COMPETENCE
EVENTS
TECHNOLOGY
you use your values as a compass, the
decisions become easy. My value of
courage gave me the strength to look
at my fears in the eyes, love made
me think of prioritizing the ones I
have over the ones yet to come and
integrity gave me the confidence to
do the right thing based on the best
available data. I did not consider the
fact that the twins will be unique or
that they were boys and we already
had a girl.
2. Ask power questions. The next
step was to prepare a list of questions
that will enable me to gather the
right information to assist in decision
making. The questions included:
What are the alternatives available?
What is the best solution that
protects my wife and assures healthy
baby/ies? What is the probability of
its success? What are the learning’s
from similar cases in the past? What
are the opinions of top 3 doctors in
the city? What is my wife’s decision
preference? What are the risks?
What are the trade-off’s?
3. Knowledge gathering. In the
following days we met a number
of doctors in various hospitals of
Brussels and neighboring towns,
and tried to gather as much data as
possible about other similar cases
and sought the answers to my
power questions. The opinions and
perspectives were helping to bring
about more clarity, in my mind for
making the decision.
4. Manage emotions. This is the
44 |
December 2018
most challenging part of taking any
objective decision. Managing emotions
to keep a calm mind is most difficult. It
is very easy to fall prey to the trap of
emotional biases and make a decision
that you regret for the rest of your life.
We tried to be as objective as possible
and did not allow thoughts of having
twins or boys convolute our thinking.
Rather, we focused on the doctors
advice and evaluated the risk in each
situation and considered it as a critical
part of the decision.
5. Recognize uncertainty. Every
decision has a trade-off and a risk
attached to it. However, at some point
you simply have to decide, knowing well
the consequences and the possibility
that things might not go as well as,
planned. My wife and I spoke about the
risks, the uncertainty and the trade-offs.
They were scary but we agreed to face
them if the situation arrives.
6. Be decisive. Indecision is the
worst decision. Procrastination is a
bane. We decided to go for the selective
abortion and keep the single baby girl,
as the chances of her survival and being
healthy was the highest.
Post the selective abortion we were
now waiting for the outcome of our
decision. We were praying for a
healthy baby and took best care of Tabi.
Interestingly, the original delivery date
of the baby was January 1, 2000. She
was to be a millennial baby. However,
she decided to come on December 27,
1999. I was ecstatic to lift this little