👉🏼 It's time to decide.
A guide to decision making.
Hey there 👋🏼
This week I thought of focusing on decisions and the decision-making process.
As a leader, it’s extremely important to remove ambiguity and make clear decisions.
You might be thinking right now:
But you would be surprised how many leaders run away from a decision.
I’ve seen leaders:
Wait until a decision is made for them
Not make a decision because they don’t want to deliver bad news
Decide not to make a decision (this at least is a decision!)
Teams are clearly affected because:
They don’t have a clear path to proceed. Remove ambiguity.
They might feel like their opinion is not heard. Listen and act on their concerns.
They see weakness in their leader. Show your strength.
Sometimes it absolutely sucks to be in that place, and guess what, very rarely you’ll please everyone.
But a decision must be made. And it’s up to you to fine-tune that process.
Here are the 5 steps you need to go through when making a decision:
🧠 Understand
You start by understanding the problem and what needs to be solved.
Connecting to the reason why you need to make a decision will be key to sticking to your decision and defending it.
📚 Inform
Now that you know what needs to be solved you collect the information that will help you make the decision.
You’ll gather internal and external information.
Internal information is obtained through a self-assessment process, whereas you’ll get external information through blogs, books, podcasts, etc.
👀 Look around
A responsible leader understands that rarely a decision only affects their team.
Usually, the blast radius is much wider.
Having an accurate perception of reality, of what other people have staked in this process as well as how the different alternatives will influence them is relevant.
🤔 Decide
You have all the data.
You understand the consequences of each alternative.
Make a decision and communicate.
This can be the step that will trigger your anxiety but
🧐 Assess
Review the results of your decision.
It might take practice to fine-tune this process so make sure not to put yourself down if things do go as planned right from the beginning.
Of all of these steps, I would say the most important one is the last one: Assess.
I’m a huge fan of learning through doing, and this process highlights that.
So keep track of your decisions.
Of how you came to the decision.
How did you collect data, what were the different vectors you analysed and how much perception of your reality did you take into consideration?
That's it from me. I hope you have a fantastic weekend and that this issue helps you review your decision-making process and make more informed decisions!
On a personal note, I just got myself a Kindle! 🥳
I looked into purchasing an e-book reader for far too long, and I finally did it!
So, the first book on the list to read?
“Building a Second Brain” by Tiago Forte.
I followed Tiago Forte’s work for a couple of years and his book is the consolidation of his incredible work of building a separate second brain that we can use to make information more accessible.
⏱ TL;DR
A quick and effective framework to make a decision:
Understand the problem
Gather information
Attain an accurate perception of reality
Make the decision
Assess your decision
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Have an incredible month! 💪🏼
Parada 👊🏼 A Leader's Mindset
I remember seeing a talk by Rob Bowman (Director of X-Files) saying he was so flustered in the early days being asked to make decisions as small as "which colour dress, red or blue?" But he realised that as director, it's his job to make a decision, a timely decision, and that it doesn't always have to be the RIGHT decision, but A decision. That really helped me try and get past the fear of making a decision because it might be wrong.