How Can Leaders Make Better Decisions?
By leadership author and keynote speaker Ross Shafer
As you know, at the very core of great leadership is being able to make good decisions every day. How can you do that? I suggest that you start preparing your decisions and your actions well in advance. Great leaders premeditate how they will respond to every situation so they are never surprised, they’re never shocked and they know if they already know how they will respond to all kinds of scenarios. They won’t have to make crucial decisions under pressure or in some cases, a crisis. If you have ever watched an NFL game you’ve seen the coaches on the sidelines with a large laminated poster that shows them what play to run in a variety of predetermined scenarios. The quarterbacks have an armband with similar information to help them call plays based upon how the defense is lining up. By preparing your decisions ahead of time, you’ll be prepared. You’ll look smart and you’ll be ready to instill confidence the stakeholders and your team. Better yet, you’ll look worthy of your big paycheck.
So how do you premeditate your decisions? Think of yourself as your own SIRI: the artificial intelligence machine inside every iPhone. Now, IBM has their own AI machine they call WATSON, regardless, these virtual people are programmed to give you answers based on questions they expect people to ask. So for you, make a comprehensive list of every possible decision you might have to make and, if I were you, I wouldn’t rely on my own memory for the list, I’d talk to other leaders. I’d talk about problems or consequences they’ve gone through…because I want a course of action for every possible eventuality. Here are a few you’ll run in to.
How will you respond if somebody on your team has posted secret information on social media? What will you do if there is a critical shipping breakdown? Who is responsible? Who will fix it? What will you do when you can’t fix the problem? You get the idea. Again, make the list as exhaustive as you can. I’ve seen leaders who keep notes in their phones so they can cross reference quickly for the answer.
Ok, now let’s get into more complicated decision-making…a decision that requires you to make a risk assessment or a capital investment based on factors that are out of your control. Analyzing a lot of data is complex. But, there are software programs that can help you make better-informed decisions. All you have to do is enter the facts you DO know and the software will quickly analyze several outcomes based upon your preferences and expectations. For example, one such company, Logical Decisions Inc., (www.logicaldecisions.com) has a variety of software applications to help crystalize your decision-making. LD software has helped to locate the best site to build a reservoir and plant pipeline. LD software has also been employed to determine the financial stability of insurance investments. And they’ve helped the Air Force determine tech outcomes for fighter jets. Premeditated Fact-based decision-making will help you avoid the emotional influencers that could derail your mission-critical business decisions.
Click on link in the description page below this video and you’ll see a list of several decision-making programs you can check out on the web: The reason I am such a fan of premeditated decisions is because you have made many decisions based upon your “gut feeling.” You might have even made the right decisions along the way. But if you’ve seen the Oscar Nominated movie THE BIG SHORT, you saw first hand how poor gut-feeling decisions nearly collapsed our global financial community.
Finally, once you’ve made a good decision, even if it’s not popular, don’t overthink it and don’t second Guess Yourself. Jim Barksdale, the man who created Netscape and then sold the company to AOL for 4.2 billion, loved to reduce decision-making to a process everyone could understand. Whenever he was dealing with a mistake, his decision-making credo was to address the mistake and then let it go. Barksdale had Three Rules of Business: Rule 1: If you see a snake, don’t call committees, don’t call your buddies, and don’t get a meeting together; just kill the snake; Rule 2: Don’t go back and play with dead snakes. We haven’t got time to go back and revisit decisions; Rule 3: All opportunities start out looking like snakes. So naturally you’re suspicious. But if you see a problem…your competitors probably have too. So first, look at problems as possible opportunities to make a good decision.
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