How often have you heard the expression “just do it !” or “have a go !”
During my current teaching of tertiary students I sometimes find myself encouraging students to “have a go” at contributing an answer to the discussion that is taking place at the time. In the information age that the world is now in, we run the risk of waiting for “perfect information/ insight” before being prepared to make a decision/ take action. I’ve seen even decision-makers in very large organisations become preoccupied with obtaining as much information as they can – and then analysing that information to the nth degree – before making any sort of “go ahead” decision.
The fact of the matter is, when making any decision a decision-maker is never ever going to have “100 % relevant information” in front of them to make the relevant decision. There must always be an element of “intuitive judgement” on the part of the decision-maker when making decisions. And it is the willingness of decision-makers to step forward and make the decision based on “less-than-perfect” information to hand that separates great leaders from the rest. And I’m increasingly finding that what separates a great (high performing/ achieving) business from others is the size of the “risk appetite” of the given business. Risk and decision-making go hand-in-hand.
What’s most important is that a decision actually gets made – one way or the other, and always on a timely basis. The decision could even be simply “maintain status quo”. As long as a decision is made…that’s what matters the most.
In my experience, the most effective decision-makers are those people who base their decisions on around 80 % hard (empirical) evidence and 20 % intuitive judgement, and the 20 % intuitive judgement is typically underpinned by some form of predictive analysis (i.e. particular outcomes are forecast to eventuate based on certain assumptions prevailing). And always, these people have the confidence to stand by their determinations/ judgements despite various conflicting unsubstantiated opinions being directed at them.
So get used to making decisions without “perfect information” to hand. It’s not likely that there’s ever going to be a time when you will have “all the cards in front of you” that will enable you to make the “perfect decision”…in my view the word “perfect” should be struck from all dictionaries, for the notion of anything being “perfect” is a fallacy and perfectionism is unobtainable.