Vol. 10, #6.1-May 30, 2018 ALLAN GOLD’S BLOG
Next (extra) blog post of weekly series over 3 months on contracts for company executives & owners of family-small businesses
TODAY’S TOPIC: “I have a few questions about decision-making”*
When it comes to decision-making, I have a few questions for you.
- When there’s a decision to make, have you ever tried to avoid it or at least, delay it? If so, did you then try to tell yourself, that it’s because you wanted to do it right, and you were trying to figure out what to do next?
-> And did it happen that as a result, you just stopped and did nothing? And if so, did you then find that doing nothing was stressful? And did you sense that the longer you waited, the worse it seemed to get? Now, when you look back, do you believe that it was a mistake not to make a timely decision?
-> Or when you came around to recognize that the decision is ultimately yours and yours alone and that you needed to make it, and while you intuitively knew that when faced with a difficult problem with complex issues, did you then want a protocol to follow? (If so, here’s one that you can try. (a) Examine the full breadth of the problem by setting out the objective facts; (b) Enumerate the available options; (c) Apply the pros and cons thereto and make a thorough evaluation of each one; (d) Come to an unemotional conclusion arriving at the best solution.) - Did you ever find that it was really hard to make the wrong choice, to go where you might like to go, but where, you knew you should NOT?
- But in contrast, did you find that it was much easier to consider the option, which felt right, going where you needed to go, the one you knew, that you should choose? And after making such a choice, did you then say: “There was only one thing to do here, and it was the right thing!”
- Did you ever revisit past decisions, trying to assess whether they were good or bad and if in error, trying to learn from such mistaken decisions?
I think that there’s one or more lesson(s) herein and such may be of help to you when next obliged to make a difficult decision. Don’t you agree? 
* ©/TM 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 Allan Gold, Practitioners’ Press Inc. – ALL RIGHTS RESERVED