The WRAP Decision Framework

From Analytical Thinking Skills For Young Adults by V. Cheval, Chapter 6 ( Decision Time ), after Chip and Dan Heath’s Decisive (Crown Business, 2013). Free for non-commercial classroom use.

The premise

Most teen decisions get worse when they’re rushed, narrowed too early, or made in the emotional state the situation provoked. WRAP is a four-move sequence that fights the four most common decision failures at the point each one shows up. Run it on any non-trivial choice.

W — Widen your options

The first version of any decision is almost always whether or not to do one specific thing. “Should I take this job?” “Should I break up with X?” “Should I major in Y?”

The whether-or-not framing is the trap. It hides the alternatives.

Ask: “What are three other things I could do here?” Force at least three concrete options into view before evaluating any of them. If you can’t think of three, you don’t yet understand the situation.

R — Reality-test your assumptions

For each option, name the thing that has to be true for it to work — and check whether it actually is true.

Ask: “What’s the most important thing that has to be true for this option to work? Have I actually checked?” If you’re choosing between two colleges and your top criterion is the social scene, the most important thing to check is the social scene. Not the website. Not the brochure. The actual people, the actual rhythm of a normal day there.

Mini-test before you commit. Spend a day in the building. Talk to three people who’ve done it. Try the smallest possible version of the thing before you commit to the largest.

A — Attain distance before deciding

Almost no decision is improved by deciding it under the emotion the situation produced. The fear, the pressure, the urgency — those are sometimes real signals, but they’re rarely good co-decision-makers.

Ask one of these:

• “What would I advise a friend in this exact situation?” Most people give friends better advice than they give themselves.
• “What would I think of this decision in ten minutes? Ten months? Ten years?” (Suzy Welch’s 10/10/10 rule.) If a decision looks fine across all three timeframes, take it. If it looks great in ten minutes and bad in ten years, that’s important information.
• “What do I want to be true about my life in five years? Does this decision serve that or not?”

P — Prepare to be wrong

Most decisions don’t fail at the moment of decision — they fail at the moment things don’t go to plan. Build the plan-B before you need it.

Ask:

• “What’s the realistic worst case here? Could I handle it?” If yes: take the decision more boldly. If no: redesign the decision until the downside is recoverable.
• “What’s the early warning sign that this isn’t working? What will I do when I see it?” Pre-commit to the trigger AND the response. “If I’m still miserable at the end of semester one, I’ll …” is much more useful than “I hope it works.”

When to skip WRAP

WRAP is overkill for low-stakes, reversible decisions. “What’s for dinner?” doesn’t need a framework. Use WRAP when:

• The decision is hard to reverse
• The stakes are real (money, relationships, time you can’t get back)
• You’re stuck and the stuck feels like I don’t know what to do, not I know what to do and don’t want to

The WRAP Decision Framework · From Analytical Thinking Skills For Young Adults (V. Cheval), after Chip and Dan Heath’s Decisive (2013) · YA Nonfiction Skills series · skillsforyoungadults.org