Decisions, Decisions

It amazes me how often bad decisions are made in business - decisions that have undesired consequences. I don’t consider this as being a lack of knowledge or intelligence (generally). Rather I see bad decision making as being a result of a lack of foresight. That is, following a decision’s possible outcomes through to a logical end i.e. A causes B, B causes C, and C causes a screw up.

There are tools out there you can use to assist in this process such as the ‘Decision Tree’ or ‘Probability Analysis’ and certainly if critical and complex decisions are required I suggest such tools be used. But generally, for every day decisions I suggest you simply be aware of the concept a go through the process in your mind – ‘what will happen if I do this?’ Sounds simple but it can make a huge difference to the quality of your decisions.