By Ian Ash
It’s estimated that the average adult makes about 35,000 decisions each day!
These necessarily include a raft of routine selections such as what to wear that day, what to eat or which way to go to work but there are some of course some that are more important than others the ramifications of which may affect serious outcomes for a business.
So what if we could improve our decision-making?
What would you do if you knew you could not fail?
What are the consequences of not making a decision?
Theodore Roosevelt had a view on the latter: ‘In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing and the next best thing is the wrong thing – the worst thing you can do is nothing.’
In his book, How to Be a Better Decision Maker: Tested Techniques to Help You to Get the Results You Want, Alan Barker defines a simple checklist (5C’s) to assist with making those important decisions:
Consider
Sometimes decisions are difficult because we have not adequately defined the issue or objective.
Once this is done, it should be possible to identify a range of possible alternatives.
Thinking about the possible consequences of each and who else may be impacted are both important considerations in narrowing down the selection of the various options.
Consult
Chances are someone you know has had to deal with similar problems in the past, knows someone that has or may be knowledgeable in the issue domain.
If this is the case, why reinvent the wheel? Consider who can you approach for guidance and/or advice and get other perspectives before coming to a final conclusion.
Commit
‘Procrastination is the thief of time’ so once you have made your decision, then best to define a plan of action. The plan should include checkpoints so that you can verify progress along the way.
As Theodore Roosevelt noted above, ‘the worst thing you can do is nothing’, so if the decision is not right, one of your ‘checkpoints’ should quickly make this clear.
Communicate
In a business context, chances are that your decisions will affect other people so it is important to communicate effectively and as early as possible, especially if you are in a management role.
This is vital if any significant change is likely to arise as a result of your decision.
Check
Use facts and data to verify progress against the checkpoints of your plan.
Are you seeing the results you expected or are other things showing up?
If a bad decision has been made, better to admit and correct early rather than continue on knowing that it’s the wrong approach.
Finally, a simple tool I sometimes use for key decisions is a decision matrix.
This is simply a table that lists the key decision criteria as rows and the various selection options as columns and rates each of the options against the defined criteria.
Using a numerical approach that calculates how each option fares against each criteria and then summing up for each option should provide a guide to assist in the final selection.
Ian Ash is the managing director of OrgMent Business Solutions ombs.com.au
