Strategic Decisions (What’s the difference)

Information is abundant out there about decision-making and strategies. While most of those recommendations (game theory) are useful tools for routine and low-stake tasks, many of them are not as applicable to executives in making decisions about their organizations, as the decisions that managers have to make have a huge impact on the performance of the company, they have to approach decision making strategically.
To make strategic decisions we need to be able to recognize the different types of decisions.

Decisions are usually made depending on control and or, expected performance, etc.

Control: How much can you influence the terms of the decision and outcome? (options, frequency, change)
Performance: how do you measure success? how well you do compared to yourself or others

Based on these we can divide decisions into 4 fields.

1 Routine Choices: these are your everyday decisions: for example, the spread of food items in the grocery aisle of a supermarket; with this type, you cannot improve on your options and you have to make the decision that is most favorable to you, and the outcome mostly does not depend on what anyone else is buying. This type of decision (First field) is heavily influenced by the way options are framed. To make better judgments, be aware and try to minimize common biases.

2 Outcomes: in these kinds of decisions, we have to select among options, we don’t have much influence over the options, but we can control the outcome (Second field). In making these kinds of decisions we rely on our talents, confidence, and positivity. Some activities require movements between the first and second field (a crucial skill for high performance), for example in sales, or sports; planning before the event, full commitment to the strategy with a positive attitude, and then an objective analysis after the event.

3 Competitions: In these kinds of decisions, success is not only a matter of how well you do but how well you do relative to others; strategic thinking is involved, anticipating your rivals’ moves (Third Field). participants from every kind of competitive sports to the free market engage in these kinds of decisions.

4 Strategic: In Fourth field decisions, we actively influence the outcomes and success means doing better than rivals; this is where strategy comes in. In making these kinds of decisions it is useful to summon a high level of self-belief and borderline excessive commitment and determination, a talent for careful and dispassionate analysis, and a willingness to push boundaries. Managers will benefit greatly from improving how they make fourth-field decisions

Before making any decision, it is very important to understand what field the decision lies. Good decision-makers need to be part tacticians, part psychologists, and part poker players (figuratively anyway). The tactician senses the actions of rivals, anticipating their moves while also planning the best response; the psychologist shapes outcomes by inspiring others, setting clear goals, and providing encouragement; the gambler knows that outcomes aren’t just a matter of probabilities and it pays to read players to know when to raise stakes, call a bluff and when to fold.

In summary, decision-makers need to develop two vital skills: discerning the nature of the decision at hand and responding with the appropriate approach (this may sometimes require going back and forth through the decision fields.