Decision making in business – 7 tips to improve them

Business decisions are a subset of managerial decisions, which are made in-or-by any organization, whether business or not-for-profit, to allocate resources to achieve specific goals. Improve your business decisions to make the right move in any situation. Our goal is to shed some light on the decision-making process and give you ways to make better decisions in the future.

Is this the right decision to make?

How often have you encountered this dilemma professionally or on a personal level?

We all want to make the right decision. Entrepreneurs are no different.

Here are some guidelines to prevent entrepreneurs from erring in making sound decisions

• Base your choices on your values: Every successful business has a set of values that serve as a framework for employees to make decisions. Decide based on options consistent with your company’s value sets. This helps narrow down the possibilities. 
• Consult an expert – An “expert” is the appropriate individual with knowledge and domain expertise. Best business coach in India and industry experts make for an excellent option. One should explore both in-person advice and Research.
• Mind Mapping – A visual method of organizing concepts and data is mind mapping. A mind map, which is a graph illustrating a major issue branching out to subtopics that elaborate on the central subject—in this case, a decision to be made—is the result of mind mapping. By giving the user a foundation to view the larger picture, mind-mapping helps visualize and structure ideas, assisting in decision-making and problem-solving. 

Mind maps can assist your problem analysis by clearly documenting the benefits, drawbacks, risks, resources, and outcomes. They can also help you visualize and organize all related facts related to a choice. 

• It is wise to question each path if there are several possible solutions so that you can truly understand the impacts and risks. By doing so, we consider all possible future occurrences and arrive at options that best fit our requirements—resulting in better decision-making.
• Listen to your intuitions. Don’t doubt your instincts. Once you have choices in front of you that is equal on all counts, choose the alternative that feels appropriate.
• Watch out for cognitive biases. Biases can be pretty hazardous since they impair our judgement. 

The self-serving bias and the confirmation bias are the two biases that have the most significant influence on your decision-making.

Self-serving bias is the strong tendency to attribute all positive outcomes to our actions and all adverse effects to external factors. Because we cannot learn from our past mistakes, we tend to repeat them.

Confirmation bias is the propensity only to seek out and consider evidence that supports our assumptions rather than viewing all available information.

Acknowledging these biases will significantly increase your capacity for wise decision-making.

• Revisit prior choices and factor in the learning. 

1. Successful ones – what led them to make good decisions
2. Decision-making mistakes – What was missed that led to a wrong choice? Incorporate that knowledge into your current cycle.

All said and some, there is a system to the chaos. The key is creating the right approach and bringing it to perfection with every new decision you make.