6 Tips on Effective Decision Making

Decision making is a crucial aspect of life. In life’s endeavors, it will require you to make hard decisions and most importantly, there are choices you must make by yourself. However, not so many people trust themselves in making the right decision. For this reason, many involve third-parties for advice even for minor issues. Others have had to bet on which decision will turn out well, while, others gamble with choices whichever may.

In this article, I have compiled a list of tips that will help you make the right decision when in a dilemma. First, you must understand;

What is Decision Making?

We can define decision making as the art of taking the most realistic action where plenty of other options exist. When you do this, you must put into consideration, the possible outcome of your choice. When deciding on a course, it takes intuition, a reasoned process or even both.

Intuition

This is when you trust your guts probably because your conscience tells you to. Past experiences and life principles may also help you decide on the course to take. When deciding, you strongly have reasons why your choice will work out and why others won’t work. You should believe your intuition even though, not a guarantee that the choice will turn out as you wish.

Reasoning

When you involve reasoning during decision making, you have the facts and figures. Here, you sometimes need to forgo your emotions or ignore past encounters to take a more reasonable course depending on the situation.

When you let your intuition rule, it should be when you are in a rush, and you need a quick decision. However, in the case of a complicated scenario, an educated approach must get adopted. This is where you need to incorporate both intuition and reasoning.

Incorporating intuition and Reason

Here, you should let reason to rule. Gather the facts, the consequences and the risks involved with your option. After, you can then weigh your feelings towards the choice. Intuition will tell you whether its right or wrong. Your emotions will play a part in allowing you to invest in a more lucrative venture, especially in business.

Effective Decision Making

It entails implementing the decision. Whether it is an organizational or a personal decision, you must get convincing enough to let others see how potent the idea is. The listed above depicts the process of an effective decision-making process. Below are the challenges that may hinder a successful decision-making process. They include;

1. Inadequate Information

For you to make an informed decision, you need to have essential information to base your choice. Even though at times time is limiting, collecting relevant information first is crucial. By this, you will know why the option you prefer is the most appropriate.

2. Too Much Information

Even though you might think this is crucial, a lot of ideas will conflict during decision making. A lot of information may cause stagnation of projects, especially in big institutions. Hence, it is crucial to get the team together and agree on what information will suffice and the duration it takes to implement it.

3. Too Many People

You must appreciate the diversity of people’s opinions. However, as the common saying goes, too many cooks spoil the broth. Hence, you cannot try each person’s idea. At times, its best you stick with one idea and see its results.

4. Vested Interests

Sometimes you want to pursue someone’s idea when making the decision. However, the interest of the person is not clearly stated and thus, it acts as a hindrance to implementing the decision. At this point, it is essential that you seek the help of an outsider who holds the same opinion. This way, you will discover the intuitive aspects of the choice, with the help of the external facilitator.

5. Emotional Attachment

For some people, they get too attached to their jobs, relationships, and friends. Hence, when its time for a change, they find it hard to let go. Emotional attachments may hinder effective decision making. You should be ready to cut the connection when situations call for it.

6. No emotional Attachment

The otherwise of getting too attached can still be a hindrance to making the right decisions. When you are don’t feel connected to something, you get the I don’t care attitude. If this is the scenario, you need a structured decision-making process to help you rule out some choices.

With a structured decision-making process, you will;

• Narrow down to simple and precise choices

• Identify how you arrive at any decision

• Schedule a timeline for the implementation of the decision.

With the varying decision-making processes, the course to take is dependent on the intricacy of the issue. Hence, with the above decision-making tips, you will thrive well when making an effective decision.