Five Tips For Making Better Decisions

Hi there, I'm Ben Morton and welcome to another episode of the Leaders Kit Bag. It's the weekly micro edition of my podcast. Each episode is just six minutes long and is designed to provide you with tips, tools and tactics around specific aspects of leadership and management. It addresses some of the most common challenges you will face as a leader or manager. They are all recorded unscripted whilst I'm out walking in the countryside. So you'll probably hear birds tweeting in the background or just ambient noise as the people around me are going about their day to day life. That's all I'm going to say by way of an introduction, so let's dive straight in to this week's episode.

If you sometimes struggle to make decisions, or if you'd like to help your team become better at making effective decisions with less input from yourself, then today's episode of the Leaders Kit Bag is for you. And in this episode I'm going to share with you five simple yet very powerful questions to help you and your team make better decisions. Here we go. Question number one is when does this decision need to be made for all but the most simple basic of questions? It's really important that we understand the time we've got available to us and use that time. You see, quick decisions are very rarely effective decisions. We think that it's a desirable trait in leaders or successful leaders always make very quick, instantaneous, in the moment decisions. The reality is plans resulting from quick decisions often need to be changed or create rework. Question number two, what information do we need in order to make this decision? And with this question, I encourage you to think about what we call 70% decision making. There will always be more data or information that you could gather in order to help you make a decision. So when you think you've got 70% approximately of the data and information available, get on and make the decision. As General Patton said during the Second World War, a good plan violently executed today is better than a perfect plan executed next week. This concept of 70% decision making also helps to overcome what we call a analysis paralysis. The third question, question number three is where can we get that information? Very simple, nothing more to say on this one. Question 4 is an interesting one. Question 4 is, is doing nothing an option? And in my experience, yes, in many situations it, it is. That's not avoiding a decision, that's just understanding that we don't need to take a decision right now. It might be that we just don't need to make a decision at all. We don't need to act in response to a particular situation. Or it might mean we don't need to make a decision, judgment or take a view on this yet. Our solution, our decision might be to watch and wait. And then the fifth and final question is quite simply, what are our options? And what are the pros and cons of each option? Now with question five, I strongly encourage you to try and identify three possible options to analyze. It's easy to come up with two. Two is simple and straightforward. A third potential option takes a little bit more work, effort and creativity. And that means the third option is often better, different, more creative. It doesn't mean you'll necessarily go with the third option, but it might inform and develop another option. So once you've got three options to consider, you can analyze them, work out the pros and cons, opportunities and risks, and then move forward with the decision. So that's it for today's content, the big five of decision making. When does this decision need to be made? What information do we need in order to make this decision? Where can we get that information? Is doing nothing an option? And finally, what options do we have? Hope it's been useful. If you are getting value from these Leaders Kit Bag videos and podcasts, then do head over to my website where you can find the full back catalogue of Leaders Kit Bag episodes plus a heap of additional leadership resources. So head over to ben morton.com that's ben-morton.com and until then, look after yourself. Look after those you've got the privilege and responsibility to lead. And until next time, folks, lead on.