How to be decisive
Good managers are decisive. They can quickly size up a situation
and reach the right conclusion on what should be done about it.
To say of someone ‘He or she is decisive’ is praise indeed as long
as it is understood that the decisions are effective. To be decisive
it is first necessary to know something about the decision-
making process as summarized below. You should also be
familiar with the techniques of problem-solving as explained in
Chapter 46. Armed with this knowledge you can adopt the
approaches described at the end of this chapter.
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE DECISION-
MAKING PROCESSDecision-making is about analysing the situation or problem,
identifying possible courses of action, weighing them up and
defining a course of action. Peter Drucker (1967) says:
A decision is a judgement. It is a choice between alternatives. It is
rarely a choice between right and wrong. It is at best a choice
between almost right and probably wrong – but much more often a9