Not a day goes by when a publication somewhere does not report a “knee jerk reaction” by decision makers. The latest articles relate to OPEC’s decisions about oil pricing, and how football club owners are dealing with a string of bad results. But is a quick decision always a bad one?
We have all written that email which says rather angry and unreasonable things to or about someone else. Fortunately, in all but two such experiences I have never pressed the send button. In the two cases the decision to send was certainly a wrong one. That other common expression – “better to sleep on it” is generally a good adage. But some decisions have to be quick or there will be a negative outcome in any case. I am reminded of Kairos – the Greek spirit of opportunity. He was always depicted as a young man with a long lock of hair hanging down from his forehead, which indicated that opportunity could only be grasped as he approached. In many cases timing means everything.
But what can seem a great opportunity at the time – can later prove to be a grave mistake. Like the man who seeks a beautiful woman’s attentions and beats off his many rivals only to find that beauty can coincide with a nightmare personality. I have been party to many recruitment decisions when I have been urged by colleagues to hire the best of a weak bunch of candidates – only to find that during a second round the right candidate just walked through the door.
Most important of all is to bear in mind that good decisions require good information to base decisions upon and a clear idea about the goal being sought
Once an interview panel talks of “on the one hand and on the other” the process is lost. Why decide to do something simply because the positives seem to outweigh the negatives? For a decision to be a good one all the negatives must be insignificant, irrelevant and unlikely to increase in the future. We all have to make decisions in conditions of uncertainty – but the trick would appear to be knowing when a situation is in the hands of Kairos and when it calls for a night of prior slumber.