How To Make Better Decisions…

HOW TO MAKE BETTER DECISIONS…

One of the biggest challenges of running a business is the sheer number of critical decisions you have to make.

Hiring a new team member, setting the direction of the business, adjusting your product or service mix – there’s a constant stream of choices you are ultimately responsible for.

In the above video, I share a simple framework to help you make better decisions. We can think of decision-making across three “time zones”: past, present, and future. On the Y-axis, we look at the presence of that behaviour:

• Someone who is “high past” constantly looks back – what did we do before? They use past evidence to guide future choices.

• Someone “high present” is focused on what’s happening right now. What does the business need today?

• And someone “high future” thinks in visionary terms – what could this business become if there were no limits?

Each of us has a pattern across these three time zones. You might be high or low in each area, but if we map these behaviours, distinctive patterns emerge.

The challenge is that extremes – high or low – can affect the quality of your decisions. Each time zone is critical:

• Ignoring the past means losing valuable lessons.

• Ignoring the present risks missing current business needs.

• Ignoring the future leaves you without a long-term vision.

As business owners, we need to balance these behavioural patterns. Thinking about a decision through the lenses of past, present, and future – all at once – improves the quality of the choices we make.

So if you've got a decision to make this week and it's important to the success of your business, then try overlaying this framework on it. Bring in the past, bring in the future, and bring in the present, and you will make a better quality decision.

For more precise insights into your behavioural tendencies, drop me a line. We use a tool called AccuMatch – it’s incredibly helpful for spotting the behaviours that might be holding you back in business.