Some people make poor decisions because they’re using the same old data or processes they always have. Such people get used to approaches that worked in the past and tend not to look for approaches that will work better. Better the devil they know.

But, too often, when...

This shows up as a failure to check facts, take the initiative, confirm assumptions, or gather additional input.

Basically, such people are perceived to be sloppy in their work and unwilling to put themselves out. They rely on past experience and expected results simply to be an extrap...

Organizations today are very complex, and even the best leaders do not have enough technical depth to fully understand multifaceted issues. But when decision-makers rely on others’ knowledge and expertise without any perspective of their own, they have a difficult time integrating that in...

When faced with a complex decision that will be based on constantly changing data, it’s easy to continue to study the data, ask for one more report, or perform yet one more analysis before a decision gets made.

When the reports and the analysis take much longer than expected, poor...

Some good decisions become bad decisions because people don’t understand – or even know about — them.

Communicating a decision, its rationale and its implications is critical to the successful implementation of a decision.

Bad decisions sometimes stem from a failure to connect the problem to the overall strategy.

In the absence of a clear strategy that provides context, many solutions appear to make sense. When tightly linked to a clear strategy, better solutions quickly begin to rise to the...

Some decisions are never made because one person is waiting for another, who in turn is waiting for someone else’s decision or input.

Effective decision-makers find a way to act independently when necessary.