On making (business) decisions

Being remote to our business back home, decisions is all that I make.  Or help make, because our sons back home make a lot of the decisions on the spot and only consult with me with matters of larger impact.

Business ownership is all about decisions.  It was relatively easy to make decisions when I had a boss.  Either you ask the boss, or you decide based on the level of authority you have been granted or based on the rules set up by the company.  However when you’re the boss, the decisions are on you and the outcomes of those decisions falls on you too.

And so is in life.  The product of who we are is almost all based on decisions that we have made throughout our lives.  Of course, the earliest decisions were made for us, our genes.  And later on, decisions were made on our behalf until the point when we felt that we could break out on our own.   But even before we were completely on our own we were making decisions such as the decision to attend a class or goof off with friends, or to do the homework with all the attention it deserved or going shopping to the mall.  All those small decisions shaped our lives to be what we are now.

If we thought about them, decisions are always important.  There are always implications to when, how or where we decide to do what we do.  

In business, the word on the street is that decisions are made based on someone’s gut feeling.  A lot of times the “gut” they refer to is previous business experience but sometimes it boils down to a healthy degree of risk taking. 

In science we rely more on data and facts before we make a call.  Seldom gut feeling comes into play.  Having been trained in science all of my life, business decisions don’t come easy to me.  Often times I find myself suffering from “analysis paralysis” but when I do find the nuggets of knowledge I was looking for, I feel on top of the world, even if the decision that I was supposed to have made with that information is long passed.

As we get older, decision-making becomes easier.  When you’re young you still have to make some basic decisions that are the building blocks that will help you make the big decisions later on.  Let me use honesty as an example.  Early in your life you confront yourself with the decision to be honest or not.  A small “white lie” gets you out of some trouble and this by itself becomes a bit of information that is used later on when you are confronted in similar situations.   If you continue on that path and become a dishonest or deceitful person, your business decisions and your life in general could take a shady path and you shouldn’t be surprise of where you may end up.  If on the other hand, early on you make the decision to always be true to your word, then every time a decision that involves being honest confronts you, it’d be an easy decision for you.

The key to make the process of making decisions easier is to agree to a set of principles that you can use to guide you at all times.  The principles can be self-imposed or can come from someone else.   But regardless, we make the decision to abide by them or not.

People with deep religious convictions have an easier time making decisions than others.  Here in Thailand I have witnessed how some (actually, a lot) base their decisions in their faith to Buddha and where the stars line up for them.  Christians and Muslins also base a lot of their decisions in their faith on the Bible and the Koran respectively.  Of course some times what is written is open to interpretation but when the writing is crystal clear, the decisions they make should be made easily.  The basic principles used by them have already being set for them.  When they were younger, the decision was to follow in their parent’s beliefs or go on their own.  If following their parents, or their traditions, or their culture, then the principles already set for them and their decisions should be based on those principles.

In business it’s the same except that every business is an entity on it’s own.  It is like another person that has been created, either by the sole owner or by a committee.  And like a person, it needs to have its set of principles that “it” will use to make decisions when the time comes.   Having a clear vision for the future of the business and clear operating procedures make the tough job of making decisions a lot easier.