Starting your own business takes some grit. One of the things you will find yourself handling is a seemingly endless stream of decisions. Indeed, one of the measures of a good entrepreneur is their ability to make good decisions. Indecisiveness, procrastination, and a paralyzing fear of making the wrong call can literally bring a business to its knees.
Because this will be part of your day-to-day, it helps to get your decision making right from the beginning.
While there is no sure-fire way to ensure you make the right decision for your business all the time, successful businessmen tend to make sound choices most of the time. This is the goal.
How do you do this? Here are some 4 tips.
1. Use Emotions as a Tool
Fear, anger, greed, excitement, and other strong emotions do not create an environment that allows you to make the best decisions. But real-life business decisions often tend to come with some emotions.
Making good decisions does not mean ignoring emotions completely. While traditionally, emotions have been seen as a liability in decision making, scientific evidence points out that intense feelings can actually lead to better decisions. While many things are at play here, the truth is that rigidity and being mechanical will yield poorer results.
Instead of separating emotions from your decisions, look at them as a tool to help you out. Of course, you should not make decisions depending on how you feel in the heat of the moment, but being in touch with your emotive side will keep you grounded.
2. Build Your Confidence
A huge part of decision making is about confidence. If you have doubts about your ability to steer the organization, you are likely to second guess every decision you make. Unfortunately, not everyone is born bold.
This is something you have to work on overtime. Mentorship, taking business courses, attending trade events, and striving to understand your enterprise’s nitty-gritty can go a long way in building your self-confidence and your ability to lead.
3. Organize Your Thought Objectively
One of the simplest ways of arriving at a decision is by listing the pros and cons of the possible decisions.
This list-making process helps you pour your thoughts on pen and paper. From here, you are able to look at the bigger picture and see the situation for what it is.
Some points will outrank others on merit. To balance this out, you can use a ranking system. This helps you better weigh points that would otherwise be inadequately matched.
4. Make Hard Decisions Easy
When bombarded with too many different decisions, people are often likely to pick the easiest, least disruptive option. Unfortunately, these might not be the best decisions for one’s business.
This is known as decision fatigue.
The parole hearing study best explains this. More approvals were granted after breaks and early in the morning. This was before decision fatigue set in. After decision fatigue set in, most applications were denied, and the status quo was undisturbed.
This applies outside the legal system as well. As the day wears on and after you have made countless decisions, you tend to stick with convenience. Because these might not be best for your business, approach decision making more consciously.
Schedule some time in the early morning to review and make decisions for your organization.
Final Thoughts
Better decisions do not mean perfect decisions. These tips will help you make better decisions each time. The goal is to make two good decisions for every bad one. But don’t kick yourself too hard; this is something that needs some time to master.