Erich A. Estermann

To lead means to make decisions

What if...? Decisions are easy to make. Or not?
Personal and professional success develops from a series of small, successful decisions and achievements.

Personal and professional success develops from a series of small successful decisions and achievements. The awareness of having made successful decisions activates your own potential, and sharpens your perception of yourself. The resulting motivating impulse acts as inner fuel, driving you on to greater challenges. Below are a few steps to be followed before, during and after the decision making process. 

Preparation for making a decision:

Only make decisions that really fall within your area of competence. Despite your prestige and position, many decisions are actually the responsibility of someone else. It is important for the decision making process that you concentrate exclusively on your own area of responsibility. Do not let yourself be put under pressure, as three quarters of our daily decisions are ones we instinctively make correctly anyway. The following should be observed for the remaining quarter: 

Collating information:
The next big step in the decision making process is to collate information surrounding the decision to be made. Facts pave the way for the decision. Intuition is not excluded from the process; it exerts a subconscious influence. 

Implementing the decision:
Every decision loses its significance if not put into practice appropriately. Once a decision has been made, actions must be taken. Do not look back, but forwards. Decisions made half-heartedly almost never work. 

Follow-up procedure:
Controlling is a step not to be underestimated. Aperiodic review of actions carried out is indispensable. It is necessary to evaluate the results of the decisions on an ongoing basis in order to allow continuous improvements to be made to the decision making and subsequent implementation processes. 

Correct:
The risk of making an incorrect decision can only be reduced to the lowest possible level – it cannot be eradicated. It takes courage and strength to admit, after careful consideration, that a decision has been made incorrectly. Do whatever you can to limit the damage caused by the resulting problems. Success is the sum of a number of minor successes: it is the pieces of the puzzle that nourish self-confidence and inner motivating strength, leading the individual on to larger and more complex decisions.