The power of decision-making (1)

Every moment of our life is regulated by them. They affect everything that we do. When we sleep, when we wake up, whether to get up from bed when the alarm goes off or to laze a little more. What to eat. What to wear and how. Who to marry. To sit or stand. To study or to while away time. What to watch or listen to. Which part of town or the world we want to live in. How long to stay on a job and what type of job we love to do. To go into business or stay in paid employment. To read this article to the end or not to.

Decisions affect everything that we do. Nonetheless, whether we take them ourselves or find ourselves into those taken by others on our behalf, our lives revolve around decisions. We are either taking a decision or living in the consequence of one. Just as our decisions affect others, so do others’ decisions affect us! If decisions are so germane to our being, we should place a premium on the decisions we take or allow ourselves to be victims (or beneficiaries of). To be decisive is to make up your mind that you will not be a passive bystander in the story and outcomes of your own life. Life tolerates no neutrality. Not taking a decision when required is actually a decision! Yes, indecision is nothing but your decision to hand control of your outcomes in a particular direction to someone else’s whims and caprices!

The indecisive leader is an oxymoron. Nobody can follow a parked car. You don’t ask the man who stands trembling with contemplation by the bank of a river for directions on how to cross to the other side. Leaders are known by the quantum and quality of their decisions. An indecisive leader sends confusing signals to the people that he leads. Indecision can be likened to mental poliomyelitis. It paralyzes everything around us. It paralyzes initiative, it paralyzes momentum and it paralyzes co-operation in a team dynamics. Indecision is driven by the leader’s personal fears that he has refused to conquer. Sometimes, the experience of past failures or the fear of present loss makes a leader doubt the possibility of positive future outcomes. When past pain or present discomfort makes him lose faith in the future, he would rather not rock the boat even if the exhilarating and liberating proposition of walking on water is open to him. He does not want to let go of ‘certainty’ for ‘uncertainty’! Indecision manifests an innate doublemindedness that the Bible says makes a man unstable in all his ways! (James 1:8)

Without decisions, no individual or organization can make progress. Even if there is no evidence that they will turn out right, never shy away from taking decisions. Decisions do sometimes go wrong. However, great leaders realize that not taking a decision could be worse. The consequences of a decision will show whether it was right or wrong but if you don’t take them, you will never know what will work and what won’t.

According to Jim Collins, author of the classics, “Good to Great” and “Great by Choice”, “success is a product of decisions plus brilliant executions over and over again.”

A significant part of a great leader’s makeup is knowing what to do and the conviction to do it promptly and as often as required. Every decision must be viewed within the context of the nobility of the motive and its impact on the collective, rather than the decision itself. Sometimes, the decision may not be popular.  But leadership is not a popularity contest. A leader wins when his people win. If it will help people and the organization to grow, succeed and get better, a decision does not have to be popular. Very often, a decision that requires that people sacrifice present comfort for a greater ideal never starts out as popular and is usually initially resisted. It may not even turn out right and come with dire consequences. This is part of the cross a leader carries and a way of showing that the best of men are still men at their best. What is essential is that critical decisions are taken promptly and with the right motive of improving the fortunes of the collective and serving them better. The alternative is a state of inertia and paralysis which can never move the people or the collective forward.

Perhaps the most important skill that any leader could have is the ability to make significant purposology (WHY) decisions. Following closely is the ability to make people decisions. In other words, contrary to popular belief, the leader’s greatest decisions are not decisions about the WHAT. They are about the WHY and the WHO. If these decisions in a leader’s life are right, every other thing will fall into place. Relationships are the lubricants of our existence. The decisions that have the greatest impact on our lives have to do with the people we choose to share our life’s space with and why. The type and quality of relationships should be determined by our vision and goals rather than environmental or social convenience. In the context of a collective, all motives and decisions must become subordinated to the common goal. Hiring decisions are taken and staff are onboarded based on a commitment to loyalty to a shared vision, not to an individual or a system. This is the cure for the silo-based, superstar employee who constantly seeks to shine at the expense of the team.

A leader’s life will be greatly impacted by the quality of his choice of a spouse. A bad decision in this regard could destabilize many things in anybody’s life. A decision for celibacy is of greater value than a terrible marriage. We may not be able to control the flow of people in and out of our lives as a result of what we do or the position that we occupy but we must be deliberate in the choice of who we call friends. The decision about who to partner with in business is also very essential. Partnership only thrives on shared goals and aspirations. According to scriptures in Amos 3:3, “two cannot walk together except they are in agreement”. Wrong partnerships will lead to stunted growth in any organization as a significant chunk of the time required to do the actual business may be spent resolving conflicts of interests and opinions!  Highly successful executives are not those who have the best ideas or strategies for execution. They are those who have mastered the art of taking the right hiring decisions. There is no stopping an organization whose staff read from the same page.

Conversely, the high-performing employees are those who have learnt to decide what type of organization or employer they would love to work and grow with. When they find it, even if the pay is not the best in the industry, as long as they are happy with the environment and convinced that it empowers them to aspire and flourish in their dreams and professional or career goals, they are happy… continued.

Remember, the sky is not your limit, God is!

 

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