Have you ever made a decision you regretted? Probably a few come immediately to mind.
You may be among the many people who admit having a fear or concern for making a wrong decision. However, once the decision has been made your ready to commitment and follow thru with the necessary action steps.
As you proceed and as the results start manifesting, you begin to suspect you’ve made the wrong decision. You’re not getting the results you expected and find yourself asking “What do I do now?” and “How can I fix it?”
The first thing to do is to begin asking a few questions that can give some insight into what and/or where things went wrong.
There are lots of other questions you could ask, but beware. If you start getting into the Monday morning quarterbacking effect of all the possibilities of what if I had done this rather than that, you can find yourself in the quagmire of more time and energy but little benefit.
Instead focus on only 5 primary areas.
Criteria
Timing
Objectivity
Consequences
Outside factors
You already know there’s a mismatch between the decision you made and the expected results you anticipated. By focusing your questions on these 5 key areas, you’ll get a better idea of how to fix your wrong decision.
- Start with the set of criteria you used. Were they too vague, too complex, too many or not enough? Which criteria were met and which ones weren’t?
- Next look at the timing. Were you too hasty, did you procrastinate too long, or are you ahead or behind the curve when it comes to this decision being effective?
- Stand back and ask yourself if personal emotions were an influencing factor. If you had been more objective would the results have been better?
- Consider if there were consequences of your decision affecting you, or others that kept your decision from producing the results you wanted?
- Lastly, were there other factors beyond your control or knowledge that affected the results?
The information gained may indicate areas of weakness in your decision making process and tell you how to fix it by making the adjustments needed to put your results back on course.
It will also tell you how you can improve your process when the next decision making opportunity presents itself.
Or, best of all it provides you with a clear conscience that you made the best possible decision at the time even though the results are not what you had hoped for.
By not over analyzing where you went wrong but by keeping your focus on these 5 primary areas, your chances of spotting and fixing a wrong decision just got a whole lot easier.
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