Overcoming Indecisiveness

Overcoming Indecisiveness:

Popular Strategic Methods:

Recourse to someone or even something else: Examples are astrology (not astronomy which is a science), palm readings, looking up at stars, dialing 1-900 psychic friends, telepathy, telekinesis, the aura, crystals, dreams, colors, Feng Shui, numerology, fortune-tellers, etc. Physiognomy is any judgment about a person's character based on external appearance. Examples of physiognomy are: reflexology (your feet know), iridology (your eyes know). Physiognomy dates back to Aristotle.

For example, in contrast to astrology, one must accept the fact that success is not due to a fortuitous concourse of stars at our birth, but due to a steady trail of sparks from the grindstones of hard work, determination, good planning, and perseverance. When it comes to the future, there are three kinds of people: those who let it happen, those who make it happen, and those who wonder what happened.

In all these popular avoidance strategies, you are better off taking advice from Kermit the Frog. A New York City detective said, "I've gone into hundreds of fortune-tellers, and have been told thousands of things, but nobody ever told me I was a policewoman getting ready to arrest them." Fortune befriends the bold who make good decisions.

Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself.

False hopes: Hoping for something to happen over which we have no control over its outcome. For example, hoping your airplane lands safely while you are just a passenger and not the pilot of the plane. False hope and fear are two sides of the same coin. We can promise according to our hopes that are under our control only (and have some degree of certainty on its outcome), however, we avoid making decisions according to our fears of the outcomes.

Do not think about it: The decision-makers who are waiting for something to turn up, might start with their shirt sleeves. You can either take action, or you can hang back and hope for a miracle. Miracles are great, but they are so unpredictable. Doing nothing about a problem on hand, will certainly get out of control and devour other elements of your business too. You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.

Do anchoring: Give disproportional weights to some information instead of waiting as long as possible, to have all the information.

Sunk-cost conscious: Repeat the same decision because "you have invested so much in this approach (or your current job) that you cannot abandon it or make another decision (or look for a better position)."

Failure to reflect on the problem: Reflection before action is often resisted by some managers. They often feel that reflection takes too much time, requires too much work, or they do not know much about decision problem/opportunity. Remember that: A man should always be already booted to take his journey.

Look for confirming-evidence: Seek out the information to support an existing preselection and discount opposing ones. To put what you like against what you dislike is the hanky-panky of the mind.

Pray for a miracle: Whatever we pray for, we pray for a miracle. Every prayer reduces itself to this: "Great God, grant that twice two be not four." A miracle is an event described by those to whom it was told by men who did not see it. As Emerson said, "As men's prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of the intellect."

The worse things get,

the harder people pray,

the worse things get.

Be over-confident: This makes you optimistic and then make high risk decisions. As Henri Poincare said, "Doubt everything or believe everything: these are two equally convenient strategies. With either, we dispense with the need to think for ourselves."

Be too prudent: Be over curious long enough to delay the decision. If you are too careful, you are so occupied in being careful that you are sure to stumble over what you are going to decide. Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the opportunities, by fearing to make our decision. Indecision is debilitating; it feeds upon itself; it is, one might almost say, habit-forming. Not only that, but it is contagious; it transmits itself to others who depend on you.

Misrepresentation: Use argument that "seems" scientific. For example, compute and use the average salary as a typical representative of salary rather than the median.

Pass the buck: Pass off responsibility of making the decision to someone else. Do not make decisions by yourself. Bring in someone to blame if things go wrong. For example, for life's problems some may marry to constantly blame their spouse because it is easier than taking responsibility. Remember that it takes two to tango.

Have second thoughts: Second thoughts have aborted more useful decisions than all the difficult circumstances, overwhelming obstacles, and dangerous detours fate ever could throw at you. Undermining your authenticity by succumbing to someone else's second thoughts is a sinister, subtle, and seductive form of self-abuse.

Succumb to failure: Believe that the choices you will make are predestined and you are bound to fail (one gets used to failure) versus the result of hard work and thought.

Set up a committee: To make decisions, try to set up a committee not necessarily consisting of experts. So if everything goes well, every member is proud of such a decision. But if everything goes wrong, nobody is responsible. Every member would say, "It was not I; it was the committee's decision. You see, we couldn't agree, therefore we voted". Put a face to a faceless group, call it "the committee." A committee is an animal with four back legs. The committee's members, who are wishing that just to vote in "either/or" fashion are those who are not able to contribute to the decision-making process, therefore shouldn't be trusted with an important decision. A group decision support system could be a technologically advanced version of this strategy. Of course setting up a committee could be done correctly with the proper experts. However, my experience has shown that committees are used more to displace blame and accountability. I see no good in having group decision makers. Let one person be the decision maker; let one person be responsible and accountable. A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled. The greatest things are often accomplished by individual people, not by committees.

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