"There is a time when we must firmly choose the course we will follow, or the relentless drift of events will make the decision."
Franklin D Roosevelt
Each of us is the sum total of past decisions. These decisions in turn determine our future.
Five-step approach to decision-making
1-Define the objective
You do need to be clear – or as clear as possible – about where you want to get to. Otherwise the whole process of decision making is obscured.
As the proverb says, If you do not know what port you are heading for, any wind is the right wind. If you are in doubt about your aim, try to write it down. Leave it for a day or two, if time allows, and then look at it again. You may be able to see at once how it can be sharpened or focused.
2-Collect relevant information
The next skill is concerned with collecting and examining relevant information. Some of it will be immediately obvious, but other data may be missing. It is a good principle not to make decisions in the absence of critically important information that is not immediately to hand, provided that a planned delay is acceptable.
Leaders and their juniors say they are caught in a dilemma: everyone tells them that they should have more information so they can make better decisions, but the proliferation of sources makes it impossible to keep one well-informed of the data. The growth of information has been relentless.
3-Generate feasible options
Notice the word options rather than alternatives. An alternative is literally one of two courses open. Decision-makers who lack skill tend to jump far too quickly to the either–or alternatives.
You need to open your mind into wide focus to consider all possibilities, and that is where generating ideas comes in. But then your valuing faculty must come into play in order to identify the feasible options. ‘Feasible’ means capable of being done or carried out or realized. If it is feasible it has some real likelihood of being workable. It can attain the end you have in mind.
4-Make the decision
The critical preliminary activity here is to establish the selection criteria. It is worth dividing them into different levels of priority.
Unless an option meets the MUST requirements you should discard it. But after the essentials have been satisfied, the list of desirables – highly desirable SHOULDs or pleasant addition MIGHTs – comes into play.
5-Implementing and evaluating the decision
Implementing in terms of giving effect to the decision, that is, actually taking the course of action that you decided upon. In other words, that means taking action.
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"Take care that the honey does not remain in you in the same state as when you gathered it: bees would have no credit unless they transformed it into something different and better."
Petrach
References
Adair, J.(2007).Decision Making & Problem Solving Strategies. Kogan Page, London and Philadelphia
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