I think that I have good business instincts and given any situation I will make a good decision. Looking back on my career I am probably batting well above average, but is that good enough?
In order to make a good decision it is important to have at hand all of the pertinent facts. In a business environment that means having all the information, the statistics and personal knowledge necessary to make a decision. However we often have to make decision based on something less, the pressure of business need that snap decision. Apparently 80% of business leaders have to make major decisions without full information.
Having made a few of these types of decision myself over the years I know it is important to decide and move on. Today we have more information at our fingertips than we have ever had before. I can also attest even where decisions were made based on full Business Intelligence and forecasts mistakes can still be made, yet at the time a decision was necessary in order to move the situation forward. We are after all living in the here and now. Yesterday is over, and tomorrow never comes so we have to decide based on the best information available. Making better information available may be a part of the decision that we make. But still the decision must be made.
So we must take ownership of the decisions made and learn from them. Some may say that therefore we must also take the blame when things go wrong. As a part of learning (and these days most organisations seek to be learning organisations) we must learn when things go wrong and ensure that we do not make the same mistakes again. After all we based the decision on the best information that we had available to us at the time. But of course on the basis of living in the here and now we should also be prepared to re-look at old decisions and see if there are things to be learnt.
I have to think that nothing is permanent, we can always start over, make a new decision. But that is something people can be afraid to do – me included.
Here is where I hear some people scream “Oh No! – that Giblett fellow is going to cost us a fortune as we implement new systems in order to face new world challenges”. No that is not necessary. Just because we face change does not mean sweeping away our systems and replacing them with new. The change I am talking about here is ensuring that the business processes are capable of working successfully right here, right now. It is a business matter, not a systems one.
