Today a person who works for me asked me how I made decisions. His observation was that sometimes I seemed quite conservative, but he had also seen decisions which seemed quite bold. As I listened I was glad to not be pegged one way or the other (conservative or a risk-taker), because different decisions are made within a context, and sometime the context dictates the amount of risk you can handle. I asked for examples of bold and conservative decisions he had seen me make. The example of a bold decision allowed me to give one of my favorite leadership quotes: “Don’t be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated. You can’t cross a chasm in two small jumps.” – David Lloyd George.
In trying to give an insightful answer as to how I make decisions, I explained that sometimes a person’s greatest strength can be their greatest weakness, and that is true for me and affects my decision making. I have very good intuition. I’ve know it for years. I often have that blink moment when I quickly size up a situation and have insights that were unconsciously obtained. By assessments are usually quite good. My intuition is a significant strength of mine.
But it is also a weakness if I let it be. Intuition is a great partner for data, but not a good substitute. If a decision can be made with hard data, I’d rather use the data. Because I have good intuition, I have to be vigilant to not make decisions as quickly as my intuition makes an appearance. I have to slow down my decision making to collect data. This is how I operate then, making data-driven decisions by intentionally muting one of my strengths. By collecting data and then supplementing it with my intuition I make many more good decisions than bad, and would definitely rather be 85% correct relatively quickly than 98% correct at a much slower pace. Head in the right direction and adjust.
