Do You Practice Active Decision Making?

Many years ago when I was young and callow, I received
an invitation to attend a 'Decision-Makers' conference.
Trouble was, I couldn't make up my mind whether to go
or not. I didn't.

As the French proverb says, "Between two stools, you
sit on the floor."

Like a great many people before and after me, I had to
learn the hard way to actively take control of my life.
Prevarication is a poor master, but one that will rule
you with a rod of iron if you don't chose to stop it.

Banish from your mind and your vocabulary the words,
'I'll think about it.' You won't. Something else will
take your eye and divert your attention. Unless you
make a positive decision to do or not to do, right now,
you are very unlikely to revisit.

Nobody ever became a success by hesitating. Success
comes to those who jump in and have a go.

I am not by any means suggesting that you should
embrace every hare-brained scheme or half-baked idea
that you come across. Far from it. What I am saying is
that you must develop the skill to actively decide what
to do in any given situation and not leave the result
to chance.

For example, I get about 200 emails a day. Whenever I
go to my inbox I have to make quick choices about all
the emails waiting to get my attention:

Send it straight to trash
Save it in a pending file
Read it immediately
Forward it to someone else
Act on its contents

There may be other choices, but the point is made. If I
don't actively decide between these options I would
very quickly get an inbox so full that I would never
get the chance to act on any of them.

Life and business is very much like that. In this
twenty-first century we live in, only those who have
mastered the art of 'keeping up' can survive and
thrive. There is no room for procrastination.

Very often the only decision you need to make is
whether to act or not. Once you have made that positive
commitment to yourself, the 'putting into action' part
of the equation follows naturally.

Don't over analyze.

Often, the biggest hurdle to cross in reaching a
decision one way or the other is the fear that you
haven't considered all the options. Forget it! Unless
you are being forced to decide something completely
outside your field of experience you already have all
the information you need. Your brain has spent years
sucking in data from all over the place. Let that
incredibly complex computer weigh the options for you
in the background. Your subconscious moves much faster
than your conscious thought processes.

There are two kinds of decisions.

The first kind are those that cannot be reversed. You
have to take longer over these, but there is still no
value in putting off the inevitable. In these kinds of
decisions, a maybe is the same as a no. You will have
decided by default. If it all goes wrong then, you will
be at fault twice - once for not deciding at all and
once for allowing the wrong outcome to happen.

The other kind of decisions account for the vast
majority: those that can be changed, modified or
adapted after they have been made. There is never any
good reason to put off actively making these decisions.

Go with your gut instinct. 90% of the time it will be
right. Even in the times it isn't, you can reverse it
pretty quickly. Don't be frightened of losing a little
face. In business, someone who has the guts to make a
decision, and then, in the light of new facts, the
courage to decide to reverse it, is someone destined
for the top.

Don't think too far in the future.

Some situations try to force you to decide based on the
outcome in the long term. This is rarely sound. Of
course, the long-term objective is valid, but if it
bankrupts you or the company in the short-term, that
decision is flawed.

When to avoid making a decision.

After all I have said about the power of positive
decision making, it might seem odd to condone the
opposite. However, it is just as valid to decide not to
do something as to decide to do it. The important thing
is to decide.

Some questions are unanswerable and sometimes you
simply don't have enough facts to make an informed
decision. In these cases, your active decision is to
wait, gather more facts, or seek advice. 'Do nothing'
is not an option.

I leave the final words to two successful businessmen
from opposite sides of the Atlantic:

'If I had to sum up in one word what makes a good
manager, I'd say decisiveness. You can use the fanciest
computers to gather the numbers, but in the end you
have to set a timetable and act.' Lee Iacocca, former
Chrysler chief.

'A lot of companies I deal with seem incapable of
making a decision. It doesn't matter if the decision
you make is right or wrong. What matters is that you
make it and don't waste your company's time. If you
make the decision, you begin to distinguish the good
from the bad.' Peter Kindersley, UK publisher.