Are You Prepared to Make Wise Decisions Quickly?

Greetings Decision maker,

Should you ever make decisions quickly?

After reading the Wise Decision Maker Movement Manifesto from the last Wise Decision Maker Guide email, you might feel skeptical about quick decision making. Well, I felt the same way when I initially learned about all the mental blindspots that researchers call cognitive biases during graduate school. However, when I went outside the ivory tower of academia and did consulting, coaching, speaking, and training on the front lines of business for over two decades, I learned that sometimes there’s no time for an in-depth decision-making process.

Business Reality Often Requires Rapid Decisions

First of all, business leaders at all levels have to make many small decisions each day. Taking the time needed to make the best possible decision wouldn’t be worth it. After all, time is literally money, and the time you’d use to make an everyday decision can be better invested in making money elsewhere. So for those day-to-day decisions, you only need to make choices that are "good enough."

Second, sometimes you’re in a real bind where you have to make even truly important decisions quickly. Let’s say your organization is facing an immediate PR crisis and - for some reason - you don’t have a PR crisis management plan in place. Or let’s say you personally have an opportunity to take the lead on an important but risky new project, but it will be offered to someone else if you don’t take it in the next few minutes. Both situations happened to clients I coached.

To help my clients get the benefits of the latest research on making good decisions when they must act quickly, I developed a structured structured decision-making technique for making quick decisions well, which I call "5 Questions to Avoid Decision Disasters."

Simply ask the questions below about all decisions that you want to be "good enough." By "good enough" I mean a choice that protects you from a decision disaster, but isn’t necessarily the best option, since you are not taking the time to make the perfect choice.

My Personal Failure

I remember one time when I forgot to use this technique on an important email to a business collaborator. Now, it was late and I was sleepy, but this guy is pretty touchy and high-maintenance, and I knew it. The email came off as curt to him and upset him, as he told me in no uncertain terms. I then had to spend over half an hour composing an apology email to him, thinking about how to communicate my apology in the best possible way, reading and re-reading it, and of course applying this method. He ostensibly forgave me, but was less eager to do business afterward.

So not only did failing to use the technique cost me much more time, but it also cost me some serious money in lost business. People do business with those they like, and that decrease in liking was something I could clearly see in the much lower interest in doing deals with this person.

Don’t let this happen to you. Use the "5 Questions" technique on all everyday decisions that you don’t want to turn into a disaster, as happened to me.

By contrast, if you’re facing a major decision, whether for your business or your career, you want to take more time and efforts to make the right call, rather than simply "good enough." When you have many thousands or millions of dollars riding on the outcome, it’s vital to use a much more thorough decision-making tool. The next Wise Decision Maker Guide email will convey one such tool, or you can email me right now if you’re looking to make a key decision within a short time period and can’t wait for the next email.

Sometimes, it’s possible you might not have the time to use an in-depth decision-making process even for important choices. It might be a "now or never" situation, with you having to decide in the next few minutes what to do. In that case, definitely use the 5 Questions technique. It will be far better than just going with your intuition, and will help you avoid disasters on major decisions.

What surprised me most was the combination of high-profile participants with lack of research-based perspectives on this topic. I was on a panel/roundtable with the Austrian Chancellor, a Tunisian Minister, the International Red Cross/Red Crescent Secretary General, and an even more high-profile participant that I can’t name until the conference itself makes a press release (though those of you who know prominent world leaders by face can find her in this official photo - I’m second from the left in the back, FYI).

Yet the conference attendees mostly advocated old-school approaches to addressing the lack of truth and trust in society, such as more education in critical thinking. Well, if such methods worked, we wouldn’t be in the bind that we are, and we wouldn’t need a conference on how to deal with this problem! Hopefully, some of the research-based perspectives shared by myself - such as the Pro-Truth Pledge, which I co-founded - and insights from a couple of other participants familiar with cutting-edge research in cognitive neuroscience and behavioral economics on promoting ethical and truthful behavior will make some impact.

I also took off a couple of days to enjoy some sightseeing. Check out this video from the funicular going up to the Hohensalzburg Fortress in Salzburg.

As a world-renowned executive coach specializing in helping business leaders address behaviors that hold them back from reaching the next level, I can attest that this groundbreaking book is badly needed! Leaders believe their existing mental and behavior patterns of making decisions, which got them where they are, as suitable for the future. Not so! Tsipursky convincingly demonstrates that decision-making strategies that got them here won’t get them there. Fortunately, there’s a cure. Combining the author’s extensive practical business experience as a management consultant with cutting-edge research in behavioral economics and cognitive neuroscience, this book provides truly effective decision-making strategies that any business leader who hopes to succeed in the increasingly disrupted world of tomorrow needs to adopt. I also love the book’s flowing and straightforward writing style, which uses pragmatic business case studies to illustrate the problems and solutions engagingly and effectively. All business leaders should read this innovative and excellent book today!

Next Time in the Wise Decision Maker Guide

Next time in the Wise Decision Maker Guide - which hits your inbox every first and third Tuesday, so September 17 for the next one - you’ll get a technique to make the right call on important decisions. These are choices where just "good enough" won’t do: your bottom line will depend heavily on making the right choice, and thus it’s worth it to take the time to do it right.

Help Me Serve Your Needs

I told you my story of an everyday decision that went badly because of a lack of a structured decision-making process. Do you have any stories like that in your experience?

On a related topic, how well do you think the "5 Questions" will serve your needs?

My aspiration, after all, is not simply to proclaim the best strategy from the top of an ivory tower and then do my own thing. My calling is to serve your needs best by creating tools to help you make the best possible decisions on the front lines of your professional life, as well as your personal life. If you find it too hard to use these tools, then all my work is for nothing. So let me know how easily and effectively you think the "5 Questions" technique will be in your day-to-day life. I’d love to hear about it!

Decisively Yours,

Gleb