The ZPW-SAN thinking model
Why decision-makers hesitate – and what really moves them
Every decision has two directions: towards a goal or away from a worry. The greater the responsibility, the stronger the pull of the second. Understand that, and you understand why good proposals stall – and what gets them moving again.
The model
Six words, two directions
People carry goals, plans and wishes within them. And they carry worries, fears and distress. Both are there, consciously or not, in every customer, every employee and every board member. I call the model ZPW-SAN for short, after the German initials.
The first group pulls forward. It is what gets discussed in meetings: growth, market share, a new sales channel. The second group holds things back. It is rarely discussed, and yet it often decides whether anything happens at all.
Towards
Goals, plans, wishes
Where someone wants to go. The goal is the point they want to reach. The plan is the route there, with timing and steps. The wish is what should change, often left unsaid.
Away from
Worries, fears, distress
What someone wants to get away from. A worry concerns what might happen. Fear wants to leave a situation, by postponing if need be. Distress is the situation in which you need help.
The observation
The higher the level, the stronger the pull away
At working level, ‘towards’ dominates. People want to build something, deliver, make progress. The higher up someone carries responsibility, the more that balance reverses. Not because board members are more fearful than others, but because they have more to lose: more responsibility, more visibility, more people affected by a decision.
When in doubt, worries, fears and distress win there. You don’t see it in a no. You see it in a not yet: the next query, the additional analysis, the proposal that lands on the agenda for the third time.
I didn’t watch this from the outside. For many years in banks I tabled proposals myself, defended them and waited for decisions – as someone directly affected, not just involved.
The cycle
Why more data doesn’t bring a decision
When ‘away from’ dominates, every proposal is run through the same filter: what can go wrong, what have we missed, what if the assumptions don’t hold? These are legitimate questions. It becomes a problem when the answer every time is: we need more data.
01
The question
A worry is raised as a factual question. Nobody says “I have concerns”; everyone says “we need one more figure”.
02
The analysis
The team delivers. The answer raises new questions, because some questions simply cannot be answered before the first operational results are in.
03
The postponement
The decision moves to the next meeting. The organisation waits, the costs keep running, motivation drops.
More data doesn’t settle the worry as long as the worry itself stays unspoken. It only postpones it. So what helps is not the next analysis but the question of what a committee actually wants to get away from.
What follows
Three levers for decision-makers
Lever 1
Ask about both directions
What do we want to achieve? And: what do we never want to go through again? The second question is the one asked least often, and it moves the most.
Lever 2
Name the worry
A worry that has been voiced can be dealt with: with a safeguard, a stage or a stop criterion. An unspoken one comes back as a query, again and again.
Lever 3
Agree the information needed in advance
Before the proposal comes in, agree which information is enough for a decision. Anything beyond that is no longer knowledge but postponement.
Read on
The model in detail
The two in-depth pages:
Where is your decision stuck?
In a first conversation you describe which proposal, programme or decision is currently stuck. I tell you whether it lacks the ‘towards’ or is held back by the ‘away from’, and what the next step would be. Thirty minutes, free of charge, with no obligation.
Source: that losses usually weigh more heavily than gains of the same size is described by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, “Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk”, Econometrica 47 (1979). The ZPW-SAN model goes back to the author’s own book draft (2018/19). Image credit: AI-generated motif, edited. AI-assisted tools were used in creating this page; professional review and responsibility lie with the author. More under AI in client mandates.