decision making

Are you forgetting something?

Publication: | | |

If you’ve ever been to hospital and had surgery you’ll remember that as you get wheeled into the operating theatre there are a series of checks that occur. The orderly or nurse will ask your name, what procedure you are having, and whether you are allergic to anything. Once you are under, they’ll use checklists […]

Are you saying yes too often?

Publication: | |

Have you ever had a time when you said ‘yes’, and then seconds later got the feeling of dread and regret as you thought to yourself  ‘Why did I just agree to that?” It can be easy to say ‘yes’.  It saves explaining why you don’t want to do something, you worry about letting someone […]

What’s the intent of your question?

Publication: | |

As a child growing up I was one of those very annoying kids who asked questions all the time. The question often started with why. ‘Why this?’, ‘Why now?’, ‘Why do I need to..?”, and the list could go on. In some cases, the question was based on natural curiosity. At other times, the question […]

Are you a taker, faker or maker?

Publication: | |

Throughout your career you will come across people who are easy to work and those less so. Those who will enable your progress, and those who will hinder it. People who will inspire you, and those who will drag you down. It is often when you experience unexpected career changes or challenges at work that […]

Are you too quick to judge?

Publication: |

When we meet someone for the first time, we very quickly make an assessment as to whether we like them, trust them, want to work with them or want to do business with them. This assessment is made on a raft of factors. Many of which are quite superficial. It might be a glance, their […]

Are you being too nice?

Publication: | |

When you think of someone who is nice what characteristics spring to mind? Perhaps it’s someone who is helpful, kind, generous and thoughtful. They are usually positive traits. However, as a leader if you are always seeking to be nice it can cause problems, particularly if the motivating drive behind your ‘niceness’ is a desire […]

The Upside of Bad Days

Publication:

You miss an important meeting. Your plane is cancelled. You lose a key document when your computer crashes. You miss out on a major deal. The list could go on. Bad days. The day when nothing seems to go to plan. We all have them. When you think about it for a moment, there’s an […]

Ten tips to help you make better decisions

Publication:

By the time you read this article it’s likely you’ll have already made hundreds of decisions, with varying levels of effort, consequences and anticipated rewards from the decision. You make decisions every day – in both your personal and working life. They can be as simple as what time a meeting should start, or as […]

Are you minding the gap?

Publication:

If you’ve been to London and travelled on the tube you’ll remember the frequent reminders to ‘mind the gap’ between the platform and the tracks. As I’ve been travelling around London recently, this message has been playing on my mind, but in a different context. We are often reminded to look after ourselves in a […]

Are you searching for too much similarity?

Publication: | | |

It’s natural to want to work with people you like and find easy to work with, and consequently when you are building a team or forming work groups you often seek out such people. This is either done consciously or subconsciously. In the case of recruitment, for example, search criteria often specifically reference the desire […]

Is your sleep getting in the way of a better decision?

Publication:

There are warning signs to remind us that we shouldn’t drive or use heavy machinery when we are tired, and yet very rarely do we see warning signs to remind us that it can be dangerous to make decisions when we are tired. Many Australians are chronically sleep deprived. This is because they don’t find ways […]

Don’t keep yourself in the dark

Publication:

In the era of fake news and a social media environment where image appears to be everything it is more important than ever to be curious and to look beyond the surface. It’s often never what it seems. In recent times, I’ve been fascinated to watch the Theranos scandal unfold. Theranos is the failed biomedical […]

Let’s not sugar coat it

Publication: | | |

One of the most popular career quotes is ‘Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.’ Quotes like this suggest that having an awesome career is about chasing what you are passionate about. It implies that when you love your job it’s all roses and champagne […]

Who are you listening to?

Publication: | |

One of my favourite movies from the late 1980’s is ‘Field of Dreams’. It’s based around an Iowa farmer, Ray (played by Kevin Costner). One night while walking through his cornfield he hears a voice saying – “If you build it, he will come.” He works out that he is being asked to build a […]

Is your decision making ready for the future?

Publication: |

Earlier this week in Seattle (USA), Amazon’s store of the future opened for the first time. There’s no checkouts, queues or check-out operators.  But you do need to have the Amazon Go smartphone app installed so the gates guarding the entrance let you in.  You then simply wander into the store, put the items you […]

Are you in the fast or slow lane?

Publication:

When you drive do you typically drive in the slow lane or are you in the fast lane?  Are you the person who weaves between cars so you can find the fastest route, or are you the person who picks a lane and sticks to it? We are habitual creatures, so each time we drive […]

Why having confidence isn’t always good for you

Publication: | |

It’s often thought that to be successful you have to be confident. However, it’s not that black and white.  In fact, too much confidence is a bad thing. Why?  Because when you are certain you are right, you are almost certainly wrong! Over-confidence is one of the many brain based biases we are all afflicted […]

Why the question is one of your most powerful tools

Publication: |

According to reports we are now living in a post-fact world.  A world where experts are devalued and comments and opinions can be positioned without question, even if they have no substance or evidence to back them up. This is most commonly playing out in the political arena where politicians make sweeping generalisations, bend the […]

It’s time to go off script

Publication: |

Comedians will tell you that some of their best comedic moments happen when they go off script. Robin Williams, for example, was well known for being able to improvise – adding enormous value to the movie’s production. And yet in our work and personal lives we are often told to follow script. The question is, […]

Feel the fear…and do it anyway

Publication: |

  More than 25 years ago a book with this title was written by Susan Jeffers.  It became a best seller and the phrase entered the everyday vernacular. It’s a powerful phrase, and the need for these words of encouragement hasn’t changed. In fact, they are more relevant than ever as we enter an era […]