It is well over four decades of being alive and fair to say I have had my share of terrible decisions. I once went on a trip to an island with a couple of friends (just after secondary school) but none of us had live jackets on. The trip was estimated to take 30 minutes each way and for a huge stretch of the journey, we could not see any form of land. Just at this perilous point, the engine of the boat stopped and to make it worse, we realized the boat was leaking and water swiftly made its way into the boat. The conductor attempted to scoop the water back into the sea while the driver struggled to get the engine back on while we watched the tides rise before our eyes. The horror however only lasted for a few minutes but several questions raced through my mind including “Was there no other venue?”, “Why did we not ask for live jackets?”, “Why didn’t we check the boat for leakages?”. It seemed I was the only one who didn’t enjoy the trip, but I was sure it was my last to that island.
More recently in business, we have decided to take a space in a well-located mall for a handsome price and significant service charge with the hope of great footfall and sales. Three years down the line, we have had to fund the outlet from project sales not associated with the mall. In the bid to minimize our expenses in the face of stiffer competition and harsh economic conditions, we have had to consider other options for our outlet.
As I recently embarked on my MBA at the Lagos Business School, I realized the flaws in many previous decisions which were largely based on emotions instead of a proper assessment of the situation. It became obvious that most times, we lacked understanding of the situation and hence did not identify the problem to be solved. This streamlined objectives to just having fun or making more sales and increasing reach as in the mentioned situations but not considering any risks and other unforeseen circumstances that might occur in the process. This ultimately made options few and largely only one in several cases hence making selection criteria useless in the decision making. Hitherto, decisions were made based on intuition and marred with several flaws and bound largely for failure.
The decision-making process consisting largely of seven steps, aids the proper thought process and empirical analysis of the options against the most suitable criteria while focusing on the objectives of the individual or organization as the case may be. This firstly helps avoid the pitfall of dealing with symptoms rather than the problem and ultimately reduces the likelihood of failure in the final decision.
As an organization, we have since employed the decision-making process as a guide to enhance the accuracy of our decisions. We however understand that this is a process and not a destination, we are poised to get better at the process. It is safe to say that the sustainability of any organization is directly associated with the percentage of right decisions made, hence the need for a proper decision-making process cannot be over-emphasized.
#memba12
