Successful career management depends on good decision-making ability. A myriad of approaches can be adopted. These include:
- Planned 鈥 Using rational thought to weigh the facts, obtain the necessary information and explore consequences.
- Impulsive 鈥 This is the 鈥渓eap before you look鈥 approach - or giving little thought to the decision before taking action.
- Intuitive 鈥 Making the decision based on a 鈥済ut feeling鈥 and striving to preserve harmony.
- Compliant 鈥 This is when a person is content to let someone else decide and typically does not assert her/his own preferences.
- Delaying 鈥 Avoiding thinking about it or taking action. The decision maker procrastinates and hopes that something happens on its own to avoid making a decision.
- Defaulting 鈥 鈥淧laying it safe鈥 by choosing the direction with the lowest level of risk.
- Paralytic 鈥 Experiencing complete indecision and fear, resulting in the inability to act.
In addition to your decision-making approach, a whole range of influencing factors can also impact you. Influencing factors include:
- External Factors 鈥 such as family expectations, responsibilities, cultural pressure, male/female stereotypes and survival needs.
- Internal Factors 鈥 such as lack of self-confidence, fear of change, fear of making the wrong decision and fear of ridicule.
Structured Decision Making
You can enhance your career decision making ability by following a structured framework. The five-step process laid out below is a useful method for doing this.
Five Step Process
- Define your goals and list objectives for each goal.
- Gather relevant information.
- Review alternatives.
- Assess likely outcomes as objectively as possible.
- Establish plan of action.
Good decisions are almost always the result of a well thought out process and a willingness to take calculated risks. Understanding this is critical. However, good decision making also requires you to dedicate time to the process and to gather and use lots of information.