriate legal, financial, tax, health or other professional expertise.
Decision Facilitation cannot produce or replace that expertise.
Ask yourself: Am I missing a fact, or do I need a qualified professional to tell me how a particular issue affects my options? Obtain that clarification first if it could change the decision.
6. Are more opinions still useful?
Talking with trusted people can reveal information, assumptions, or consequences you have not considered.
But more opinions do not always produce more clarity.
Before seeking another perspective, ask what you expect the conversation to add:
Information you do not have
Expertise you need
Authority over an important condition
A perspective you have not already considered
If you are hearing different versions of the same advice, the missing piece may no longer be another opinion. It may be the opportunity to examine the options and reach your own conclusion.
Is your decision ready?
Your decision may be ready to examine when:
You can state clearly what you are deciding
The main options are identifiable and realistic
You have the information that could substantially change those options
You understand the important limits and conditions
You have obtained any necessary professional clarification
Further opinions are unlikely to add anything new
You are prepared to work toward a conclusion
You do not need to feel certain. You do not need to know which option you will choose. You do not need to eliminate every risk or unanswered question.
You need a decision that is clear enough to examine.
What to do next
Take the Suitability Check
If an important fact, boundary or option remains unclear, address that issue first.
If you need legal, financial, tax, health or other professional expertise, obtain the appropriate clarification.
If the decision is clearly defined and the remaining task is to examine the options and reach your own conclusion, take the Decision Facilitation Suitability Check.
The Suitability Check will identify the appropriate next step:
Ready for Facilitation
Preparation Recommended
Different Support Needed
Take the Suitability Check
