Tag: “Decision Making”

A very important issue in any company is deciding when to invest in improving existing products and services and when to invest in researching new possibilities ¹. How many companies have been ruined by blindly following the products that led them to success, not caring to investigate new concepts, technologies and trends?

Definitely one of the most important changes that have occurred in my life these past few years is having become really aware of how important it is to know when to say no. This is a keystone habit that can trigger the development of other habits and cause major changes in your life. It has helped me to become not just more efficient and productive in what I do, but also to do more of the things I enjoy and less of the things I don’t.

The smartest way to improve any aspect of a business (sales, costs, customer satisfaction, etc.) is to measure the current results related to that aspect, use the data to infer a strategy that may improve performance, implement that strategy and measure again to determine whether we were right or not. Surely we will fail occasionally before finding the correct clue, but having actual data on which support our decision is critical. Build, measure and learn. This is the mantra of The Lean Startup entrepreneurship method, so fashionable lately.

In this article I am not going to explain how you should make your decisions (who the hell am I?). Simply, I will present you a set of facts and theories about the decision making process. The idea is that if you know the process by which you make your own decisions, you will be able to make them more effectively. Also, let it be said, knowing how the human’s mind works in this type of processing also gives you the ability to influence others’ decisions (if you work in advertising, marketing or sales, this should be of your interest.)

Highly efficient people know when they have to start a task and when they have to wait. To be a great performer you need to learn to listen to that inner voice that tells you to wait.