Principles for Decision-making
In my day, I’m tasked with running multiple businesses and often faced with making high-value decisions without a clear and rational alternative to choose. For those scenarios, I’ve written down my principles for decision-making.
The two rules of decision-making
The biggest threat to making good decisions is human emotions and short-term thinking.
Good decision-making is a two-step process: 1) you gather information before you 2) make a decision.
Principles for decision-making
Gut feeling
When information, data, and insight are limited and arriving at a rational decision is complex, you will likely have a gut feeling. Listen carefully to what your gut is telling you — it likely sends a conflicting signal, and you might recognize one of the signals as the right decision for the long-term, the greater good, or the morally right option. The other signal might be what you really want to do. If it’s high-risk, go with the former.
Short-term vs. long-term
Go with the long-term. It usually yields a better payoff in the long run and provides an avenue with less competition in a world where most tend to go with the short-term.
When you have no apparent alternative
There will be scenarios where you don’t have any apparent alternatives. Doing nothing is not an option because you still have a problem. These are my tools for how I approach this scenario:
Reframe the problem
Reframing a problem means looking at it from a different perspective or angle. Try casting a new light on the problem, and come up with creative solutions you might not have considered before.
What would <insert thought leader> do?
What happens if you go in the opposite direction?
What happens if you don’t have any resources to solve this problem?
Can the problem be broken down into more minor problems?
If the problem is overwhelming or consistent with many sub-problem, try using a decision quadrant.