The Components of Effective Decision-Making

Decision-making is a crucial component of all business, and developing decision-making skills is fundamental to being the best entrepreneur and leader possible. To effectively solve problems it’s necessary to use both your intuition and reason to choose the best course of action.

Intuition

As an entrepreneur, your intuition is innately fine-tuned to fulfilling your mission. It’s the result of your motivations, values and your experience so it’s vital that you take stock of your ‘gut feeling’ at all times. Try to understand what it is that makes you favor a particular course of action from an intuitive point of view. This will help you to become more aware of your mindset. However, remember that intuition alone should not dictate decision-making.

Reason

It’s important to use your rationale in combination with your gut feeling. Alone, pure reasoning will rely on facts and figures without taking interpersonal aspects into consideration. As a leader, it’s vital to consider both the organizational and strategic implications of your course of action. Take this structured approach, particularly when making big decisions, to avoid reacting impulsively to situations.

Brain-storming

Get creative with your thinking to generate better ideas for actions or solutions. This can further develop your combined intuitive or rational choice, or put you on the road to developing your own opinions. It also gives you an opportunity to involve stakeholders in the decision-making process.

Barriers to good decision-making:

• Insufficient data: Good information is the basis for good decisions, therefore effective information-gathering is vital preparation. However, too much data can lead to over-analysis. It’s all about balance.
• Involving too many people: While it’s important to make your personnel feel like they have a say in company strategy, consulting with too many stakeholders only serves to impede the process of decision-making. Even if you agree on fundamentals, people will always have differing views on procedures. Therefore, ask for your people’s suggestions but ultimately confine decision-making to a small, manageable group.
• Preferring the status quo: People are often resistant to change for many reasons, particularly if the chosen course of action represents a fundamental operational or structural alteration. In these situations, it’s vital to remember your goal and not to be phased by any opposition.