How to improve your decision-making ability
The life of a leader is made up of choices: launch this or that product, relocate the business to another country or focus entirely on national quality, hire new resources, update information systems, cut personnel costs.
A sequence of decisions, all-important, which also carry great responsibilities: behind a wrong choice may be a failure of the unit or a collapse in sales.
It is therefore not surprising that top professionals experience this aspect of life as a leader with a particular stress, sometimes deciding not to decide themselves. Faced with the anxiety of failure, non-decision managers are not uncommon, those who adapt to the status quo and live in camouflage, in order not to take responsibility.
How to better live the decision-making process?
Trying to work on 4 aspects: to do it, here are as many practical tips to make choices in a simpler and more effective way.
1. Evaluate the benefits to the system
An easy way to make the right decision, from many points of view, is to check whether the choice involves a set of benefits at multiple levels.
Ask yourself if the option you are considering can benefit you, if it favors the growth of your business and if it also has a positive impact on your employees.
If the answers are 3 yes, proceed quickly.
If the choice doesn’t satisfy some conditions, however, maybe it’s time to change course.
2. Facilitate the task
Password: simplicity.
Faced with a critical choice, the first rule is to defuse complexities. Clear away any superfluous elements of evaluation and focus on the goal to be achieved.
Is it about getting to market in no time with a new service? Only put on the table the variables that can help you complete the mission. To do this you could eliminate some internal time-consuming steps or optimize some operational processes.
Whatever choice you make, pursue it linearly, without second thoughts and to the finish line.
3. Ponder the consequences
What is most frightening about a decision is the reflection it may have in case of failure: the thought of the unknown can block the courage of a leader and make him immobile.
How to act? By evaluating in a very simple way the possible consequences of the choice.
Both the positive ones – what will happen if the option is right? – and negative ones – what are the possible critical repercussions? – and define if the possible adverse effects are tolerable.
If they aren’t, perhaps the decision you are making has an unsustainable level of risk.
4. Contain emotions
When faced with an important choice, nervousness or tension can play tricks: for this reason, a good manager must not let emotions run through but act extremely rationally.
Great leader, equal cool robot?
Of course not: emotions are part of the life of a professional, but they must be reserved for specific circumstances. Allow yourself the luxury of a belly choice only in the face of low-impact events: for everything that has a long-term reflection, it is better to act only with logic.
