Empower 42: Decision Making & Implementing—Learning early OR suffering later.

We humans have to #take decisions all the time. It begins from getting up at a time to sleeping at a time. It includes individual, family, community, business, national and international decisions. Decisions have to #be implemented to get outcomes.

Many fall into the routine. Others depend upon a variety of factors. Decisions have important bearing upon our lives, our career, our business, upon the nation and upon the world.

If one is able to get up on time (as each one’s need) one is able to do a lot of work ( as each one’s requirements). This is an important decision. Thereafter comes the implementation of the decision which is further more important.

There is also the difference between ‘desire’ and ‘decision’.

One can say, ’I want to do so’ or one can say, ‘I will do so’. The former is a desire and the latter is a decision. The latter will prompt the act although sometimes with failure and reluctance.

Decisions require:

1.??? Weighing the outcome/s

2.??? Weighing the alternatives

The complexity increases as per the impact of the outcome on less or more people and resources. As the complexity increases, there are models and software to assist.

Here let us focus on the ‘individual’. How do decision making and the subsequent implementation impact/affect one’s life?

Right from taking decisions on the day to day routine to what affect the family and career, there are huge number of decisions that we as individuals have to take and thereafter implement. Let us take some example to see what kind of decisions impact us deeply.

In case of health, most of us are aware about the benefits of keeping fit through exercise and proper food habits at least to a large extent. Yet when advised to do so we fail to? take them up. We desire to wake up and undertake a walk and do some exercise, however we fail to decide from when to do so. Even if we decide we take quite some time to implement. Even if we implement, we fail to be regular.

The above is the case with similar steps for improvement in other directions like academics, skills, life skills etc. These often put us back by several ladders.

Quite often the decision is between a career as per our heart or as per our skills sets and career as per our parental or peer pressure. There is a tendency to ?follow the beaten path of peers or parents which often result in either a failure or a reluctance to pursue vigorously.

Let us take another example. The decision to save from early period in one’s career is of prime importance. However quite often this is postponed. Rather a decision is not taken to adopt a savings approach at the earliest. Similar is the case with taking an insurance policy in India.

The ability to take decisions stems from several aspects of upbringing. Most parents are protective and refrain from allowing children ‘to do’ and commit mistakes. The children are habituated to shying away from taking responsibility. This is further reinforced by the type of education at the school level. Rarely are children allowed to adopt a method of self-learning through making doing activities and making mistakes. In higher education too, the tendency is to let the learner through the exams. To do so ‘ a telling’ approach is adopted rather than a ‘doing one-self’ one. Gradually the rote method and ‘copy-paste’ is followed to get easy results.

Where parents allow children to ‘perform, do, act’, the children learn by experiencing and discovering. Then they learn to take decisions by taking responsibility. These carry over to the later life.

How does this spill over?

Taking responsibility for one’s own learning and growth instils the following:

1.??? Not feel hesitant to make mistakes

2.??? Search for answers on own

3.??? Take less time to take decisions

4.??? Not fear to err

5.??? Think of alternatives

6.??? Make course corrections in case of wrong decisions

7.??? Implement faster

Decision making involves risk. Learning to take risks at an early stage and subsequently reinforcing with risk assessment, empowers the individual to stand out in the crowd of ‘also-ran’ and be a leader who is not afraid to move forward.

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Dr. Srk

CEO ‘vcaninspire’