Decision by elimination
Ashish Mohan Jha
Co-Founder & COO at Impactsure Technologies Private Limited | Product Management & Marketing | Enterprise Software | Startup
I was waiting for the elevator in my residential apartment when I overheard two teenager friends talking about their upcoming examinations. They were talking about their methods for multiple choice question (MCQ). This made me think about my academic days and how I approached MCQs.
In a competitive examination, two important aspects are accuracy and speed. There were some questions where the one specific answer was crystal clear and I could quickly find it out. But for most others this was not the case. In such cases instead of getting the right answer directly, I used to decide by eliminating the wrong choices. With practice, it was possible to eliminate two wrong choices out of four fairly quickly. Now among the remaining two, the probability of getting the accurate answer was doubled.
Life is all about choices and time is of essence! You get multiple choices while accepting job offer, targeting right customer, pursuing sales deals, deploying constraint resources on projects and selecting right candidate. Sometimes the choice is crystal clear and you can quickly focus on that. But for most other scenarios, I decide by eliminating wrong choices. Yes, there were few situations where I have made the wrong decision and have learnt tremendously from mistakes. I believe that a delayed decision is worse than a wrong decision. Most decisions made by elimination have worked out well for me.
What has been your experience?
Deputy General Manager at Indian Oil Corporation Limited
4 年Nice article, Ashish. And you have very correctly mentioned that if you don't know the right choice than its better to go for the choice by elemination method. At the same time, it is also required to be prompt in taking decisions. Delayed decision are very risky and should never be encouraged. Whatever is to be done, the decision needs to be taken soon. However, there are some cases, when fast decisions may go wrong, if not evaluated properly. In such cases, it has been felt that immediate decisions may go wrong. We need to be careful for this.
Founder & CEO at RealtyMasterz
4 年Very well written Ashish Mohan Jha?. I agree with you that a delayed decision is worse than a wrong decision. I have felt that one tends to delay taking a decision when one fears that it might land him in an uncomfortable zone (assuming that the decision might turn out to be a wrong one).? However, taking quick and rational decisions, irrespective of how discomforting they might be is one of the most important attribute of a successful leader. And I cannot agree more with you Ashish Mohan Jha in this regard.??
Senior Manager in International Business - Mahindra Rise
4 年Nicely written Ashish
MS FACS
4 年Problem arises when the answer is none of the above. experimentation becomes important than exclusion .
UX Design Consultant, UX Strategist, Design Thinker
4 年Nice, very useful idea.