Having a great decision-making process increases your odds for success in many aspects of your work and life.

Because it’s so important, stop periodically to review and improve the way you make decisions.

Grow (and grow your appreciation for) your strengths, and eliminate or reduce your decision-making weaknesses.

Start by making review and improvement of your process an annual event, even if you dedicate only an hour to decision-making process improvement.

How can you begin?

Start by reviewing significant decisions you made during the past year.

Divide these decisions into three categories:

- The ones that worked really well
- The ones that worked out okay
- The ones that didn’t work…at all (and hopefully there aren’t many in this category)

Look at the patterns in each group to see what you can learn and improve – and also what you need to stop and appreciate about the things you’re doing very well.

Consider, specifically, your skills in:

- Framing the decision
- Information gathering
- Decision-making
- Implementing decisions

Consider some of these things as you review these recent decisions and how they worked for you:

1. Did you define the problems correctly?

2. Did you have the right decision customers in mind?

3. Were you clear about what these customers needed?

4. Did you gather the right information? Was it timely? Did you use that information well for the decision-making process?

5. Did you evaluate the decision risks correctly?

6. Did you assess and envision implementation circumstances and challenges correctly?

7. Were there any significant issues you didn’t consider as you prepared to make that decision? These may have been favorable or unfavorable issues, ultimately, but they were things you overlooked or didn’t see initially.

8. Are there other things you notice about the way you prepared for, made, and implemented decisions that can help you to improve your decision-making process in the future?

9. If you have decision diaries that you kept as you worked through stressful or high-risk decisions, review those to see what they can tell you about your decision-making preparation, thought process, the way the decision was actually made, and the implementation quality.

10. What pleased you most about your decision process and experience this year?

11. What surprised you most?

12. What was the most difficult lesson?

13. What was the best lesson?

14. If you were teaching someone else how to make great decisions, what would you advise them, based on your recent experience with decision-making?

15. Were there any serendipitous, unplanned but fortuitous experiences in your decision-making and results this year? Are there any lessons you can learn from that to improve your decision-making process and results in the future?

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Do you have decision phobia?

Some people do, and it can be very life- and progress-limiting.

Decision-phobes may not know why they’re fearful of committing to one course of action instead of leaving their options endlessly open.

Perhaps their fear is based on having made big mistakes in the past.

Or perhaps they felt that perfection was expected from them with each and every step they took. And as a result, they began to stay cemented in spot, rather than to take the risk of making one misstep, no matter how recoverable it was.

Decision-making doesn’t have to be scary.

If the decision is one that you’re familiar with and have made successfully before, or if the risks of making a mistake are low, the information gathering can be very quick.

If a decision has large, clear risks, all the preparatory phases will take more time and careful thought.

As you get ready to make a decision, there are ways you can further reduce the risks. Here are a few:

- Rehearse
- Look at the costs and benefits of all options and choose the best one
- Use scenario analysis
- Test your decision with experts you trust
- Create a decision diary for high-risk decisions

Here’s more detail about each of these options:

Rehearse

Imagine the outcomes.

Envision a successful outcome of the decision-making process that meets the requirements of the customers for the decision. If you need more information about this, learn more about creating decision-making frames.

Now imagine yourself being comfortable making the decision, and comfortable with the outcome of the decision.

When you imagine that, what does it tell you about the process, and the decision, itself?

Look at the costs and benefits of all options and choose the best one

List the various decisions you could make.

Now list the costs and benefits of each option. If a more analytical approach will increase your confidence in the decision, use weighted criteria. Evaluate how each possible decision meets each criterion, and see which option “wins,” when viewed analytically.

Use scenario analysis

Create scenarios of most likely circumstances. Then exaggerate these scenarios by imagining far better outcomes and far worse outcomes.

Now, fortified with the wide range of scenarios, consider which ones seem most likely.

Test each possible decision in these most likely scenarios.

See how that affects your decision, if it does.

Test your decision with experts you trust

One additional way to reduce the risk of the decision is to find experts you trust. Test your decision with them.

See if they advise you to consider something you had not seen, or to weight decisions in a different way than you anticipated.

Create a decision diary for high-risk decisions

Just by writing down your decision-making, you may make better decisions. It’s like writing down goals to increase your chances of reaching them. The simple act of writing tightens your focus, and can improve your logic and the completeness of your thinking.

Here’s a simple way to create a decision diary:
1. Write down the decision you have to make.
2. List the customers of the decision and what success would be like for them.
3. Record your assumptions.
4. List the decision you’ve made and what you expect to have happen.
5. Use this information if the decision needs refining, changing, or when you are improving your decision-making process.

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High quality decision-making depends on good information, well-used.

Excellence in this stage of decision-making requires that information:
- Be cost-effective to obtain and evaluate
- Reduce the risk of the decision that is being made
- Be available at the right time and place for the decision to be made

The basic thing you’re doing when planning information gathering is to figure out what information you need, what information you have, and then figuring out how to fill in the gaps with the best information you can get in the time, and with resources you have available.

There are three key things to guard against in this process:

- Assuming you know more than you do about the situation you’re evaluating, including the risks involved in the decision you’re making
- Assuming the future will be like the past and present
- Investing lots of time and resources gathering much more information than you’ll ever need for this decision-making process

These are the basic steps involved in gathering good information to make decision-making easy…or easier:

1. Prepare.
2. Consider what information you need.
3. Clarify what information you already have.
4. Identify what information you still need.
5. Make a plan to get the information.
6. Get the information.

Here’s more information about each of these steps:

1. Prepare.

Review the decision you’re making, and the risks involved in each of the possible outcomes.

Consider what the cost is to you of the riskiest outcomes, no matter how well prepared you are for good decision results.

This will help you understand the possible cost of a bad outcome, and what the benefit of good risk-reducing information may be.

Also, list the assumptions you’re making. You may need to come back to them at some point in the decision-making process.

2. Consider what information you need.

Consider what information you want to make this decision with confidence.

Now consider what information you really need to make the decision. It may be more, or less than the information you planned to seek.

Plan to check some information that will challenge or verify the most critical assumptions you’re making. These assumptions, if incorrect, greatly increase the risk of the decision you’re making.

3. Clarify what information you already have.

In some cases, you may already have all the information you need. The information may already exist inside your company, but just not be widely used now.

Look at what you have now, and whether it is current or complete enough for the decision you’re making.

4. Identify what information you still need.

Look at the gap between the information you need, and what you have.

Figure out what how much time you have to get the information, and what resources you have to do so.

That’s important to know because there are usually more and less expensive ways – and more and less effective ways – to get the information you need, depending on the data sources you use.

Remember, also, that you may never have all the information you want, even when you have all the information you need.

5. Make a plan to get the information.

Choose the information source or sources that are most likely to get you the best information most quickly and cost-effectively.

Create a clear and effective plan to get the information. As with any good plan, if you’ll be dividing the information-gathering tasks among several people, make clear assignments, set clear expectations about the work that will be provided, when it is needed, and in what format.

If you’re not the person who will be using the information to make the final decision, decide how you’ll get the information to the decision-makers in a format that they can use, when they need it.

6. Get the information.

Be prepared to change your approach, getting more or less information, depending on what the results show, as the information comes in.

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Which answer makes the following statement true for you?

Decision-making is easy:

- Often.
- Always.
- Almost never.

If you find decision-making an ordeal – and many people do – you can make it far easier with a good decision-making process.

A good decision-making process starts by creating a good decision frame.

Creating a good decision frame is almost like describing the missing piece that you’re looking for as you try to solve a jigsaw puzzle.

When you create an effective decision frame, a good decision can almost seem to fall out of the process automatically.

That’s because it will seem familiar, somehow, when you’ve carefully considered what the ideal solution is, what the priorities and options are, and when you’ve done your research to know the costs and benefits of each possibility.

Well-framed and researched, a good decision will become clear, almost naturally.

These are some of the things to consider as you create your decision frame:

- Know what problem you’re solving when you make this decision
- Understand who the decision customers are
- Understand what decision criteria and priorities will be used to make the decision
- Be clear about what’s in and what’s out as this decision is being made
- Understand who will make the decision and how they’ll make it

To frame the decision, answer these questions:

1. What’s the problem you’re solving, specifically?

Be clear about what problem you’re solving with this decision.

Without a well-defined problem statement, or a clear goal, you can go off-track right from the beginning of the decision-making process.

Know what you’re aiming for.

2. Who are the customers of this decision? Do they see the problem the same way?

Many people can be involved in making a decision, but not everyone has to live with the outcome of the decision.

The primary decision customers are the people who are most directly affected by the results of the decision, whatever they are. with these customers want an ideal decision

3. What do these customers want in an ideal decision?

Customers’ needs and wants may be two different things.

What do the decision customers want in the decision that’s made and implemented?

What do they need?

If you don’t know, ask them, or ask a representative sample of people who will be affected by the results.

Understand their priorities, as well.

What is most important to them in the decision and its outcome? What can they live without, if they must?

4. What’s in and what’s out as you make this decision?

When you’re making a decision to take a certain course of action or commit resources in some way, you’re also deciding not to do something else.

And sometimes the real problem with decision-making is not that it’s hard to say “yes” to one course of action, but rather, that it’s harder to say “no” to another one.

Know what you’re choosing not to do when you’re making this decision.

If you’re planning a vacation, for example, and have children who will be on the trip with you, you may put a higher priority on a well-planned series of activities that will keep them busy and happy than you do on luxury accommodations you might choose if you were planning a romantic trip for two.

Consider, also, any constraints you have for the decision that’s being made.

For example, are there cost restrictions or deadlines by which the decision must be made and all actions fully implemented?

Be clear about all the requirements for the decision and a good outcome.

5. Who will make the decision, and how will it be made?

Know how the decision will be made, and who will make it.

For example, will a committee be making the decision and each person in the group has one vote?

Will a committee be advising a final decision-maker?

Is a person making this decision by him or herself?

Understand what a win is to each person involved in making the final decision. Understand what failure is to each person, as well.

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A colleague stopped me the other day after a meeting. She was worried about her son, still in elementary school. He’s competitive, and that has many benefits in the world in which he’s being raised.

Still, she thinks he may be becoming too competitive for his own good.

“He’s starting to be afraid to try new things,” she explained.

“He can’t stand to lose. He thinks that if he doesn’t try something new, but stays with what he knows, he’s far less likely to lose,”  she added.

Are you afraid to try new things because you can’t stand to lose?

Are you afraid of being a learner again? On the way to mastery of any skill, there’s always some uncertainty, experimentation, and failure that goes along with eventual success.

Is it possible that you’re too competitive for your own good?

You may actually be handicapping yourself, if you restrict yourself only to activities you can win.

If so, may be missing a lot of good experiences and great people.

And you may never uncover some of your greatest strengths, talents you never found you had because you chose the safe, known road rather than venturing beyond it.

Is it possible that you create unnecessary stress and competition in situations where it has no real value…to you or anyone else?

If you’re too afraid to try something new, you could soon be frozen in place (or frozen out of it), unable to adapt and change at the same pace as the rest of the workplace and world.

Don’t lose the race you’re trying to win by being afraid to try.

The skill it would be useful to master is learning how to learn well…and then knowing how to turn learning into valued results.

Here are some of the other things I advised my friend, the mother of the little boy who knows how to win, but is quickly becoming afraid to try:

- Applaud initiative, including good attempts and steady progress.

- Reward learning experiments.

- Encourage activities and learning where there is no clear winner.

- Look for ways to take competitiveness out of circumstances where it has no value, or may be a detriment to the desired experience or skill development.

Let the learner plan and dictate his or her learning path.

Reward the learning process.

Skills of the future include having the ability and initiative to direct one’s own learning  effectively, the ability to discern and gather high-quality information, the ability to synthesize much information, high quality decision-making and action taking.

Don’t handicap yourself by putting competition in places where competition doesn’t belong.

Ask yourself the next time you think your competitiveness maybe making things worse:

- What’s the point of competition here?

- Is competitiveness adding to the overall experience or taking away from it? How is it affecting the other people who are involved in the experience, in addition to me?

If you think you may be too competitive for your own good, try this test:

Let someone else be first in line once in a while.

You’ll survive the experience. And believe it or not, you may even find you enjoy it even more from that spot.

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Many companies struggle as they try to keep everyone focused and on the same page.

This is even more of a problem during times of great stress, growth, or other types of major change.

One tool you can use to overcome this not-on-the-same-page problem is to create a brief summary of your company, a Company Overview.

This brief overview of the company can help create a more consistent and higher quality experience for customers as they interact with people at your company.

It can also increase employees’ understanding and pride in the company they work for. The Company Profile can also be an important tool to managers and employees to discuss the value of employees’ work in creating company success.

As you create the Company Overview, you may discover strengths you hadn’t fully recognized or appreciated. You’re also likely to see areas where the company can improve.

If you’re thinking about creating a Company Overview for your organization, plan to gather and include information such as the following:

Who We Are and Why We Exist

- What is your company’s purpose, or the primary reason it exists?
- What is are you trying to accomplish, and for whom?
- What is your company’s vision of the future it is trying to create for itself?
- What is your company culture?
- What are your company values, or guiding principles and behaviors?
- What are your organization’s core competencies, or primary strengths? How do they relate to being able to fulfill your mission?

Our Customers and What They Want From Us

- Who are your primary customer segments? What do they need and expect from you?
- What are the main products and services you offer customers?
- How do you provide your products and services to customers?
- How do you provide customer support to customers who need it?
- How do you use feedback from customers to continually improve your products, services and support?

Our Company and Its Competitors

- What is your competitive position in your market?
- Who are your primary competitors now?
- What are the principal factors that drive success for your company, compared to its competitors?
- What are the major changes that affect your competitive position?

Our Resources and Governance

- What are the primary groups of employees in your company?
- What are the primary motivators that draw each group to your organization, and engage them in supporting your mission?
- Where the key benefits you provide employees?
- What are your main facilities, technologies and equipment?
- What is the regulatory environment under which your company operates?
- Are there any occupational health and safety regulations that govern your company?
- Are there certification or registration requirements, industry standards, environmental, financial, and product regulations with which you must comply?
- What is your organizational structure and governance system? What are the primary reporting relationships between your senior leadership, board, and parent organization, if you have one?

Who We Work With

- What are your key types of suppliers, partners, and other collaborators?
- What role does each of these groups play in your company’s success?
- What are the primary ways you communicate with customers, suppliers, and other key stakeholders?

Our Challenges and Strengths

- What are the primary challenges and advantages your company has now?
- How do you monitor and improve performance at your company?
- What are your key business, operational and human resource challenges and advantages?
- What are the key challenges and advantages for your company with respect to organizational sustainability?
- How do you monitor, manage and improve your company and its products and services?

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Could your company use a glossary?

“That’s ridiculous!” you reply?

You might be surprised.

As a consultant, I must go into a company and quickly learn as much as I can in order to come up to speed rapidly on foundation knowledge.

More often than you might guess, as I’m going through the rapid-cycle learning process as I begin a project with a new company, I’ve found that employees don’t know, or don’t agree on the meaning of some of the company’s most-used terms and acronyms.

Consider these examples:

For one project I had one day to “crash learn” as much as I could about the basic technology and terms involved in a major process. I was leaving the next day for a three-day offsite where I was helping the client company finalize a cross-company product delivery process.

To learn as much as possible, and as rapidly as I could, I dove right into all available information about key terms, processes, roles, responsibilities and other knowledge that was important to have for the process design and improvement work to be successful.

Eventually, I’d gone as far as I could in the process of learning on my own. I needed to clarify some things and met with a few people to close the gaps in my understanding.

I asked one manager fairly high up in the organization what one key acronym meant.

She admitted, somewhat sheepishly, that she didn’t know.

And the tough thing was, she was outside of what might be considered, unofficially, as the “statute of limitations” on when she could safely admit she needed to learn some of basic information at the company, too. I could ask the question she needed to because I was clearly in learning mode. She was supposed to have “graduated” it already.

At some point, it’s somehow assumed that people know what they need to know to do their jobs.

But if they don’t, and they’re afraid to ask, where do they go?

And who asks the question of the employees who work for them (and makes it safe for them to answer it honestly), “What do you need to learn, or know, that you don’t, to be successful in this job?”

In a second example, I was helping to create onboarding tools for a rapidly growing company.

The learning processes and tools I was helping the client company create were designed to help the cross-functional teams get established quickly and consistently, and start performing well together as quickly as possible.

We were editing a final draft of one product in the set of team tools.

In a meeting with two fairly senior people in the group, we discovered that each thought a key acronym meant something different.

They realized that many people in the organization were using the same acronym to mean different ways, and that it may have been just one of many miscues in a job and role that required excellent communication.

Is it possible this is happening at your company?

Eliminate the primary causes for miscommunication wherever you can.

One easy place to start is to make sure is to make sure that commonly used acronyms and terms are consistently defined.

In addition, make sure that other foundation knowledge that it’s important for employees to have is readily available. At a minimum, this is important to have when new employees join the company, or move to new jobs inside the company and need to get up to speed quickly and consistently.

Here’s how you can make your own glossary:

1. Make a list of key terms and acronyms.
2. Assign a person to complete the glossary by gathering and writing the definitions for the terms.
3. Ask a few people to review the glossary, noting additions or changes that they think need to be made to it.
4. Refine the glossary, reconciling any differences of opinion about what terms or acronyms mean.
5. Post the glossary on your website in a place where it will be easy to access and use.
6. Include contact information for anyone who needs to get more information about any of the terms, or to contribute new terms to the glossary.

In the process of creating and publishing the glossary, you may find other information you need to share, or to train people on.

Do everything you can to ensure that communication is clear and effective for the people working in your company. It can make a far bigger difference in effectiveness and business results than you expect.

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Delegating is no big deal. And giving good directions to others is a “piece of cake.”

Is that what you think?

Recall a time when you were assigned a new job or task, and the person making the assignment had:

- High standards
- A tight timeline before the work had to be complete
- Little or no time for you to ask questions of them, once the task was assigned to you so you were completely dependent on the instructions and resources they provided you

Now, recall:

- What directions did you receive for that work?

- What resources did the person provide you for guidance, in case you had problems you couldn’t resolve as you worked?

- How did it work out? Were you able to complete the assignment successfully?

- If so, what are the main reasons it worked out well?

- If there were problems with the project or its result, what made the work difficult?

I had the experience of starting a new job at a new company right into middle of the busiest season of the year in the department where I had been hired.

My manager had very high standards and I knew I would learn a lot there, which a big reason why the job appealed to me.

But I was also going to have a steep learning curve in this job, which I knew, and my manager knew, too. And I was not the only one like that in the department.

Delegating well, and providing effective guidance to new employees were leadership skills that were essential for success with this particular team.

Because my manager didn’t like to take the time to provide instructions or send employees to training, people in the group fairly often found themselves caught in a proverbial – and preventable – thorny thicket of problems.

One particular time, he and I had no alternative but to stop and correct something that had gone very wrong with a big deliverable on a tight timeline.

Suddenly there was no choice for him but to pause, slow down, listen and teach patiently and attentively.

He had many other leadership strengths that we knew, but no one had ever seen this one before.

And suddenly, with calm direction and teaching, the work now seemed easy to me. The problems seemed clear, the solutions achievable.

I learned a lot in that department, surviving the boot camp he’d created, perhaps unwittingly. And it prepared me well for other jobs at that company. But looking back, I still feel that the same thing could have been accomplished far less painfully.

Here are a few guidelines for you to provide good instructions, if you delegate work to others:

When you make the assignment of a project or task, provide this information to the person who will be doing the job:

1. Who needs this work? What will they do with the product, service or information that is being provided to them?

2. What are the customers’ standards for a high quality job, such as timeliness, cost, and quality requirements?

3. When does the customer need the work to be complete?

4. Is there a process or procedure they must follow to do the work? Where are the specific instructions for that?

5. Are there constraints they need to know about?

6. Are there materials or tools they need to do the job? Where will they get those?

7. If they need further guidance while doing the work, where should they go or whom should they contact?

8. How can they reach you as they work, if need be?

9. Will someone check the work before it goes to the customer? If so, who will do that, and when will that happen in the overall process?

10. What questions do they have? Do they need to have any information explained in another way to fully understand the instructions for what they must complete?

If you found this post valuable, share it with friends and colleagues who can use this information, too. You’ll also like the free weekly newsletter I publish every Tuesday. Sign up for the newsletter here.

What can consume hours of time, oceans of creative and productive energy, and still produce nothing useful?

Worrying.

Maybe you don’t waste your time in worry, but many people do.

Some are pretty experienced, and dedicated worriers – professionals, almost.

It’s easy, mid-worry-stream, to think that you’re doing something useful for someone, or some situation, somewhere.

My younger sister once said to me when I was in college and getting little sleep, “If you don’t quit staying up so late, Mom and I will quit worrying about you!”

She’d seen her worrying as a sisterly service she was doing for me.

It wasn’t making any difference, of course.

Worry isn’t work.

Here’s how work is defined in physics: work = force x distance.

Worrying doesn’t change things unless it is a force that moves people across some distance, to change, to become different in a positive way.

Here are a few things you can do to turn worry into productive results:

1. Understand your own motivation for worrying.

What are you trying to accomplish through your worrying?

Is it to entertain yourself, perhaps through the steady updates in a local drama that keeps everyone wrapped up in details of a story you share?

Is it to distract yourself from something you should be doing, instead, but are afraid of?

Consider what else you might be doing with the time you are wrapped up in the lives of those around you. Consider, also, what part of your own life isn’t not getting full attention because you are distracted in this pursuit.

Are you afraid to say what you really think?

If so, muster up your courage and figure out what your truth is. Then figure out how to tell it to the people who you think need the information in a way so that they can hear you, and feel your concern.

And then it is up to them to use the information, save it for a later time, or reject it as not being right for their lives. And you might not like it, but they do have that right – to make their own choice about how they will live their own lives.

Then, let your advice and worry go. Know that the people you are trying to help via your advice and concern will choose and take their own actions. That’s how they’ll become strong. That’s how they’ll learn and grow.

And you want that for them, don’t you?

2. Know what the real problem is, and what evidence you have to know that it is real.

State what you think the real problem is.

Now, consider what evidence you have to know that the problem you describe, of the magnitude you describe it, is actually happening?

If you don’t know, or can’t find evidence of a problem, there may not be one at all.

Then, go back to considering what this worry might be distracting you from…or trying to.

That’s where your problem-solving attention might best be invested…in the problem you don’t want to think about, at all.

3. Know why you believe the bad news scenario is most likely.

If you have a real problem, and have evidence of it, why do you think that dire circumstances will be the result of the issue?

Good outcomes could also occur.

Think through what the chances are that your worries will come true, and why you believe it.

4. Think back to your most productive worrying time, and what the outcome was.

Sometimes worry is productive in that it gets us to consider alternatives we hadn’t thought of before. Or it may make us aware of a risk we had, blithely, brushed off as not likely at all.

Worry gets us to focus and consider possibilities we might not want to think about, at all.

5. Take the persistence and creativity you’re investing in worry, and turn it into something productive.

Direct that effort to doing something tangible about the problem.

Take your concerns, if they prove to be valid, and turn them into a plan of action to take the cause of the problem away.

Then, take the actions you planned, using your resolve to make the problem go away.

Your worry may, in fact, lead to a change that might not have happened any other way.

6. Get more exercise.

Treat yourself to some endorphins.

These are the hormones your body releases when you’ve had a vigorous run, walk, swim, bike ride, or other physical release.

7. Get more sleep.

Good sleep refreshes and rests your mind and body.

And it gives you the reserves to provide a good, calm, long-term assessment of the situation, providing a perspective on problems that might loom when you’re tired, and tempers are likely to be shorter.

8. Find a diversion that’ll keep you from going into worry so deep.

Make yourself so busy you aren’t available for worry duty.

Well, not so much, anyway.

Take your own big goals and break them down into very tangible small-term milestones.

Work on those.

9. Make something.

When you produce something tangible, it can go a long way to make you feel good about yourself, your abilities, and what you can do.

Besides, it gives you something you control. And that helps siphon off worry energy, too.

You may not be able to control the big thing you’re worrying about, but when you make something, you often get an increased sense of control about your portion of the world.

10. Find someone else who has been through this thing you’re worrying about. Talk to them.

They’ll give you some perspective.

They’ll probably tell you that if the problem actually happens, you, or the people you’re worrying about, will live through the experience, and you’ll be stronger in the end.

And that it may not happen…so the worrying didn’t help.

11. Set a daily worry budget, and when the time is up for the day, change the subject.

You think I’m kidding.

If your daily budget covers one hour of worrying, set your timer when worry time arrives.

Worry big for that hour.

And when that hour is up, change the subject. Don’t talk about the thing you’re worried about. Don’t text about it, think about it, imagine it.

Move on.

You can pick up it up again during worry time tomorrow.

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Assumptions.

We believe we shouldn’t make them, but we do.

Our assumptions go with us into almost any new situation, relationship, or interaction.

They’re part of any decision we make, and any planning we undertake.

Knowing what your assumptions are is important.

They can work in your favor, if you know how to set and use assumptions well.

Consider a decision you made that turned out not to be a good one.

Now consider when you made the first wrong turn in making that decision.

Often, that first off-track turn occurs when you don’t question and eliminate or correct the initial assumptions on which the decision is based.

Here are ways to work with your assumptions so that they work for you:

1. Record them.

First, acknowledge that you have them.

Then, record them, and note why you believe them to be true.

What facts do you have that back up your belief that these assumptions are true?

Keep a summary of your assumptions in a place where it will be easy to find and use them again. You may need to return to them later, as the decision plays out, for better or worse.

2. Test them.

If there’s a lot riding on whether your assumptions are right or wrong, find a way to test them early in the process of using them.

What research can you do?

Is there something you can observe?

Are there people who will be affected by decisions you make, using these assumptions?

If a relationship or interaction will be affected by the assumptions you make, ask the people involved if what you believe about them or the situation is true.

3. Revisit them.

When you’re using assumptions as the basis for decision-making, return to them periodically to check and see if they’re still valid.

Governments for example, can make decisions about services they’ll be able to provide citizens, based on how much tax revenue they think they’ll collect in the future.

Building and service commitments can be made, and taxpayers’ expectations can be set about the services they will get for the taxes they paid. Then the economy can change, sometimes radically and rapidly.

At that point, changes must be made to adapt to the situation as well as possible. With a solid way to monitor and adapt assumptions based on current facts, the need for change can be eased or prevented.

4. Refine your assumptions if they’re no longer true.

If your assumptions turn out to be false or circumstances change so that your assumptions need to change, too, then change them.

A lot may be riding on your courage in facing facts, rather than plowing ahead with a plan of action that’s going nowhere fast, just because you don’t want to admit that, somehow, you’re wrong.

5. Improve your process of setting assumptions.

Revisit your process of making assumptions.

Check to see if you’re using good data to create and test the assumptions you use. Make sure you’re not basing big decisions on wild guesses or random conjecture.

Ensure that you have and are using a good process to synthesize the information you have to make decisions and take action, using your assumptions.

Communicate the assumptions well to those who may need to use them, such as in making forecasts.

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