There can be no doubt that the vast majority of people who are employed as managers, supervisors, or even administrators, in essence, get paid to make decisions.
Decision making is fundamental to the success of business, not just about making the ‘right’ decision, but also even actually making a decision at the best time. Anyway, who’s to say whether your decision is the ’right’ one? It may be right for you but not necessarily right for others or the business.
So this is actually good news, in a sense.
Good news because it means that the role of management will always be needed to make decisions. So for many of us, we can be assured of a future and a call on our ‘brains’ to make decisions.
Many decisions are reasonably straightforward because someone has written a procedure that sets out the ‘rules’ – we just therefore, need to interpret these rules and apply them to the issue at hand that is being assessed. But are the rules still relevant to todays’ issues, or even embracing enough for the vast wide range of topics we need to assess? The rule writer can only have prepared his/her procedure based on the facts and issues that were evident at the time they wrote it.
The impact of time means that all procedures are almost immediately out of date, even when the ink is still wet. What then follows is a procedural amendment to cover what was missed or has since changed, or two (or three, four…………).
So the assessor needs to review both the original procedure and then track through each amendment to understand the changes that impact on the issue………….and end up going around in circles. Consequentially, it is often that no decision can be made, or it’s a decision with so many conditions that its understanding becomes nigh impossible.
So this is the quagmire of procedural decisions, but we are all faced with a host of different decisions every day…………….. some are more important than others.
How would you rate the following issues needing a decision - in order of their importance?
| No | Issue needing a decision | Priority 1 – highest or 10 – lowest? |
| 1 | What shall I eat for Breakfast this morning?
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| 2 | Mabel has done a very good job – how shall I reward her? | |
| 3 | When shall I start reading and reviewing the contract for the new transport services tender? | |
| 4 | I have a gut feeling about this applicant, shall I share this with my boss? | |
| 5 | It 16.00 hours – is it worth starting this client report now as its going to take me at least 3 hours? | |
| 6 | Young Johnny (4 years old) is pulling my trouser leg for my attention – have I got time to listen now? | |
| 7 | Will that animal cross the road before, or after, I get to that point? Shall I brake or accelerate? | |
| 8 | Should I go ahead with spending this money which will supposedly increase our sales? | |
| 9 | Everything seems to be going wrong for me at the moment – should I quit? | |
| 10 | If I buy these nice flowers for my mother-in-law, will it impress my partner? | |
Everyone’s priorities will be different but no one is right or wrong!
How do YOU make the assessments and judgements to make these sort of decisions? For most, it’s a matter of either Analysing; Valuing; or Synthesising, or a combination of all of these plus even our instinctive gut feelings for good measure!
The Principles of Problem Solving and Decision Making Course, being run in London Victoria, on 7 – 11 April, 2014 is a Masterclass on this subject.
Participants will gain a better understanding of the influences and drivers to their own decision-making, but most of all progress their journey towards building personal confidence that then presents the ultimate WISDOM.
For details and to book your place on this Masterclass, click here
