The perfect decision probably doesn’t exist. All decisions are made based on an understanding of the situation. Increase your understanding of the situation and you will probably make better decisions.

We have a new educational program at FireStarter. It focuses on decision making. As one of my colleagues put it, “decision making is the coin of the realm at the Naval Academy.” They work hard to teach midshipmen how to make decisions. We have some ideas for them.

I am working with a gentleman who taught decision making to Marine squad leaders in the mid to late 90s. I remember his work and read much of his material back then. Well, he lives in Greensboro, we have a mutual acquaintance and the rest is history. FireStarter has a really cool decision making workshop.

I can’t explain the whole thing here but much of it boils down to experience. So, the question is how do you develop experience and the answer comes down to case studies and simulations. Both of which can be developed for any firm in any industry.

Rather than wait 20 years for someone to get experience we develop scenarios and decision exercises so people can get get that experience.

The lesson for you here is that you must give people the opportunity to lead and learn when the stakes are low so they are able to develop experience that will serve them (and you) well when the stakes are high.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 30th, 2009 at 12:54 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.