Engineering Decision Making

A decision is a commitment to action. Until that action is completed there has been no decision, only deliberation. Good decision making is a process and involves a certain amount of risk-taking. I stated in an earlier post that the top person in any organization must be a decision maker. Ideally, this person would be a good decision maker. Here are some traits that good decision makers have in common:

• They can determine when a decision is needed.
• They understand not all problems are equal and can make decisions on the right problems.
• They can accurately define a problem.
• They think through to the right decision first and then think about what is acceptable.
• They know compromises will need to be made based on what is acceptable.
• They know that until the actions are completed no decision has been made.

Let's discuss the first trait - knowing when a decision is needed. Wrong decisions threaten to ruin your career and work. To avoid this risk, we need a frame for separating necessary and unnecessary decisions. Engineering does not have a readily available rule for this, so we can reach out to another professional: The Surgeon. Surgeons make risky decisions each day because there are no risk-free surgeries. Here is the framework used for their decisions:

Rule 1:

If the problem will cure itself without risk of death or great pain, do not operate, but watch attentively. To operate under these conditions is unnecessary.

Rule 2:

If the problem is life-threatening and there is something you can do, then do it. To operate under these conditions is necessary.

Rule 3:

The problem lays in-between 1 and 2. This is the largest category of issues. The condition is not life-threatening. However, it will not correct itself. Here risk and opportunity must be weighed. The decisions made here separate top-performance.

Using this methodology in application to your career can greatly assist in providing a framework for your decision making.

Action Item: What are three problems you are having right now? Write them out in complete statements. Classify them under the Surgeon's Method.