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3 Decision-Making Mistakes You Should Avoid
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3 decision-making mistakes that you must avoid
- Impulsivity. Thorough decisions combine all three senses – seeing, hearing and feeling. Impulsive decisions always lack one of these elements.
- Allowing yourself to be pe...
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The ABCDs of categorizing decisions
- Big-bet decisions: infrequent and high-risk - from major acquisitions to game-changing capital investments;
- Cross-cutting decisions: frequent and high-risk - think pricing, sales, and operations planning processes or new-product launches;
- Delegated decisions: frequent and low-risk - routine elements of day-to-day management, typically in areas such as hiring, marketing, and purchasing;
- Ad hoc decisions: infrequent, low-stakes.
Approaching big bet decisions
- Appoint an executive sponsor to work with a project lead to frame important decisions for senior leaders to weigh in on;
- Break things down (with decision meetings at each stage), and connect them up.
- Focuses on debating the solution (instead of endlessly elaborating the problem) and gather the right people.
- Move faster without losing commitment: get comfortable living with imperfect data and being clear about what “good enough” looks like.
Approaching cross-cutting decisions
- Identify decisions that involve a cross-cutting group of leaders, and work with the stakeholders of each to agree on what the main steps in the process entail.
- Work through a set of real-life scenarios to pressure-test the system in collaboration with the people who will be running the process.
- Limit the number of decision-making bodies, and clarify for each its mandate, standing membership, roles etc.
- Create shared objectives, metrics, and collaboration targets.
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Accept your emotions
Recognize what happened and how you feel. Suppressing your emotions will get you nowhere. It’s important to first focus on how you feel.
You can also journal your emotions or speak with a close confidante. Or you can go to therapy, of you think it's right for you.
Focus on the facts
Take a step out of the emotions and stress to really look at the facts of the situation. Try to look at the situation objectively and seek ways to work productively toward solving it.
Get an outside perspective, if you struggle with getting the facts in an objective manner.
Don't let it consume you
Once we’ve made what we’d call a bad decision, we give it a lot of meaning it does not inherently have.
So try to mentally separate yourself from the decision. Doing so can help you strip it of its power.
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Work on the right decision
The way you frame your decision at the outset can make all the difference.
State your decision problems carefully, acknowledge their complexity and avoid unwarranted assumptions and option-limiting prejudices.
Specify your objectives
A decision is a means to an end. Ask yourself what you most want to accomplish and which of your interests, values, concerns, fears, and aspirations are most relevant to achieving your goal.
Decisions with multiple objectives cannot be resolved by focusing on any one objective.