There are millions of sources of business advice. Some are good. Some are less good. It is often relatively straight forward to keep asking people for advice until you find someone who advises you to do what you wanted to do in the first place. This can be good. But it is unlikely to lead you to decide to do what you should do.
“Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
10 Step Decision Making Process
If you are unsure, it pays to talk to experts at several points in this process. However, experts can only advise in the stages up to the point where you make a decision. Use experts to add possibilities and criteria. It is your business. It has to be your decision.
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Make Time – find a quiet spot, away from PC’s, telephones and other distractions.
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Create detachment – many decisions involve emotion. To avoid making an imperfect decision based on the emotional connections you have to some of the alternatives, you need to become detached from the decision. If you need another person who is not emotionally connected to the decision, ask a friend or colleague to help.
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Objectives – start by writing down (objectivity always gets easier once things are written down) what you want to achieve – in what time-frame.
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Criteria – now you understand your objectives, you can list the criteria that the chosen decision must meet (they can be “hard” criteria – like income must achieve X value by Y date, or they can be “soft” criteria – like “Must give me a better chance of learning to …..”)
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Data – then jot down all the facts and data that you have linked to your decision making dilemma.
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Alternatives – now write a list of the alternative options
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Evaluate Alternatives – against each alternative option, write a list of for and against judgements – the criteria you listed are the starting point for these judgements. Some of your options will fail to meet one or more of your criteria. Others may meet all your criteria, but will still have negative aspects.
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Make a decision – you make the decision based on your judgement and your criteria.
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Test the decision – go back to your criteria and double check that the decision you have made is going to deliver the outcome you wanted. In all the ways you want. Without “the law of unintended consequences” taking over.
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Tell people and Take Action – go out there and start to act on your decision. Step one is to tell people about your decision – make it real. Then start to plan the details of creating that reality in full.
Conclusions
Some business decisions are difficult to make – often those that affect people are the most difficult. When you are faced with a difficult decision in your business, it pays to make sure that you are basing your final decision on facts and data. And it is vital that you are as objective as you can be.
When you have to make difficult decisions, it is a good idea to review the impact and consequences of your decision at intervals – to make sure that you have really got the outcome you set out to achieve. On occasions, you may need to reverse a decision and deal with the consequences if things have not turned out as you planned. As long as you are objective in doing this and do not end up changing your mind every two months that is fine. The best decisions are the ones you stick to and make reality.
This was a guest post by Paul Fileman of Results-Zone. Results-Zone bring extensive knowledge and experience gained in Blue Chip organisations to businesses like yours. They ensure that your business is fully exploiting a well thought through operating plan. They work alongside you and your team – as business results managers. They ensure that your team and your business are elevated to the results-zone. They bring you “hands-on” experience – similar to employing high quality management skills without the risk or costs in recruiting full time employees.
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