Blog

Today’s inspiration for quote analysis is a lovely one from Sophocles about decisions – quick decisions are unsafe decisions. I have often been fascinated by the way people approach decisions. Broadly I can classify them into two categories

The Eternal Optimist: Loves to get their hands dirty and start working on a decision. Often they don’t spend a lot of time weighing the pros and cons of a decision. The main agenda is speed and the eagerness to get moving

The Worrisome Pessimist: Often gets bogged down in the details. Sees all the negative aspects and is worried about the cost of this decision. Since they don’t have all the answers, it takes a very long time to arrive at a decision.

You are right – I have definitely oversimplified my classification of the type of decision-makers and it is certainly not the complete truth. But I would like to point out that there is a midway between the two. And often, we are on a slider scale on one of these categorizations. Which one is right? 

Quick Decisions are Unsafe Decisions 

As much as they have their merits, the quick decisions often tell us to rush into things without having thought about the flip side. Depending on the intensity of a decision, things can go terribly wrong. If you associate yourself as someone who makes quick decisions that have cost you dearly in the past – I would recommend looking at some mitigation measures. The mitigation measures can be simple ones such as: 

• Discussing the pros and cons with someone you can trust. This person needs to be objective and capable of challenging your thought process

• Drawing a list of possibilities. If you are on an extreme side of quick decision making – the answer is in spending time on the list. Spend time on the negative: Yes, they will slow you down, but you will need to know what you are exactly getting into. 
• Data speaks more than your gut does. As much as I like gut based decision making – if it is not backed by corresponding data – such a decision is fraught with more challenges and problems. And you again fall back into the spiral of quick decision making.

A simplistic framework that can lead you in this direction is expressed below:

Source: https://firstround.com/review/the-6-decision-making-frameworks-that-help-startup-leaders-tackle-tough-calls/  

Decisions taking forever

I must admit – decision making is not always an easy task. It is perhaps easier if you have nothing to lose. However, an impactful decision deserves all the thoughts it needs for us to get that comfort.

If you recognize a pattern that many decisions are taking more time than they should. Perhaps this is an opportunity to interrupt the pattern to get the results you want. The greatest source of strength you have in this scenario is that you already have a list of possibilities.

• The interruption pattern can benefit from having mitigating factors. I would again refer back to the above framework and create sections under mitigating factors.
• Buddy up and discuss with someone who can challenge you on your worries/concerns.
• The reason they are present is because they need to be addressed. You may not have all the answers, but it can give you some comforts in balancing the known and unknowns.
• Define your worst case scenarios and redefine how you can create balances to address them.

Having said the above, I fully respect that decision making is hard. You cannot create a solution right away, but frameworks and thought processes can help.

After all, it would be foolish for me to refer to some quick solutions which are not sustainable. I would be very interested in your experiences in decision making and the strategies you follow.

Make a Decision

The reason why we think so much about all this is to arrive at a final decision. Making a decision is one of the hardest parts with these conflicting reasons. However, decision making just like everything else is a trained skill. You will get it wrong the first few times – only to improve later. The best way to learn any skill is by starting small. However, you don’t have to start everything afresh. You can rely on some useful strategies to help you make a decision.

Create a safety net:

Most times, we are afraid to make a decision because of its ill effect. If you’re insulated to an extent that gives you comfort, your fears of decision making are nullified. Don’t create a safety net for every decision – only the ones which have the ability to influence your personal life.

Comfort with uncertainty:

Decision making and uncertainty go together. You’ll never know the outcome unless you’ve tried. To deal with complete uncertainty is madness. Create steps of uncertainty that can help you gain this comfort. You don’t have to deal with everything at once. Break down the decisions and their impact so that you can manage the outcomes. Uncertainty can be defeated with continuous results which give you feedback to make a decision. This also gives you an opportunity and time to reverse parts of your decision if something goes wrong

Develop an objective score for type of decision:

Sometimes, we’re afraid of taking decisions because we’re unable to quantify them. You can develop a scoring mechanism for the complexity of decisions. For instance, if a decision impacts your personal life, it can be a score of 7 or above. If not, then you can make quick decisions. Once you have a scoring mechanism, you can create a benchmark to think less for decisions that are of complexity <5 or anything else that suits you best.

The trick here is to ensure that you don’t lose time in small or fewer impact decisions. Loosely, this ties closely with the 4 quadrants of time management – it is all about making sure that you spend most of your energies where impact is maximum.

These tips provide you with a direction to make some changes and influence your strategy of decision making. Quick decisions are unsafe decisions, but sometimes they are necessary – particularly when the negative impact is low.

What are your strategies for decision making?