The 6 First Steps to Effective Decision Making

We are constantly faced with choices; from the moment we wake up to the minute we go to bed, we are making decisions. Some of them are so small we don’t even stop to think about them, some of them require a little thought, others may be so difficult they play on our minds for hours or days.

Most of us face difficult decisions in the workplace. When it comes to our professions, we often have people relying on us, people to impress, and the interests of the business to think about.

Will I mess it up? What if I’m wrong? Will people think I’m an idiot? Making professional decisions can be challenging, and there are many reasons we fail to make good ones. We might over-think or over-complicate an issue; we may take too long to reach a conclusion; and we may be struck will a terrible fear of making mistakes.

We all have different approaches to decision making, and circumstances always vary, meaning different aspects need to be prioritised depending on you, your profession, and the decision itself. However, there are many ways to improve your confidence, timeliness and ability to make good decisions.

Such elements of good decision making include a 6-step formula, decision-making tools, and a good understanding of your own decision-making style.

To get you started, we’ve created a brief outline of the 6 step-formula below… 

Consider the problem.

Before you can begin to make a decision, you need to make sure that you fully understand your situation. What information do you need, who will be affected by the decision, what are the timescales?

Consult with people.

If your decision will have an impact on any other people, they should be consulted.

Generate options.

The wider the options you explore, the better your final decision is likely to be. It might add time or make your process feel more complicated, but in the end, it will give you a better outcome which you feel more confident about. Consider all the different options and choose a handful of the most promising.

Select the best option.

When you’re satisfied that you have a good selection of realistic options, it’s time to evaluate the feasibility, risks and implications of each one. To what extent will the objectives be achieved with each option?

Implement the decision.

Once you’ve made your decision, you need to communicate it to everyone affected by it in an engaging and inspiring way. You need to tell them what will happen, when and the reasons why.

Follow up and evaluate.

This is the step that often gets left out but reflecting and learning from mistakes is invaluable when it comes to improving your decision-making.

Whilst these 6 steps are useful, they only scratch the surface of things that can help you become a good decisions maker. That’s where Trainer Bubble comes in.

Our Decision-Making E-learning course will help those in your business make smarter, more timely and more thoughtful decisions. Not only does it dive deeper into the 6-step formula mentioned above, but it also offers a toolkit of methods to help you through the decision-making process, and resources to help each individual learner understand their own natural style.

We provide every learner with a systematic approach so they can make decisions easily and with more confidence. When they take the time to follow a logical decision-making process, they’ll be amazed at the results they can achieve.​