When I first finished my trade back in 1989 and was on my first major project I was given some advice by the Leading Hand that was very simple. It was “make a decision and stick by it, even if it is the wrong decision.”
I have also heard the term ‘frequently wrong but never in doubt” used and while you are able to amend the process the implementation period - that is decisiveness.
So how did this advice come about? Simple really, the Maintenance Superintendent on the project was terribly indecisive, to the point of making no decision and becoming frozen with inaction. What we needed was leadership, we needed support and we needed action - we got none of that.
He was a really nice guy, I liked him but we just couldn't rely on him. Even worse, he lost the respect of the guys under him but what torpedoed his career, well at least at this company was the loss of support by the upper management.
Naturally, we all like to make the correct decision every time under pressure from cost and time restraints but we will be wrong from time to time. In my MBA education we undertook a whole unit on decision-making.
However, this training came close to twenty seven years after I received this excellent advice, I was involved in plenty of decision-making in that period and I heeded the advice of my then Leading Hand and made sure I was decisive.
During our education, we didn't have a definitive text on decision-making that we could reference although we had plenty of academic reading to perform that didn't really hit the mark in my opinion.
I believe MBA education is heavily based on analysis utilising models to aid that process and post graduation I will draw up a decision-making grid to assist future workplace decisions.
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