What if it was possible to assign
a monetary value to every decision you've ever made? What if your
decision-making ability was graded like a bond rating? And, if you could
reverse selected decisions would the "decision" column of your career balance
sheet read as it does today? Once General Motors chairman Al Sloan estimated
that he would do well if only
half of
his decisions turned out to be right. Ah, those were the days.
No one can be right 100% of the time,
but we should want to be. The margin of error in 2010 is much less forgiving
than in Sloan's day at GM. Time compaction and shrinking fiscal tolerance tell
us that if we can improve our decision-making, our leadership batting average
can be greatly improved. Problem recognition, diagnostic skill, effective goal
arrays, and weighing possibilities all may contribute to a home run instead of
a bunt single. We make decisions every day. We make them in less time with
greater implications than ever before. Decisions come in two forms: individual
and group. A myriad of topics fall under each heading.
In my Navy days while studying
the career of 5-star admiral Chester Nimitz, without question the most
strategically gifted flag rank officer in American history, I became enamored
with his uncanny view of battle solutions, his use of personnel, and the
process within which it took place. Nimitz had a true genius for war but an
even greater genius for working with people.
I remember locking on to the
Nimitz method of making crucial decisions involving lives, materiel, and
resources. The admiral's approach is revelatory:
1.
Is the planned operation likely to succeed?
2.
What are the consequences of failure?
3.
Is the plan within the reality of our resources?
4.
Have we based this decision on what our enemy is capable of doing instead of what he might do?
As simple as the ledger appears,
applying it to our daily personal and professional lives can obviate many
problems, or, if they do arise, minimize them. Further, our department heads
should come prepared to answer this 4-point test of a decision. If not, they're
unprepared.
Nimitz' brilliance extended to
his belief that many of his best decision-making could be credited to belief in
his junior officers; "loyalty up and loyalty down" as the Navy calls it.
Following Pearl Harbor, the worst defeat in American history, Nimitz made it a
point to keep virtually all of the officer staff he inherited in order to
restore morale and confidence. These same junior officers served the Commander
of the Pacific well, producing decision after decision resulting in total
victory. By way of comparison, his Army counterpart Douglas MacArthur made many
poor decisions, involved few subordinates, and continuously missed the mark.
Being a better decision-maker involves skill, not luck:
Analytical Ability (separating elements
and integrating relevant facts),
Conceptual Skill (mining meaning from a large array of gathered information),
Intuitive Judgment (at the right
moment, setting datum aside, bringing intuition or "hunch" into the equation),
Creativity (sometimes in my own case I
find I'm out of good ideas...and don't even have any bad ones. That's the time to
rely on a colleague for a different perspective) and
Stamina (the best decisions are not made from frustration or
fatigue, but from collaborative energy and sense of purpose).
