3 Ways to Make Great Decisions
There are lots of ways you can make great decisions. I’ve got 3 big ones:
- Interpret the Information
- Know your options
- Know your negotiables and non-negotiables
I credit Steve Bannister with the first tip. He does a great job sharing his 4 tips to interpret information:
- Rumor (Steve calls this rumour, he’s from Canada, I’m from Wisconsin)
- Belief
- Opinion
- Fact
Great advice! You must know how to interpret the information in front of you. I would argue it is the first step in making a great decision.
Another important key to making great decisions is knowing what options are available. What the worst that could happen? What’s the best that could happen? What’s most likely to happen? Are any surprises possible?
The last tip I’ll share is knowing your negotiables, and knowing your non-negotiables. If you don’t know what you really MUST have in order to consider the outcome a success will help you determine what you are willing to give up in order to consider the decision a success.
Now what do you think? What would you add to my 3 legged decision making stool?
Photo credit to Amazon.com product page
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POSTED IN: communication, teamwork
3 opinions for 3 Ways to Make Great Decisions
Steve Bannister
Apr 21, 2008 at 6:44 am
Phil,
Thanks for the reference. I like your idea about negotiables and non-negotiables.
Cheers,
Steve
Phil Gerbyshak
Apr 23, 2008 at 3:37 am
Thanks Steve. Glad to share your stuff.
The negotiables and non-negotiables frame every decision I make. Sometimes I bend, and sometimes not. Understanding my values are key to this decision.
Ade McCormack
Apr 23, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Their apparent simplicity belies their complexity.
‘Interpret information’ is nothing less than knowledge management, one of the greatest challenges facing service based organisations across the planet. One’s ability to interpret information determines what value one yield’s from that information. Where decisions involve more than one person, perhaps a corporation, the interpretation challenge grows exponentially.
‘Know your options’ - again a knowledge management issue. Do you have access to the knowledge resident in your colleague’s heads (perhaps globally distributed) to build a complete picture of your options? The same being true for ‘Know your negotiables and non-negotiables’.
I would add a fourth point ‘ Decide whether to decide’. Often the pressures of business and life cause us to treat our responsibilities as a ‘to do’ list to work through. Smart people recognise when focused procrastination is the best course of action. A delayed response often has the benefit of recency value in respect of new information coming to light.
Those that make the best decisions(including the decision not to decide) win in both life and business. As more decisions involve highly intermeshed globally distributed communities decision making becomes a boardroom challenge.
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