People often make poor decisions when under severe pressure or if they don’t have access to important information. They may be responding to pressure from above or are steered by their emotions rather than their heads.
It is important to understand the root cause of poor decision-making.
To understand what sits behind poor decision-making, Zenger Folkman looked at 360-feedback data from more than 50,000 leaders and compared the behaviour of those who were perceived to make poor decisions with those perceived to make good decisions.
Analysts identified several factors as the most common causes of poor decision-making:
- Laziness: a failure to check facts, take the initiative, confirm assumptions or gather additional input.
- Not anticipating unexpected events: a failure to consider what might go wrong or plan how to mitigate problems that might arise.
- Indecisiveness: not having the courage to look at the data, consider the consequences and take action. Those who fear making the wrong decision avoid taking risks, leading to stagnation.
- Remaining locked in the past: using the same old data or processes that have always been used and not looking for new processes that are likely to work much better.
- No strategic alignment: failing to connect the problem to the overall strategy. When tightly linked to a clear strategy, better solutions quickly emerge.
