Indecisiveness in both a personal and professional context is a curse. Whether it be an inability of someone to make a commitment to marry a partner or an inability of the head of a company to commit to entering a new market, people at all levels of society and business battle to make decisions.
Very few of us realise just how important decision making is in our daily lives. Every single action we take or don’t take – has to be, and is, preceded by some or other decision, good, bad or otherwise.
Before we get out of bed in the morning, we have to make a decision to get up. I know, I also find it difficult to make that decision sometimes! And so our decision making continues throughout the day, with us having to make decisions ranging from the most routine, boring decisions to highly critical decisions that could have major consequences for ourselves and many others. Consider the decisions Vladimir Putin has been making over the past year and the people whose lives those decisions have affected.
The same importance can be attached to decisions that need to be made and are or aren’t made at work. Remember – no decision made, no action taken. So, if your company’s decision making is faulty, you’ve got to deal with the problem.
What makes this problem even more dangerous is that, like the functioning of our brains, decision making is invisible. We don’t really “see” the decisions we make but we do see the results or consequences of the decisions which were or weren’t made.
So, as you look across your organisation, everything might appear to be going well. What you have to ask yourself, however, is: what decisions should we be making that we aren’t making to take the organisation forward and upwards?
There are various levels of decisions that need to be made, but those don’t necessarily result in anything productive. For example, your brain is making thousands of decisions to keep your heart beating, your lungs breathing and all your other bodily functions operating. But all those decisions won’t get you out of bed in the morning. That’s a separate decision that has to be made.
In the same way, there may be lots of vital decisions being made in your organisation, but they may not be the decisions necessary to get your company “out of bed and up and running”. And THOSE are the decisions I’m talking about!
What prevents people in companies from making those key decisions?
There are a number of reasons that contribute to indecisiveness. One is the old chestnut of “analysis paralysis”, where people have a compulsion to get as much information as they can before making a decision and just never feel they ever have enough of that information. The decision that needs to be made then gets postponed and postponed in the interests of acquiring more information … and nothing ever gets done.
Another reason for indecisiveness is fear – a fear of getting something wrong or a fear of failure. Managers or team leaders are often so afraid of getting something wrong or of failing, that they simply never make a decision. Their motto is, if I don’t make a decision, I won’t make a bad decision and won’t fail. But indecisiveness itself is a sign of failure.
Every decision we make involves risk. It’s up to us to weigh up the risk of making the decision versus the risk of not making the decision. Those risks then need to be weighed up against the benefits of making/not making the decision.
Using the silly “getting out of bed” example again, we have to consider the risks of getting out of bed – we could get injured during the day, get tired, could (and probably will!) get stressed, and experience any number of other risks.
On the other hand, the benefits of getting out of bed could involve learning new things, landing profitable business deals, meeting new people and so forth, all of which can enable us to enjoy a better lifestyle. So we manage the risk and get out of bed.
In closing, I want to encourage you to take an honest look at your decision making and that of those for whom you’re responsible. Analyse the actions that have emerged from the decisions that have been made, analyse the lack of action and missed opportunities that have been the result of indecisiveness and make clear, conscious decisions to ditch indecisiveness in favour of decisiveness.
Countries need decisive politicians and decisive business leaders at all levels in organisations who make decisions that will benefit their companies, their communities and their countries.
Alan Hosking is the Publisher of HR Future magazine, www.hrfuture.net and @HRFuturemag. He is an internationally recognised authority on leadership competencies for the future and teaches experienced and younger business leaders how to lead with empathy, compassion, integrity, purpose and agility. He has been an Age Management Coach for two decades.
In 2018, he was named by US-based web site Disruptordaily.com as one of the “Top 25 Future of Work Influencers to Follow on Twitter“. In 2020, he was named one of the “Top 200 Global Power Thought Leaders to watch in 2021” by peopleHum in India. In 2022, he has been named on the Power List of the “Top 200 Biggest Voices in Leadership in 2022” by LeaderHum.
