The decisions we
make become the building blocks of our life. Some
of them are good, some of them are brilliant, some of them are bad and some of them
are just plain disastrous. Of course,
we’re conscious of the major decisions we make in our life: they cause us stress,
sometimes mental anguish. But it’s not
just the major decisions that affect our future. Decision
making is something we do a thousand times a day, and nothing affects our lives more than
our ability to do it right. The ability to make decisions
properly is one of the most important skills you can develop. All that you have achieved and all that you have
failed to accomplish can be traced to the decisions you’ve made. More importantly, all that lies ahead of
you—all your hopes, dreams and goals are dependent on your ability to make wise
decisions. Decisions really are the building
blocks of your life. Everything you are, and
everything you will become, is a result of the decisions that you make. There are many ways to analyze whether or not you are making the right decision. They range all the way from tossing a coin to computer analysis that make take many hours to run on a main frame. But the foundation of good decision making is not analyzing the choices you have, it’s categorizing the decision correctly. Do this right and the correct choice is much easier to make. So let me take you through the Eight Stages of Categorizing the Decision. Stage One: Does the problem
deserve a decision? Stage One is to determine if the
problem or opportunity deserves a decision.
We all waste a lot of time trying to make a decision about something that doesn’t
deserve a decision. "I was driving from Dallas
to Houston. I‘d planned to spend the
night in Houston, out by the International Airport, but with ninety miles still to go, I
found myself dozing at the wheel. So I
started looking for a place to spend the night. I
saw a billboard for a motel, but as I was about to pull off, I saw another billboard that
looked better, so I kept going. Several times
I was tempted to pull off, but I kept on going in the hope of finding something better. I just didn’t
seem able to decide." Because the long term
consequences aren’t great, this is a decision that should immediately be made by
establishing parameters. He should decide
what he won’t accept, and take the first thing that doesn’t violate the
parameters. For example, he may say,
"I’m not going to pay more than $50 for a room, it has to have a private
bathroom, and it has to be clean." So
the perfect decision here is to pull off the highway and take the first motel that meets
those criteria. So the first step in
Categorization is to consider: how great are the long term consequences. If they’re not that high, use parameters to
make the decision. Stage Two: Is it a problem or
an opportunity? The second stage of Categorizing
the decision is to consider if you’re dealing with a problem or an opportunity. We tend to jump on problems and let opportunities
slide by us, because the problems seem more pressing.
It’s easy to find ourselves spending all of our time on problems with no time
left over to take advantage of opportunities. Try
reversing that philosophy and see what happens. If
you’re in trouble, try spending all of your time on opportunities, which are really
the answer to your problems, and see if most of the problems don’t go away of their
own accord. Stage Three: Is it covered by
a policy? The third stage to Categorizing
the decision is to consider if it’s covered by policy.
That’s one of the key things to look for up front in decision making. Is there an existing policy that tells you whether
you should go ahead or not? "I run a company in Seattle
that distributes garden tools and equipment. One
of my buyers told me about a container of ten speed bikes that’s on the water, only
five days out from port. The chain of stores
that had ordered them declared bankruptcy, and I can pick them up for 25 cents on the
dollar. It sounds like easy money, but I
can’t decide." This is a decision best answered by referring to policy. This man is in the gardening equipment business. His corporate mission statement probably tells him that he shouldn’t get into the bicycle business. However much money he could make, he shouldn’t be tempted. Perhaps his company mission statement is broad enough to permit him to buy the container of ten speed bikes. Perhaps it says "We will become the most profitable distributor of garden equipment in the Northwest, by offering the finest service at competitive prices. Also we will take advantage of opportunities to make money in other areas." That’s fine, I’m not telling him how to run his business, I am saying he’ll be more successful if he has a clear mission statement that everybody who works there understands. Roy Disney used to say that decision making is easy when values are clear. People unconsciously do this all
the time. A four year old uses a swear word
in front of his father. The father whops him
up side the head. The boy creates policy to
handle this in the future. Usually it’s
"Don’t swear in front of Dad anymore." Stage Four: Pigeonhole the
decision. The fourth stage of Categorizing the decision, is to take the problem or opportunity, and place it in one of four pigeonholes: 1) A decision where concrete principles are involved. There is a right and a wrong answer, and you have to pick one or the other. 2) Several choices are available to you, and you have to pick the best answer. 3) You don’t see any solution to the problem. It isn’t a matter of making a decision between two or more choices. You don’t know what to do. For this you need creative thinking to create more options before you go ahead. 4)
It’s a "go or no go" decision.
Should you do it, or shouldn’t you? Stage Five: Is the problem real or imagined? The fifth stage of Categorizing
the decision is a critical one. You must
decide whether the problem or opportunity is real or imagined. All too often we overreact and spend time and
energy on problems and opportunities that are illusions.
In many newsrooms, you’ll find a big sign that says: "Nothing is as bad
or as good as it’s first reported." It
teaches the reporters not to overreact. Stage Six: Is it a money
problem or a people problem? The sixth stage of Categorizing
the decision is to determine if the decision involves money or people. There really are only three different kinds of
problems: those that involve money, those that involve people, or those that involve both
money and people. People get all tangled up in
decision making when they confuse them: "My twenty year old son is driving me insane. I love him, but I can’t stand him living at the house any more. He’s driving me crazy with his late night carousing. I’ve tried laying down ground rules, but nothing seems to work. I ought to throw him out of the
house and let him make his own way in the world. It
would probably do him a world of good. But I
hate to break the ties completely. He’s
my own son, and I might never see him again." This mother is confusing a people
problem with a money problem. If I asked her
how the son would feel if she gave him $400 a month to rent his own apartment, she’d
tell me: "Well, that would solve
everything, but we don’t have the four hundred a month to give him." That may be so, but when I point this out to her,
she’ll see for the first time that it isn’t a people problem she’s facing,
it’s a money problem. Stage Seven: Determine what happens if you do nothing? The seventh stage of Categorizing the decision is to determine what happens if you decide to do nothing? Will the situation improve or deteriorate? A lot of people call my office if they have a problem and don’t know which way to go. I’m always happy to help them if I’m there and if I’m away on a speaking trip, I always return the call when I get back into town. Over the years I’ve learned an interesting thing. If I’m out of town and not able to call them back for a few days, in over half the cases the problem has gone away by the time I reach them. In over half the cases the best decision was to make no decision at all. So the seventh stage is to determine this: if you do nothing, will the situation get worse, or better? If it isn’t going to get worse, give it some time and see if it doesn’t go away. The eighth stage of Categorizing the decision is to determine the uniqueness factor. Once you’ve decided the uniqueness factor, everything else is automatic. You’ll know how you should make the decision from that point on. If you’re bogged down with a decision, it’s probably because you haven’t faced it before. Assuming that’s true, there are three possibilities:
The first possibility is that although you haven’t faced the problem before, somebody else has. This might be a situation where you have a sick relative, or you’re having family or business problems. Where the problem is new to you but not to other people, the solution is to consult an expert such as a doctor, attorney or marriage counselor. Sometimes you agonize for years over a problem you think is unique. Once you accept it’s only unique to you, you’re astounded to find out there are experts out there who face the same problem dozens of time a week. So first decide if the problem
has been faced by other people. If it has,
consult an expert. The second possibility is that the problem is so unique, that almost no one has faced this decision before. The ultimate example of this is NASA, facing problems in the space program that really are unique. Nobody has had any past experience in solving them. They work on creating more possibilities by using Creative Synthesis, and then pick the best one with Analysis. The third possibility, when the problem is unique to you, is that of underlying causes exacerbating the problem. For example, perhaps you own three greeting card stores and one of them is always losing money. Should you close it down? Because you have underlying problems involved that may be causing the problems, you need to first figure out those underlying problems. Then find an answer for those. So, this kind of situation requires Analysis and Judgment. Analysis to sort out the underlying decisions, and Judgment to help you make the right decision. So the art of Confident Decision Making starts with correctly categorizing the decision. Only when you have done that, are you ready to move on to what most people think of decision making, which is selecting one of the choices available to you. |
