3 Keys to Effective Decision Making

My last post was about overwhelm, especially now. When you’re overwhelmed, decisions can be more difficult. Set yourself up for good decision making by applying structure to how you process choices.

Some decisions are simple - Coffee or tea? Bagel or toast? Other decisions are overlaid with deadlines, other people to consider and most fraught - emotions. Lots and lots of emotions. So, how do you make a decision when there is a whole messy bundle of factors to consider? Give yourself as much time as you’re able, and think methodically. Capture as much information as you can, separate the information out, then reassemble with context. Through this process, you’ll figure out what is truly important about this decision.

There are three keys in this process:

• Look at the facts

• Look at the consequences of each possibility

• Look at who else is affected

Start with the facts. Get a piece of paper or a good mind mapping app and put everything down. What do you know? What do you need to find out? Where can you find out? The sheet can be as crowded as it needs to be for you to capture the facts.

Put it aside. Go for a walk, move on to other work, or sleep on it. Then, come back to it and review what you wrote. Circle the most .critical facts in red. Circle the less critical facts in blue. Circle the facts that won't have a real bearing on the outcome in yellow. The facts here are in Primary colours. You're not dealing with nuances, just facts.

Move on to another piece of paper and look at all the possibilities, and what results from each. What could you do? Put down the good, the bad, and the ugly, even if you're pretty certain a couple of options aren't where you're headed. They're still options, and playing out that sequence of events in your head might trigger you to look further at some of the options. You're not making the decision yet - you're doing your due diligence. Richer thought can come from this. Put this sheet aside and give yourself over to another activity for a bit. Stepping back is something that is very helpful. It helps order the mind and lets creativity in while you’re doing something else. There's a reason Alexander Pope wrote, "Fools Rush in where Angels fear to Tread", and Johnny Mercer turned it into song lyrics.

Come for the coaching, stay for the literature.

Now, let's start categorizing with the least likely or least appealing consequences first this time. Circle those in yellow. Then, circle the more likely/more appealing in blue. And finally, circle the most likely or appealing in red. Meditate on your selections, then set it aside.

Next, who is affected? Maybe it appears to only be you, if there's nobody else in the house and there's both coffee and tea in the cupboard. However, many decisions are complex and can affect you and others - financially, emotionally, career-wise or in other ways. Get out a third sheet if there is much to consider, and start mind mapping again. After you feel you've got everyone down, start circling using those primary colours again. Who is affected in the strongest way? Who only peripherally? By how much are they affected, and what does that mean to you?

After yet another break, during which you do whatever research gives you as full a picture as you can get right now, it's time to make the decision. Not all decisions can be made with all information. In fact, executives who are successful are usually those who can make good decisions the majority of the time in the absence of all the facts.

Get the three pieces of paper, and review them, applying context to each. Are your initial assumptions still correct? Has anything changed? Do you need to circle things differently? And what pieces of information can drop off? What important factors are you left with as you evaluate your path forward? A fourth piece of paper can be helpful to combine all the factors you want to consider now. Look at those red circles and you’ll see the critical information you need to consider. By now, you will have much more clarity about what is important.

By taking a methodical approach and giving yourself time to think more deeply about what is involved each step of the way, you can more easily reach a decision that you feel good about.