Decision-making can be difficult for everyone. People can make decisions intuitively or ask a dozen opinions, talk so much about it they put decisions off or get stuck at different stages and never reach a choice. Can you identify what type of decision maker you are?
Follow the 7 Steps to Effective Decision making collated by UMass Dartmouth University
- Identify – define the nature of the decision – do you want to change jobs, go for a promotion, start a business, or expand?
- Gather – what information do you need, best sources and how to get it. Internal would be self-assessment, external would be books, colleagues or online.
- Identify Alternatives – as you sort information you will have different options, paths of action to create new alternatives. List all possibilities at this stage.
- Weigh the Evidence – Draw on your emotions and information to imagine the possibilities of each desirablealternative you have selected. Which offer the highest potential for reaching your goals? Place these in priority order.
- Choose among alternatives once you have weighed the evidence and select the one that would be best for you. This may be a combination of options. This may match the choice in Step 4.
- Action – You are now ready to take some positive action and implement the alternative you chose.
- Review your decision and its consequences, does it resolve the need you identified in Step 1? If it has not, repeat some of the steps in the process. For example, different information or additional alternatives.
ACTION – Hopefully you have made a decision this week that you can share in the comments?
I hope you have enjoyed the challenges this week and we are looking forward to hearing about them.