The key to business success is the ability to make good, reactive business decisions. By doing this, you can stay up to date with market developments, stay a few steps ahead of your competition, and give your customers what they want. At the same time, you can create a more comfortable and supportive working environment and contemporary office space for your employees.
Do you consider yourself a good decision maker? We make decisions in our personal lives every single day, some small, some large, but as a manager, the ability to make good decisions is part and parcel of the job. A bad decision can break a business, a good decision can push it towards ultimate success.
No pressure then!
Whilst sitting around the conference table, batting ideas back and forth, it’s important to be open to all suggestions, from staff at all levels. You never know when a wonderful idea is going to come your way, often from an unlikely source. Of course, asking your employees for suggestions, whether the decision is a large one or a small one, is going to increase morale, and in terms of business success, morale is vital.
Check out this video for an interesting conference talk on how to make better decisions overall. You might grab some useful tips from it!
As you can see, making good, strong business decisions is somewhat of an art form, but it’s also important to listen to your instincts and trust them.
Let’s sum up the main points involved in making strong business decisions, as well as setting achievable targets in general.
- Do your research – Make sure you find out as much information as you can, to ensure that your decision is an informed one.
- Keep an eye on the competition – Knowing what your competition are doing will help you make suitable, reactive decisions.
- Brainstorm and collaborate – Gather everyone around the boardroom chairs and brainstorm any subject related to the decision you’re trying to make.
- Don’t assume you have all the answers – It’s easy to simply make the decision and assume you know what you’re doing, but there is always more information to be found and more suggestions to listen to. You don’t know it all!
- Risk assess and project – Conduct a risk assessment into the aspects of the decision you’re going to make and project how it might affect your business and those sat at their office desks.
- Focus on the results you want – The best way to make a good decision is to identify your results and work towards achieving them.
- Make your decision and stick to it – Once your decision has been made, stick to it and don’t go back on any element of it.
Every single decision you make, no matter how small or signigicant, contributes to the business and its success.
Every decision also affects everyone in your workplace, sat at their professional office furniture and going about their daily tasks. Ensuring that you have all the relevant information to hand, making an informed choice, will stand you in good stead.
Having the confidence to make big business decisions isn’t something you will have straightaway as a manager, and you will need to build up your confidence and your know-how in order to make the strongest decisions possible. Have you heard of SMART goals?
This means that every goal or decision you make should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely. If you can use this method when making decisions as well as setting goals, you’re not likely to go too far wrong.
You’re probably reading this and thinking “what if we make the wrong decision?” The bottom line is that body can ever be 100% sure that a decision they make is going to work as well as they want it to. All you can do is use the information you have to hand, conduct in-depth risk assessments, and listen to all ideas that come your way. By doing that, and by having financial data to back up your choices, you’ll find that your business decisions are stronger than ever before.