Everyone tells you that decision-making skills are important but no one tells you how to improve decision-making skills to a point where your decisions are good. If you’re wondering if there is one right answer to what effective decision-making is, then no, there aren’t always perfect decisions to be made, just ones that are the best alternatives from the resources you have at your disposal. Getting to the point where you’re able to utilize your resources effectively to make the right call is ideal, but it all starts with getting the decision-making basics right.
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According to Oracle’s PR Newswire, in the past year, 85 percent of business leaders have experienced decision distress, whether in regard to guilt over a decision or their doubts about having made it. It is quite natural to struggle with decision-making, especially when holding senior management positions where decisions could affect the lives and futures of employees and the company alike. Gaining confidence in your own decision-making skills is necessary in order to improve decision-making skills.
Step to Improve Decision-Making Skills
Working on decision-making is no easy task. Often it involves an overwhelming amount of information and incredibly tight deadlines that don’t leave room for uncertainty. This in turn causes incomplete, rushed choices that aren’t always sustainable. Undoing the results requires additional resources. It is best to take time and practice your decision-making skills as well as have a plan of action ready when quick decisions are necessary, so you don’t have to flounder in the long run. But to begin this process, we need clarity on what effective decision-making is and how you can define it for yourself.
What Is Effective Decision-Making?
There is no single definition of an effective decision. It centers around making the best possible choice when presented with a problem. Some problems are simple—do you pick red or blue as the theme for the next office party? Yes, there might be some disgruntled employees either way but the results are inconsequential in the long run once everyone sees the food and decor. Other decisions at work can be much more complex—do you fire an employee or continue trying to settle them into the workplace? Do you agree with a client’s demands and lose out on resources or say no and potentially lose the client entirely?
To determine what effective decision-making is, it often comes down to seriously evaluating a situation, listing out the pros and cons, and making an informed choice to seek the best possible outcome. It involves a realistic assessment of the situation and a conviction that it is the best solution for today.
The consequences of a decision are only clearly evident in the future and it’s easy to fall prey to doubt when the results are not what you expected. Often though, situations remain unpredictable despite your best efforts. If you’re convinced about your decision-making in the present, you’ll likely be able to work with the results instead of getting too lost in your regrets regarding it. Effective decision-making skills can get you there if you actively work on your decision-making basics.
Time is Your Friend—Work with It
No matter how much it feels like you have two-and-a-half minutes to make a choice there is often more time to make a decision. Practice allocating time for decision-making just as you would any other task. If possible, allocate an hour every day to prioritize major tasks and carefully take a call on them. If it’s easier to make decisions on tasks as they come in, give yourself time with each of them to understand what exactly you need to decide on. In a hurry, it might seem like you have to make a decision on the fussy client immediately, but with a few minutes of thought, you might realize the decision might be more about assessing what resources you can ask your boss to have at your disposal.
- Prioritize tasks based on their importance and upcoming deadlines and try to assess them one by one
- When there’s less time to make a choice, meet with those with the most awareness of the situation and seek inputs
- Breakdown your time fairly between tasks so no one decision is rushed
- To improve decision-making, it is also helpful to take time out to review your past decisions every once in a while and understand what led you to the choice
- If absolutely necessary, be honest about requiring more time to decide rather than taking a bad call (use this sparingly)
- Do not procrastinate decisions either—set a deadline for yourself and pointers on what information you need to see out to make an informed choice
Sleuthing Skills and Data Gathering Can Improve Decision-Making Skills
Poor decisions are often made on incomplete, insufficient information. Before reading a full report, some of us have likely already decided what aspects of it we’re going to report. Without considering the entire plan of action, some of us are already on step 1. This can lead to us taking off in the wrong direction or having to backtrack and redo work because we didn’t listen the first time.
Sometimes these things happen because we’re overwhelmed by data and cannot find a way to carefully consider all of it. According to PR Newswire, 72 percent of leaders have refrained from making a decision because of overwhelming amounts of data at their disposal and their lack of trust in them. Information is a decision-making basics and is essential to improve decision-making skills.
- Pay attention to data when presented to you
- Ask questions and understand the situation well instead of believing you will look it up later
- Consider various sources for information—for each decision, some are more relevant than others
- Try and simplify information when trying to make a decision—highlight what is relevant to this situation
- Refer to trustworthy sources—consider if you are turning to biased sources
- Set templates for data to simplify decision-making in areas where decisions have to be made repeatedly
- Regularly network with other professionals in your field to create a databank of resources you can reach out to if needed
- Leverage technology to gather information efficiently
- Look for patterns and trends that can guide your decision but do not entirely base your decision on microtrends
- Cross-verify details from sources if necessary
- Try to get first-hand information rather than data that has been filtered multiple times through multiple perspectives
Define Clear Goals: Decision-making Basics
Be sure of what the purpose of the decision is. The decision-making process can be difficult when there are too many decisions being made at once for multiple reasons. By clarifying what the aim is, you can also get a better grip on the information you need and improve decision-making skills as you work.
- Apply the SMART criteria (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) to your goals and what you want to accomplish with them
- Quantify your objectives if possible—” acquiring 4 more clients” is easier to plan for than “acquiring more clients”
- Distinguish between short-term and long-term objectives—in some cases, before you take a call on what needs to be done in the long run, you might need to plan for the steps to get there
- In a team setting, involve key stakeholders in the goal-setting and decision-making process, even if you are the one who will take the final call
- Focus on the outcome to understand what you are missing in the present
Evaluate Pros and Cons Rationally—How to Improve Decision-Making Skills
Each decision is likely to have positive and negative consequences, even if they’re not immediately obvious when confronted with the problem. Carefully evaluate your options and what results they may lead to. Sometimes an offer really is too good to be true and sometimes a negative situation might open up more doors than it closes. Like letting go of an uncooperative client to free up time for two more in their place. Focus on being objective as you evaluate the possible outcomes of a decision. This is a very useful way to improve decision-making.
- Conduct a step-by-step thorough analysis of each option’s positive and negative aspects.
- Consider various sources and how the impact can extend beyond you
- Weigh out the pros and cons—one list might be longer than the other but the impact of one side might be greater
- Think ahead and be creative with your thinking—this is another decision-making basic that can improve the quality of your decisions
- Review the list of pros and cons, and seek input from others if necessary
- Seek feedback from others to gain diverse perspectives and identify factors that might have been overlooked
- Avoid letting personal biases influence the assessment
Plan For Consequences and Results
We often hesitate to commit to a decision we know we need to make because the results appear too upsetting. In such cases, the certainty that you will be able to handle the consequences with greatly improve your decision-making abilities. Once you are aware of the possible negative consequences of a decision that has to be made, assess how you will handle them. This could involve talking to your team and getting them prepared, preparing alternate paths of action for a client who is affected by the choice, providing assistance and training to an employee who will be affected, etc.
Instead of waiting for the negative consequences to take you by surprise, set up your resources and defenses in preparation and ride out the results with ease.
Be Confident—You’ve Made an Informed Choice
Once you have your decision ready and all the components and data points in your mind, commit to your choice and see it through. After such careful evaluation, accept that any outliers and external factors are out of your control. Accept that and go through with your choice. If there are elements that try to make you second guess your choice, take their inputs calmly but also be prepared to present your information and reasoning if necessary.
Being able to rationally explain your choice is a good sign that you know what you’re talking about. Being able to stay calm will also help you see the value in other arguments that are presented to you, so you can feed it back into your decision-making process and learn how to improve your decision-making skills for next time.
McKinsey reports that managers at typical Fortune 500 companies waste approximately 500,000 days a year on ineffective decision-making. To avoid following in line, working to improve your decision-making skills is important. Be open to feedback and seek tips from those more experienced than you are—there is no drawback to learning from their experiences. To improve decision-making, you need to be clear on your decision-making basics and continuously practice employing those skills.