Do you love or hate making decisions? Do you endlessly weigh the pros and cons before making your decisions? Or is it on the contrary that you like to make decisions quickly and take immediate action? Do you let circumstances or others make decisions for you? Think about your behaviour in those situations which push you to make decisions! You will probably locate this behaviour depending on the complexity and challenges of each decision. You are certainly not wrong. Trying to take into consideration all the options, their drawbacks and advantages in a changing environment is so obsolete. Therefore, our decision making depends … it all depends!
What you consider to be valid reasons to choose an option over another have only a short life span in the timeframe of the impact of your decisions. This leaves you puzzled about decisions and the processes which motivate them. Do not worry, you are not alone. Perplexity is justified. Explore the following thoughts and you will feel the contradictions of decisions of thinkers known for decision-making: • It happens that big decisions don’t make themselves, but are formed of themselves, Henri Bosco • A man must choose. Therein lies his strength: the power of his decisions. Paulo Coelho • You have to decide, even to hesitate. Stanislaw Jerzy
You can adopt one of these three thoughts or you can consider adopting an approach based on the situation you are in. What is important is to know that there will never be good or bad decisions in absolute terms. Moreover, Winston Churchill famously said: “One must never forget when misfortunes come that it is quite possible they are saving one from something much worse; or that when you make some great mistake, it may very easily serve you better than the best-advised decision.” The key is to make decisions and carry them out. We must recognize that, to paraphrase Zig Ziglar, the worst decision is no decision.
What we all need to understand in relation to the decisions we make is that often they have the same value. I would not go so far as to generalize this principle to all personal and professional situations, but I would say that often the important thing is not the quality or relevance of the decision, but our ability to realize our decisions. We see all around us a lot of decisions that never turn into reality, whether personal resolutions or large-scale projects which remain dead in the water.
When I advise managers and executives as part of support missions, the issue at hand is often choosing the right method, the right tool, and / or right posture in a given environment. I often react to this kind of situation by insisting that these people do have the skills and qualities required to make these choices, and certainly they will make these decisions better than I ever could. I clearly emphasize that the added value of my work is not only in toolboxes, but especially in the energy, discipline and the ability to support stakeholders in our decisions around a transformative vision of daily life.
Decisions can change, our minds can change, stakeholders can more or less resist our decisions based on their maturity, we can adapt to changing conditions with new decisions, but … we must have and glimpse a transformative vision, sincere and honest, which guides our will and spares us from wading into the unknown or into chaos. Action, be it through decision, letting things run their own course, or anything else, must guide our thinking. Avoid becoming the slave of the quality of decisions, because there is no good decision without ‘good’ action.
By Farid Yandouz