There are lots of ways to improve decision-making — among them, getting all the necessary data, avoiding ‘false dilemmas,’ and recognizing decision fatigue.
Ever zigged when you should’ve zagged? Everyone has. But there are lessons to be learned from mistakes — and techniques you can apply to make smarter decisions in the future. Consider the following.
Don’t Decide Anything Without the Required Information
Comedian Lewis Black says the end of the universe is where you can stand in one Starbucks and look across the street directly into another. It’s a good bit, but not a great business strategy. After closing hundreds of hastily established stores in 2008, then-Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz told investors that the company would rely on analytics, not intuition, to determine where to put future stores.