The Triangle of Remarkable Decisions

The Elusive Balance

I often find myself returning to a fundamental paradox of brand-building: the decisions that most powerfully express who we are rarely emerge from a single consideration. They live instead at the intersection of competing truths, in between different ways of knowing.

After years of witnessing how organizations make their most consequential choices, which opportunities to pursue, which approaches to embrace, which boundaries to establish, I've come to recognize a pattern. The decisions that build truly distinctive brands balance three dimensions that exist in creative tension with one another: courage, clarity, and coherence.

These dimensions form what I think of as a decision triangle, a framework not for eliminating tension but for integrating it. When these dimensions work in harmony, decisions acquire a resonant quality that transcends their immediate effectiveness. They become expressions of identity rather than just tactical choices, collectively building a brand that others recognize and trust.

But this balance proves remarkably elusive. Most organizations unconsciously emphasize one dimension while underweighting others. They demonstrate admirable courage without sufficient clarity about what matters most. Or they maintain clarity of purpose without the courage to express it distinctively. Or they preserve coherence of identity without allowing necessary evolution.

The Triangle offers a lens for seeing these imbalances and a pathway toward integration, toward decisions that honor the multidimensional nature of meaningful choice.

The Three Dimensions

Each dimension of the Triangle represents a different facet of strategic decision-making, a distinct quality that contributes to the resonance of choices that genuinely build brands.

Courage: The Will to Be Distinct

Courage in decision-making isn't about recklessness or contrarianism. It's about the willingness to make choices that express your distinctive truth even when they diverge from convention, involve meaningful risk, or create tension with external pressures.

This is the dimension that creates significance and differentiation, that moves decisions beyond mere competence toward genuine distinction. Without courage, choices become safe but forgettable, efficient but undistinctive, rational but unremarkable.

I think of courage as the aspect of decision-making that honors the particular over the general, the distinctive over the conventional, the truthful over the merely acceptable. It answers questions like:

• Are we willing to make choices that may invite criticism for the sake of expressing what matters to us?
• Can we resist the gravitational pull of industry norms when they conflict with our deeper understanding?
• Will we accept meaningful risk to maintain alignment with our values and vision?

Every remarkable brand I've encountered demonstrates this courage in their decisions, not in every choice, perhaps, but in the ones that define their identity. They establish boundaries and honor them even when doing so creates friction. They pursue approaches that express their distinctive perspective even when easier paths exist.

Yet courage alone creates an imbalance of its own, decisions that may be bold and attention-getting but lack the underlying purpose or consistency that would give them meaning. The Triangle reminds us that courage acquires significance only in relationship with the other dimensions.

Clarity: The Understanding of What Matters

Clarity represents the deep understanding of your essential nature and purpose, what you uniquely contribute, and why it matters. It's the dimension that creates focus and meaning, helping you distinguish between what's merely appealing and what's truly aligned.

Without clarity, decisions become reactive and scattered, responding to immediate pressures rather than expressing coherent intention. A brand may pursue countless opportunities while diluting its essential focus and significance.

Clarity answers questions like:

• Do we understand the essence of who we are and what we contribute?
• Can we distinguish between distractions and opportunities that truly express our purpose?
• Are we making choices from our center or our periphery?

This dimension requires ongoing renewal, not a static vision established once but a living understanding that evolves through experience and reflection. The clearest brands maintain a continuous dialogue with their core identity, reconnecting with it before significant decisions rather than assuming its presence.

Yet clarity too can create imbalance when overemphasized. A brand with perfect clarity but insufficient courage or coherence might understand its essence perfectly while failing to express it in distinctive ways or maintain consistency across contexts. The Triangle reminds us that clarity remains abstract without manifestation through the other dimensions.

Coherence: The Pattern That Builds Trust

Coherence represents the consistent pattern of choices that collectively express a recognizable identity. It's not rigid adherence to past decisions but the evolutionary consistency that builds recognition and trust over time.

Without coherence, decisions become isolated and fragmented, creating confusion rather than recognition. A brand may make individually brilliant choices that collectively fail to build a distinctive identity or lasting trust.

Coherence addresses questions like:

• Do our decisions collectively express a recognizable identity?
• Are we building patterns that strengthen rather than fragment our brand?
• Can people predict with some accuracy what choices we'll make based on their understanding of who we are?

This dimension often proves particularly challenging in larger organizations where different teams make decisions without visibility into the wider pattern they collectively create. Coherence requires not just consistency within individual domains but alignment across them—from product development to customer experience, from visual identity to organizational culture.

Yet coherence too becomes problematic when overemphasized alone. A brand may maintain such rigid consistency that it resists necessary evolution, preserving patterns that no longer serve its purpose or audience. The Triangle reminds us that coherence requires both the courage to evolve and the clarity to evolve in aligned ways.

The Dynamic Balance

What makes the Triangle powerful isn't just the three dimensions themselves but the dynamic interplay between them. Each dimension exists in creative tension with the others, creating a space where powerful decisions emerge.

This isn't about finding a static "perfect balance" but about the dynamic calibration that different contexts require. Sometimes courage must lead, as when entering new territory or challenging industry assumptions. Other times clarity must predominate, as when core purpose becomes obscured by complexity or growth. Still others require emphasizing coherence, as when rapid expansion threatens to fragment identity.

The Triangle helps us see these shifting dynamics and respond with intention rather than imbalance. It's a lens for understanding not just what choice to make but what dimension requires particular attention in each context.

The Shadow Sides: Common Imbalances

When organizations consistently overweight one dimension at the expense of others, predictable imbalances emerge. Understanding these patterns helps identify potential correctives:

The Courageous but Confused Brand

This imbalance emerges when courage dominates without sufficient clarity or coherence. The organization makes bold, attention-getting moves but lacks the underlying purpose that would give these moves meaning or the consistency that would build recognition.

I've observed this pattern in brands that launch provocative marketing campaigns or enter countless new categories with innovative products. Each move generates initial excitement but collectively creates confusion about what the brand actually stands for. Their courage without clarity or coherence ultimately undermines their ability to build lasting significance.

Signs of this imbalance include:

• Bold moves that generate attention but not loyalty
• High innovation but low retention
• Excitement without emotional connection
• "Shiny object syndrome" in strategy discussions

The corrective lies not in diminishing courage but in strengthening clarity and coherence, reconnecting with essential purpose, and building consistent patterns that give bold choices meaning.

The Clear but Cautious Brand

This imbalance appears when clarity dominates without sufficient courage or coherence. The organization knows exactly who they are but hesitates to express this identity in distinctive ways or fails to maintain consistency across contexts.

I've encountered this pattern in organizations with extraordinary clarity about their purpose and values, beautifully articulated in internal documents, yet hesitant to translate this clarity into distinctive market expressions. Their clarity without courage limits their ability to build meaningful differentiation or resonance.

Signs of this imbalance include:

• Strong internal identity but weak external expression
• "We know who we are" paired with conventional actions
• Clarity in words but not in distinctive choices
• Fear-based decision patterns despite clear purpose

The corrective involves cultivating courage, developing the willingness to express clear identity through distinctive choices that may challenge conventions or invite criticism.

The Coherent but Calcified Brand

This imbalance develops when coherence dominates without sufficient courage or clarity. The organization maintains strong patterns but loses touch with their underlying purpose or resists evolution even when context demands it.

I've witnessed this pattern in established brands that built their identity around particular approaches or experiences, then maintained these patterns with rigid consistency even as market contexts evolved dramatically. Their consistency became calcification rather than strength.

Signs of this imbalance include:

• "This is how we've always done it" decision patterns
• Consistency that becomes rigidity
• Declining relevance despite strong recognition
• Resistance to evolution even when context changes

The corrective requires reconnecting with clarity of purpose and cultivating the courage to express this purpose in evolving ways, maintaining consistency of essence rather than merely form.

Finding the Center: Practices for Integration

How do we move toward greater balance across these dimensions? Not through abstract theories but through practical shifts in how decisions emerge and develop. Here are five practices that help cultivate integration:

1. The Three Questions Practice

Before finalizing significant decisions, pause to examine them through each dimension:

The Courage Question: Does this choice express our distinctive truth, even if it challenges conventions or involves meaningful risk?

The Clarity Question: Does this choice emerge from deep understanding of our essential purpose and contribution?

The Coherence Question: Does this choice strengthen rather than fragment the patterns that make us recognizable and trustworthy?

These questions aren't a mechanical checklist but an invitation to see decisions through multiple lenses, identifying potential imbalances before they manifest in market-facing actions.

2. The Decision Origin Mapping

This practice involves tracing where decisions actually originate in your organization and how they evolve. It reveals whether choices emerge primarily from courage, clarity, or coherence, or from dimensions outside the Triangle entirely, such as expediency or imitation.

Map the journey of recent significant decisions from inception to implementation, noting where they originated and what influenced their development. Patterns will emerge, showing which dimensions predominate and which need strengthening.

3. The Dimensional Dialogue

This practice deliberately embodies each dimension through different voices in decision discussions. Assign specific team members to represent courage, clarity, and coherence respectively, ensuring each perspective receives full consideration.

The "courage advocate" pushes for distinctive expression and meaningful risk-taking. The "clarity keeper" continually reconnects discussions to core purpose and essence. The "coherence guardian" examines how choices relate to existing patterns and identity.

This dialogue isn't about winning arguments but about ensuring all three dimensions shape the emerging decision.

4. The Pattern Recognition Review

This practice involves regularly reviewing the collective pattern of decisions to assess overall balance. Rather than evaluating choices in isolation, examine them as an evolving body of work that either strengthens or dilutes your identity.

Quarterly or bi-annually, map significant decisions on the Triangle, identifying clusters and gaps. This reveals your current decisional center of gravity and helps shift it intentionally toward greater integration.

5. The Essential Expression Exercise

This practice helps reconnect decisions to your core identity when complexity or pressure creates confusion. It involves articulating the simplest, clearest expression of who you are and what you contribute, then evaluating choices against this essential statement.

The statement follows this format: "At heart, we are [essential identity], and our unique contribution is [core value provided]."

This isn't another mission statement but a distilled expression of essence that serves as a touchstone for decision alignment.

The Triangle in Practice

To see how the Triangle operates in practice, consider how fundamentally different the same decision might look when approached from each dimension alone versus their integration:

Imagine a brand facing the question of whether to expand into a new market category that offers significant growth potential but diverges from their established focus.

A Courage-Dominated Approach might embrace the expansion enthusiastically, focusing on the bold move into new territory and the attention it would generate. This approach would emphasize the innovative aspects and potential market disruption without deeply considering alignment or consistency.

A Clarity-Dominated Approach might reject the expansion outright because it doesn't perfectly align with established definitions of purpose and audience. This approach would maintain purity of focus at the expense of potentially aligned evolution.

A Coherence-Dominated Approach might attempt to force the new category into existing patterns regardless of fit, maintaining surface consistency while potentially creating underlying dissonance. This approach would preserve recognizable forms while potentially compromising essence.

An Integrated Approach would examine the opportunity through all three dimensions, asking: Does this expansion allow us to express our distinctive perspective in meaningful ways (courage)? Does it align with our essential purpose and contribution (clarity)? Can we approach it in ways that strengthen rather than fragment our identity (coherence)?

This integration might lead to creative approaches that honor all three dimensions, perhaps entering the new category but doing so in ways that distinctively express the brand's underlying purpose and maintain recognizable patterns. Or it might reveal that no version of this expansion could achieve this integration, leading to a decline that honors the brand's multidimensional identity.

The point isn't that integrated decisions always lead to "yes" or always lead to "no," but that they consider the relationship between these dimensions rather than overweighting any one alone.
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The Triangulation Assessment: A Practical Tool

To help navigate the Triangle in your own decisions, I've developed the Triangulation Assessment, a practical tool for evaluating choices across all three dimensions. This isn't a mechanical scoring system but a structured approach to seeing decisions through multiple lenses.

The assessment examines decisions across twelve facets (four for each dimension) helping identify areas of strength and potential imbalance:

Courage Assessment

1. Distinction: Does this choice express something genuinely distinctive about who we are?
2. Risk Tolerance: Are we willing to accept meaningful risk for the sake of alignment?
3. Convention Challenge: Does this choice challenge industry conventions when they conflict with our values?
4. Truth Expression: Does this choice express our truth even when it might be uncomfortable?

Clarity Assessment

1. Purpose Alignment: Does this choice directly advance our core purpose?
2. Value Expression: Does this choice authentically express our values?
3. Contribution Focus: Does this choice strengthen our unique contribution?
4. Audience Resonance: Does this choice connect meaningfully with those we serve?

Coherence Assessment

1. Pattern Integration: Does this choice integrate with our existing patterns?
2. Recognition Building: Would people who know us recognize this as "us"?
3. Trust Reinforcement: Does this choice reinforce trust through consistency?
4. Evolution vs. Fragmentation: Does this choice represent evolution rather than fragmentation?

For each facet, evaluate the decision on a simple three-point scale:

• Strong alignment (3 points)
• Partial alignment (2 points)
• Limited alignment (1 point)

This creates a dimensional profile showing relative strength across courage, clarity, and coherence. More important than the numerical scores are the patterns they reveal, which dimensions show strength and which need attention.

The assessment isn't about achieving perfect balance in every decision but about seeing imbalances clearly and making intentional choices about when to emphasize particular dimensions based on context and need.

The Brave Path Forward

In a business world filled with frameworks that prioritize efficiency or growth alone, the Triangle offers a different lens, one that honors the multidimensional nature of meaningful choice. It reminds us that the most powerful decisions aren't merely effective but expressive, not just profitable but purposeful.

This isn't about abstract idealism. Organizations that achieve this integration demonstrate remarkable resilience and relevance, building relationships that transcend transaction and creating value that competitors struggle to replicate. Their decisions carry a distinctive signature that becomes increasingly recognizable over time, creating the kind of resonance that marketing claims alone can never achieve.

The path begins with awareness, the simple recognition that decisions express identity, that choices reveal character, and that actions speak more clearly than words. From this awareness, a different approach to decision-making emerges, not the rigid application of rules but the ongoing integration of courage, clarity, and coherence into a distinctive way of being in the world.

The most remarkable brands move with a quiet certainty that emerges not from eliminating tension but from integrating it, finding the place where competing truths converge to create something both distinctive and recognizable, both brave and trustworthy.

This integration isn't something you achieve once and complete. It's a living practice, developed through attention to how decisions emerge and evolve, cultivated through the ongoing commitment to expressing who you truly are through what you actually do.

The Triangle offers not answers but a lens, a way of seeing decisions not as isolated choices but as expressions of identity, not as separate from your brand but as its most tangible manifestation in the world.

In that perspective lies the power to make choices that aren't merely effective but meaningful, decisions that collectively express your truest contribution.

The Triangulation Assessment Tool

This comprehensive assessment helps you evaluate strategic decisions across all three dimensions of the Courage-Clarity-Coherence Triangle. Below is the complete tool for your immediate use.

Part 1: Decision Context

Begin by clearly articulating the decision you're evaluating:

1. What specific choice are you considering?
2. What alternatives exist?
3. What context makes this decision significant?
4. Who will be impacted by this choice?

Part 2: Dimensional Assessment

Evaluate your decision across each dimension using the 12-point assessment framework below. For each statement, score your alignment:

• Strong alignment (3 points)
• Partial alignment (2 points)
• Limited alignment (1 point)

Courage Assessment

1. Distinction: This choice expresses something genuinely distinctive about who we are.
   • Score (1-3): _____
   • Reflection: _____________________
2. Risk Tolerance: We are willing to accept meaningful risk for the sake of alignment with our values.
   • Score (1-3): _____
   • Reflection: _____________________
3. Convention Challenge: This choice challenges industry conventions when they conflict with our values.
   • Score (1-3): _____
   • Reflection: _____________________
4. Truth Expression: This choice expresses our truth even when it might create tension or be uncomfortable.
   • Score (1-3): _____
   • Reflection: _____________________

Courage Dimension Total: _____ / 12

Clarity Assessment

1. Purpose Alignment: This choice directly advances our core purpose.
   • Score (1-3): _____
   • Reflection: _____________________
2. Value Expression: This choice authentically expresses our values in action.
   • Score (1-3): _____
   • Reflection: _____________________
3. Contribution Focus: This choice strengthens our unique contribution in the world.
   • Score (1-3): _____
   • Reflection: _____________________
4. Audience Resonance: This choice connects meaningfully with those we serve.
   • Score (1-3): _____
   • Reflection: _____________________

Clarity Dimension Total: _____ / 12

Coherence Assessment

1. Pattern Integration: This choice integrates with our existing patterns of decision and action.
   • Score (1-3): _____
   • Reflection: _____________________
2. Recognition Building: People who know us would recognize this choice as authentically "us."
   • Score (1-3): _____
   • Reflection: _____________________
3. Trust Reinforcement: This choice reinforces trust through consistency with our stated values.
   • Score (1-3): _____
   • Reflection: _____________________
4. Evolution vs. Fragmentation: This choice represents evolution rather than fragmentation of our identity.
   • Score (1-3): _____
   • Reflection: _____________________

Coherence Dimension Total: _____ / 12

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Part 3: Triangulation Visualization

Plot your dimensional scores on the Triangle diagram:

• Mark your Courage score on the left side
• Mark your Clarity score on the right side
• Mark your Coherence score at the top
• Connect the three points to create your "decision triangle"

The shape of your triangle reveals your decision's current balance. A relatively equal triangle suggests integration across all dimensions. A triangle skewed toward one or two points suggests potential imbalance.

Part 4: Integration Analysis

Based on your assessment, answer these integration questions:

1. Which dimension shows the greatest strength in this decision?
2. Which dimension needs the most attention or development?
3. What specific adjustments could create greater balance across all three dimensions?
4. Given your current context, is imbalance acceptable for this particular decision? Why or why not?
5. What pattern do you notice when you compare this decision to other recent significant choices?

Part 5: Balanced Decision Development

Using insights from your assessment, create an integration plan:

1. Courage Enhancement: If courage scored lowest, what specific shifts would express your distinctive truth more fully in this decision?
2. Clarity Reconnection: If clarity scored lowest, how might you reconnect this decision more directly to your core purpose and values?
3. Coherence Strengthening: If coherence scored lowest, what adjustments would help this decision integrate better with your existing patterns and identity?
4. Complete Integration: What would this decision look like if fully integrated across all three dimensions? Is this ideal version achievable, or are there legitimate constraints that require accepting some imbalance?
5. Decision Evolution: How will you track the impact of this decision over time to evaluate whether it strengthens or dilutes your overall brand expression?

This assessment isn't a rigid formula but a reflective tool to enhance awareness of how your decisions express your brand's identity across all three dimensions. The goal isn't perfect balance in every decision but intentional awareness of where imbalances exist and what they might mean for your overall brand expression.

Use this tool not just for individual decisions but to track patterns across multiple choices, revealing your decisional center of gravity and how it evolves over time.