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As a manager, one of the most important leadership skills you will need is effective decision making. Whether you are the manager of a low-level project team or of the entire company, the responsibility of making final decisions will reside on your shoulders, and that means you need the ability to really make the right, or at least, in your purview, the very best decisions you can make. While learning to be a decisive and effective decision maker does not happen overnight, here are some tips to get you started.
1. Start by listing any and all choices. Before you can make a decision between possible choices, you need to know exactly what those choices are. When someone brings you a decision or when one arrives at your door, list the options or solutions that you could choose, so that you can make a pro and con list in a later step.
2. Find out how much time you have to decide or set your own timescale. You may need to make a decision by the end of the day. You may have three weeks before you need to decide. Whatever the timescale is, make sure you know it and can stick to it.
3. Gather information about the situation. Speak to the stakeholders. Find as much out about the different options as you can. The last thing you want to do is go into a big decision blind.
4. Figure out the most important factors. Not every factor is going to be as important as all the other factors. Before you can make the final big decision, you need to decide what information is most important, who will be affected the most, whether or not funds are an issue, etc.
5. Look at the risks. Does one choice have more risks than another choice? Are those risks worth taking? What are the risks of making the wrong decision? The benefits of making the right one? What is the worst thing that could possibly happen, no matter which decision you end up making? Deciding whether or not these risks are acceptable will help you make your final decision.
6. Make a pro and con list for each option. Go through the pros and cons. As the manager, you have to look at the big picture and fairly list the pros and cons of each option, forming a balance sheet. It is important to note that not every pro and con has the same weight, and it might be important to come up with some as hoc system for weighing the pros and cons.
7. Finish the decision making process. Look at the pros and cons, the information you have gathered, and the risks you have cited. Which option has the best change of a positive outcome? In a leadership position, it is often your role to make hard decisions, so you want to pick the ones with the best possible change of panning out positively.
Written by:
Gerard O’Donovan
CEO and Founder- Noble Manhattan Coaching – www.noble-Manhattan.com
CEO and Founder -International Coaching News – www.international-coaching-news.net
CEO and Founder -Westminster Indemnity – www.Westminster-indemnity.com
CEO and Founder – The Alpha Group – www.the-alpha-group.biz
President – International Institute of Coaching and Mentoring – www.iicandm.org
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