Practical Guidelines for Making Good Decisions in Times of Change
By Michael J Griffin
4 minute read
Covid causes change and change impels us to make decisions in our lives and career. Making decisions in times of change can cause emotional stress and fear. In this blog, I want to take you through how to make good decisions then support it with eight insights from Dr. Peter Drucker on decision making.
The first step making a decision is to state the Decision Goal in broad terms. You might state a decision like this “I want to buy a house in Rose Garden Estate.” This can limit your decision making ability. It might be better to state “I want to purchase a residence.”
The next step is to set your boundaries or criteria for your decision. Many times decision makers ignore this crucial step. Here we determine our “Must Haves” and “Wants to Have.”
For buying a residence the “Musts” might be:
Musts
Purchase price between $250,000 and $350,000
Financing at rate of less than 4% and 30 year loan period
Down payment of no more than 20%
Three Bedrooms
Three Baths
Covered Parking
No more than 30 minute drive to work
As for “Wants,” they might include:
Wants
Near an MRT station or bus stop
Have a pool
Have a gym within 10-minute walk
New Property less than 3 years old
Good School where kids can walk to school
Next present your Decision Goal and Criteria to your “Inner Circle.” These are the people you trust and respect for their wisdom and care for you. They may question your “Musts” and “Wants” or even ask you to add or delete some. Asking for feedback can help you make a decision based on logic and reduced risk that leads to a good solid solution that you can live with.
Going back to the residence example, you can clearly see that the residence choices or alternatives could be a bungalow, a link house, a condo or apartment. You may find even more suitable properties in or outside “Rose Garden Estate.”
Now you can identify your alternative solutions and rank them to meeting all your “Musts” and most of your “Wants.” Here you may also take into account the “Risk” of choosing a certain alternative. For example, I have a friend who purchased a beautiful house a few years ago that met her must criteria, but her home was on the floodplain of a river that may flood during monsoon – High Risk!
If you cannot find a solution that meets all your musts, you may have to rethink your criteria and be more realistic.
Dr. Peter Drucker in his books The Daily Drucker for the month of October has eight short reads on making good decisions. Even though he focuses on helping managers make better decisions, the principles in these short reads are insightful for companies, teams, families and you as a self- directed leader. Click below link to download.
Covid causes change. Change causes you to make decisions. Follow these guidelines by ELAvate and Drucker and move forward with changing your life, family or organization!
Have a productive week!
Michael J Griffin
ELAvate Founder
John Maxwell Team Founder
Fan of Peter Drucker