Chickening Out

 This is a phrase commonly used in the U.S., or in short question format, people say, Are you chicken? 

Many initiatives in organisations are killed because the top management chickens out. It could be resource allocation decisions, hiring decisions or even new projects.

The team is usually demotivated by these chicken and egg problems, and more savvy competitors win the battle.

Even if you are chicken, you must cross the road. Or else, you will remain where you are. And the braver ones will go across, and away.

Decision-making skill, thus, counts for a lot, is the moral of the short story.

Making Right Decisions

 Though right and wrong is subjective, I think intuition born out of experience plays a large part in 'right' decisions being made. From a simple thing like deciding whether to go out, or not, or deciding whether to take an umbrella, to more complex stuff in an organisational context.

Choosing a person for a job or project within the organisation, or deciding whether to go ahead on a collaboration can be tough decisions to make, irrespective of the monetary value. Pats experience and judgement of character are both useful, and can lead to a better outcome in many cases. 

I have been happy with myself many a time, because I used this experience-based intuition to guide me (not a spreadsheet exactly), and came out fine. So if you can, get some grey hair. If not, well, wait until they turn grey,..

Decision making Conundrums

 There's a lot to decision-making. One, is the decision itself, about doing something. But there may be more- as you get older, you see these sides more clearly. For instance, a decision (personal) to marry someone, or the reverse, to break up with someone. To take up a job, or to leave one.

In many of these cases, one has to, apart from the main decision, decide WHEN to implement it, or how. Also, how to communicate it to the concerned parties. All these may determine the effectiveness of carrying it out. For instance, I am told, breakups happen on WhatsApp. I think that is gross. You do need to communicate, at least on the phone, because some conversation may be in order. Social media are good for many things, but this is not one of those things.

Coming back to the original point, though, there are decisions about decisions. It's true of communication too. What to communicate (content), as well as how you do it (the medium, the process) are quite important. That includes WHEN NOT to communicate, or remain silent as a strategy..If only some of us learnt this last lesson,...