Entrepreneur.com shares five ways business owners and executives can make quicker, more calculated decisions.
1. Stop seeking perfection. Don’t wait for everything to be perfect. Instead of seeking the impossible, efficient decision makers tend to leap without all the answers and trust that they’ll be able to build their wings on the way down. A project delivered only 80% complete a few hours early may be better than one that’s 100% complete but five minutes late.
2. Be independent. Good decision makers are “collaboratively independent.” They surround themselves with the best and brightest and ask pointed questions. Waiting for committees or an expansive chain of command to make decisions could take longer. Get your information from credible sources and act quickly.
3. Turn your brain off. Insight comes when you least expect it, so by simply turning your mind off for a while, or even switching to a different dilemma, will give your brain the opportunity to scan its data bank for information already stored and waiting to be retrieved.
In a recent Wall Street Journal article about creativity, Jonah Lehrer writes that scientific research has found an area of the brain on the surface of the right hemisphere that exhibits a sharp spike in activity when an “insight” appears. Relaxation or distraction allows our brain to eavesdrop on the random associations unfolding in that part of the brain. Einstein once declared, “Creativity is the residue of time wasted.”
4. Don’t problem solve; decide. Decisionmaking often relies more on intuition than analysis. Deciding on a vendor requires examining historical data, references and prices, but the tipping point often rests with your gut. Which feels like the right choice?
5. Admit your mistakes. If your feelings steered you in the wrong direction, correct the error and own it. Making the wrong decision will garner more respect and loyalty when you admit you’ve made a mistake and then resolve it than if you are habitually indecisive.
Read the original article from Entrepreneur.com here.
-- Michael Campos, LCT associate editor
Print | posted on Wednesday, March 21, 2012 11:23 AM