Fast Decision Making? YES: Your Criteria Will Rock It

TIME often means a lot of pressure for everyone, but it´s even more pressure for you if you have to make decisions.  The pressure of a short time frame might feel risky if we lack information or when we think we still lack information, but we can act more confident if we have the CRITERIA available.

How does it help you?

Before you DO anything you (shall) always know what´s important for you.  We all act via a certain value criteria at first hand.  So do you.  Test yourself:

You have an appointment today with a new customer and you plan to meet at a certain location.  Your main focus is to be there on time.  Your value = being on time = your main criteria.

Now you suddenly get stuck in the traffic and your GPS offers 3 potential choices:

1. You stay in your lane, call the client and tell her/him you´ll guess to be 15 minutes late. You´re not sure and right now it looks really bad.  You will be late but you decided for an excuse.
2. You decide to make a left turn, drive another way and might add 5 extra minutes.  You are not sure how it develops but you calculate these 5 minutes, deciding to excuse yourself for being a little late after you arrive.  You won´t call right now and it´s just a guess now to be a little faster.  You risk being on time without any excuse.
3. You pick another road to the right which is 100 % traffic free but it will take another 20 minutes to reach your destination.  At least you will drive on and act against being blocked.  Of course, you call the customer and tell that you´re going to be late but 100 % sure arriving in 20 minutes.

HOW do you decide?

• You can be relaxed about the situation and stay in the lane with bad traffic.  You decide to call the customer.  Your original value of being in time won´t work anyway today so you won´t try another road.  You plan to rather arrive relaxed.
• You are the one who makes sure to act against the blockage and try another route to see how your alternative idea works before you call and excuse yourself for being late.  You rather try to avoid this situation and feel better when acting.  It´s a bit risky but it´s OK for you now.
• You are the driver who knows how long it takes on another lane, until you meet the customer and you immediately leave the traffic.  You also call to tell that you´ll arrive 20 minutes later than expected.  But you know there´s no other risk.  With this choice you combine the value of “being in time” with acting and doing something against the bad traffic.

If you´re not sure what to do, you might turn away from yourself and look at the view of your new customer.  Which criteria will he consider for your acting?

A.  Do nothing against it might show you´re aware that traffic means traffic also on parallel roads.  Your decision might look experienced.  But still, you accept to be blocked.  It could look lazy and not caring.

B.  You try something without any feedback and if it works out fine, she or he´ll never know that you were stuck and tried a second route.  If you will be late, you can call to announce it and say you tried something else but it didn´t work either.  How does it look on you?  You might look responsible to the customer but still your new idea failed.

C.  Imagine the customer gets your call!  You tell you´re completely stuck in traffic and that you know about an alternative route that takes 20 extra minutes to be at the destination.  You assure to be there in 20 minutes and she or he might order a (free) coffee until you arrive.  How does it look on you?  It would look decisive, responsible acting, experienced and also caring.  Still you act to be “in time”, thou´ it´s too late.  But you can now post-pone it exactly and you took over the full responsibility of the bad situation.  You might not be very relaxed but happy and in a good mood.

Fast decision making doesn´t mean that you´ll arrive “fast” but with your personal criteria you are able to make fast decisions.  Have you ever been in such a situation?  What did you do?  Please share your experience with us!

Thanks –

BE A DECISION MAKER.  BE OUTSTANDING.

rita jaskolla – Leadership Architect –