Decision-Making: Taking Resposibility

Recently, while listening to someone explaining to me why they had made a particular decision, I was fascinated not so much by their decision but the reasons they were giving me for having made it. While driving away, I kept remembering the line about never giving people the reasons for your decisions: “Your decisions may be right but your reasons are sure to be wrong.” (Lord Mansfield)

If we make the right decision for the wrong reasons, our failure in reasoning will catch up to us in other decisions.

If we make the right choice for the wrong reason, once we are confronted with our faulty reasoning we will (understandably) begin second-guessing our decision, becoming double-minded.

If we make the right decision for the wrong reasons, we will not only get what we want, but it is highly likely that we will also get what we do not want.

Usually, people do what they want, and then come up with “reasons” for doing so. There were no sound reasons for their decision, simply feelings of desire or hope or fear. What is particularly telling is when their “reasons” morph here and there from one friend to another, then morph again with their families, and still again with their minister or church community, and again with their boss, as they seek to frame what they want to do, what they are going to do no matter what, with a plausible and winning argument for each person.

Be honest, man. “I am doing this because I feel like it”. “I am doing it because it makes me happy.” “I am doing this because I am frightened.“ Whatever. Own your feelings, own your decision. And remember: You don’t always have to justify your wants, desires, fears or hopes. You are an adult living in a free country where you do not have to have your papers-of-explanation ready for the Thought-Gestapo.

At the end of the day, at the end of time, you stand or fall before God for the choices you made, not him/ her/them/it. And God? He wants you to enjoy life, and enjoy the world he gave you to manage. You are free to do what you want, increasing in wisdom as you live your life, and, O yeah, don’t eat the fruit from that tree over there.

On the other hand, life’s most important decisions should be based on more than instinct, gut reaction and personal preference, but will need to include some intelligence and wisdom. These are those decisions with hairy consequences, decisions with a hefty risk-to-reward ratio. There is a difference in deciding which desk to purchase, which job applicant to hire, and whether or not to invest millions of dollars in a particular project; there is a difference between which suit to purchase, which job offer to accept and whom to marry, as each requires a quantum leap in the degree of wisdom (sound reasoning) needed, so as to have the greatest opportunity for long-term success and happiness.

After the creation of a sound matrix from which we make decisions (beliefs, values, code of conduct, vision, etc., all of which need to be periodically updated), I believe one of the first requirements for good decision-making is the willingness and commitment to owning the results of your decisions. If all goes well, you own the rewards. If it all falls apart, you own the mess that came from your decision. You. Nobody. Else. But. You.

One of my passions is coaching: I love serving executives in their quest for ever-increasing success in life. (Of course, one of my first goals is to discover how the individual is defining success.) Something I discovered early on is that one of the major differences between successful executives and those people “stuck” in middle-management jobs, is that the executive is willing to make decisions: especially the difficult ones. He or she is also ready to take responsibility for their decisions, whether it is a reward or a judgment, a win or a loss. Given that most of their decisions have been successful, they were rewarded with upward mobility.

When I was around 14 years old, I was having one of my daily rows with my dad. I was all huffy over the fact that he was treating me like I was 14 years old. What’s up with that? Anyway, I asked dad,

“Okay. When are you going to treat me like a man?”
“When you start behaving like one.”
“What does that mean?”
“When you start making decisions and paying for those decisions … when you are ready to be responsible for your own life, you’ll be a man.”

One of the signs of maturity is the commitment to making decisions, and to owning the costs, consequences and rewards of those decisions.

Thirty and Forty-year old children do not want to be responsible. They want risk free decisions, decisions that never leave a chocolate mess in their hands. If her decision proves to have been foolish, she wants mommy, daddy, priest or US Government to pay for the consequences. If his decision backfires, he wants plausible deniability: “He told me to …” “But you said, so I did …” “I asked for your opinion, you agreed with my decision, so you are just as culpable …” In other words, I do not own the consequences of my decision, but am, at the very least, demanding a shared burden of the fallout.

Stay Tuned for, Decision-Making: Right Mind, Right Questions, Right People

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2008