Making Good Decisions

Have you ever got stuck on making a decision? Something really important which might just change your life? But not knowing which was the right way to go? And so it's easier to delay the Big Decision because the time didn’t feel quite right to make it? (And how it's always SO much easier to see what other people need to do, as opposed to what you need to do?)

I know I have.

I’ve just completed Week 1 of the altMBA; a month long (evening and weekend) intensive virtual leadership development course designed by Seth Godin. Alongside a global cohort of my peers, we’re learning about how to lead meaningful change within the world. And I count myself very lucky to work for Salesforce, an organisation that puts personal and professional development at the heart of it’s talent strategy and gives everyone an annual bursary to pursue our professional development alongside the amazing learning and development it already provides.

It has been an intensive first week (as the rest will be, I’m sure) and so far, so loving it.

Just get going!

Aside from the practical frameworks on how to implement change, deciding what needs to change, building a plan, prioritising actions and making decisions around those priorities is critical to the first step of implementing change, both within ourselves and the wider world.

The first lesson we learn is that there is never a perfect time to start anything worth doing in life.

That there will always be something else that can take priority or that means we seemingly don’t have enough time to do it properly.

“Once I’ve got this Other Thing off my list, then I’ll start this Really Important Thing”.

In short, if we want to do something, we will/can find a way to get it done. As an example, I am still amazed what our learning group of four achieved in one of the exercises this week in the space of three hours, one evening. None of us thought we would be able to achieve it (come up with 99 separate mini business plans) and yet we did (100 in fact!) - and all pretty great ideas, if I do say so myself!

The problem is, a lot of the time, we procrastinate on taking that first step; on actually making a decision and getting on and doing it. We get stuck in the fear of making the right decision.

“But what if I get it wrong? Easier to hold off for a bit longer and see if a better idea/option comes along”, the story that we so often tell ourselves.

Not taking that first step means we never start the journey.

But I’m already so far down this other path...

What also stops us getting going or making a decision is that we get stuck in all the sunken costs that we may have already invested in something else; a career path/an organisation/a mission - that makes us less inclined to want to cut our losses and start again on a new chapter. And although they always come into consideration, sunken costs should never stop us from making The Decision. Understanding that this is a natural part of the process of making a decision is fundamental to having the power (and courage) to make a different decision.

Would you place a bet on it?

Framing the decision as a bet, at times, helps too.

Asking ourselves the question; if I were betting against someone on the outcome of this, what information do I currently not have/how might I be wrong/what might the other person know that I don’t? Framing it this way can help increase the accuracy of some of our beliefs and assumptions that may otherwise send us down the wrong path.

So asking ourselves:

1. What’s the potential reward here?
2. What’s the likelihood that I’ll get the reward?
3. How much of my limited resources do I need to commit in order to get that potential reward?

If the decision we’re trying to make has a positive expected outcome, then ultimately it’s a good decision.

But that’s not the final destination.

When we get a good outcome, we need to think of at least two mistakes we made in the pursuit of that outcome which helps us to make the shift from being results focused to process focused. It keeps us level headed because admitting our mistakes is hard but it’s the mistakes in our lives that we generally learn from.

And my personal favourite insight (among many) from our group work and discussions (that is integral to the altMBA); not all decisions have to be forever - we can make another one; learn from where we are and course correct. Nothing is final!

So don’t be afraid to make decisions - it’s what pushes us forwards!