The second and third step of gathering information and identifying alternatives were addressed last week Monday.
Today, the fourth and the fifth steps are weighing the evidence and choosing among alternatives.
My last statement on monday was; “You act based on what you know as the quality of information you gather will influence the quality of decisions you make.”
When you weigh the evidence, you are priotising your generated alternatives to pick from. These two stages are critical to the outcomes you will experience.
I will bring back the possible areas you are considering to make decisions from the last article.
Possible areas:
a. Deciding to start or scale up your business.
b. Deciding to get into partnership with someone in a business.
c. Deciding to go into a romantic relationship afresh.
e. Deciding to get into another relationship after a long break from the last one you had.
e. Deciding to resolve difficult issue(s) you are currently going through (Personal or within a team).
The list is endless just as stated last week.
If the decision you are making today is going to have significant impact on you or the situation, then you want to be careful and as thorough as possible.
These two stages will subject you to critical thinking.
Some of the questions that could help with critical thinking are:
a. Who is this decision going to affect?
b. What can be done to effect a positive outcome? What would be the worst/best case scenario?
c. Where could one get more information to improve the quality of the decision? Where would this decision lead to?
d. When will you know you have succeeded? When do you expect the current reality to change?
e. Why is the current issue that require decision making challenging? Why has it been this way for some time?
f. How does this decision benefits or harm me? How does this disrupt things?
Most of these questions will help put your critical thinking to work and help priotise. It is when you have successfully priotise that you have a clear picture of choosing from alternatives generated.
Quick Tips:
- Avoid quick mental judgement.
- Don’t make decisions when emotions are high(Negative or positive).
- Avoid making decisions out of desperation.
- Don’t always rely on old knowledge. Always query your decisions even if similar ones made previously worked. Remember, knowledge is progressive.
- Maintain fluid mind as this will make your thinking dynamics.
- Get someone you respect and trust, then make yourself accountable to the person. This should be someone you can comfortably be vulnerable with.
The last two steps tp decision making will be looked at next week.
You can follow me @DeleAgbogun on my social media handles, book a session (Leadership/Management and Relationship Consulting) and get to know me more by visiting my website;
www.deleagbogun.com
Stay connected!
Cheers!