How to make a good decision

In this post:

• Decisions are hard.
• Focus on process, not outcomes.
• All good decisions contain action.

Making decisions is hard work. It’s hard enough to make choices for yourself - bring other people into the mix, and it can seem impossible. How do you know what to choose? What is the right option? How do you satisfy everyone’s wants and needs? Why does every option seem lie a new problem to solve?

Even though making decisions is something every person, everywhere, has to do every day, most of us haven’t been taught how to do it well. By the end of this post, you'll be better off than most.

Good news: being a good decision-maker is not an innate characteristic. It's not about how smart you are or how much you know. A bit of knowledge can actually hold you back - it’s possible to know just enough to be confident but not enough to be correct.

Decision-making is a learned skill anyone can improve because good decisions aren’t about what you know but how you think. Process beats outcome any day.

Process, not outcome

The more important your decision is, the more complex and uncertain it becomes. The more critical your question or difficulty is, the less likely it is to have a correct answer.

Even if it had a correct answer or solution, you could apply it and still get a bad outcome through bad luck or a variable outside your control.

If you're making tricky decisions in complicated circumstances, stop chasing accuracy. Stop looking for "the solution." It doesn't exist. Focus on your process instead. Decide HOW you'll decide and who you'll decide it with.

There’s no perfect process for you to choose from. Google “decision model”, and you’ll find many neat, linear pictures. These are unlikely to work.

Source: You Don't Need An MBA by Alicia McKay, p.79

Different decisions will require different things. Some decisions will need robust scoring of technical alternatives. Some will need qualitative research and consultation. Others will need your intuition, your courage, or a collective gut feeling.

I can’t tell you how to decide - but I can help you understand what a good decision process looks like. Here’s a sneaky video from the Not An MBA curriculum module on decisions that outlines the “right decision” model. This model is a helpful basis for asking great questions.

Good decisions contain action

All good decisions contain action. You could spend forever trying to select the perfect path, only to have circumstances outside your control ruin everything. There comes a time when more process is harmful not helpful, and it is often easier to make a decision turn out right than it is to make the right decision. You’ll work it out - as long as you get moving.

Ultimately, no matter your decision, things are unlikely to go exactly as you plan. If you’ve made your choices based on curiosity and collaboration rather than confidence and certainty, you’ll be OK.

Here are three handy tips for you when it comes time to make a decision:

1. Assume you know less than you think.
2. Put curiosity before confidence or certainty.
3. Get others involved and value alignment over accuracy.

Til next week,

A

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