Tips to Enhance Your Decision Making Batting Average

Just as people are different, so are their styles of decision making. Each person is a result of all of the decisions made in their life to date. Recognizing this, here are some tips to enhance your decision making batting average.

• Do not make decisions that are not yours to make.

• When making a decision you are simply choosing from among alternatives. You are not making a choice between right and wrong.

• Avoid snap decisions. Move fast on the reversible ones and slowly on the non-reversible.

• Choosing the right alternative at the wrong time is not any better than the wrong alternative at the right time, so make the decision while you still have time.

• Do your decision making on paper. Make notes and keep your ideas visible so you can consider all the relevant information in making this decision.

• Be sure to choose based on what is right, not who is right.

• Write down the pros and cons of a line of action. It clarifies your thinking and makes for a better decision.

• Make decisions as you go along. Do not let them accumulate. A backlog of many little decisions could be harder to deal with than one big and complex decision.

• Consider those affected by your decision. Whenever feasible, get them involved to increase their commitment.

• Recognize that you cannot know with 100% certainty that your decision is correct because the actions to implement it are to take place in the future. So make it and don't worry about it.

• Use the OAR, O. A. R. approach in decision making. Look at O, Objectives you are seeking to attain, A, the Alternatives you sense are available to you and R, the risk of the alternative you are considering.

• It has been said that a decision should always be made at the lowest possible level and as close to the scene of action as possible. However, a decision should always be made at a level insuring that all activities and objectives affected are fully considered. The first rule tells us how far down a decision should be made. The second how far down it can be made.

• Remember that not making a decision is a decision not to take action.

• To be effective a manager must have the luxury of having the right to be wrong.

• Trust yourself to make a decision and then to be able to field the consequences appropriately.

• Don't waste your time making decisions that do not have to be made.

• Determine alternative courses of action before gathering data.

• Before implementing what appears to be the best choice best rate cheap sr22 insurance quotes comparison, assess the risk by asking "What can I think of that might go wrong with this alternative ?"

• Many decisions you make are unimportant-about 80% of them. Establish operating limits and let your secretary or others make them for you.

• Consider making the decision yourself in lieu of a group, but recognize the potential for less commitment by those affected.

• As part of your decision making process, always consider how the decision is to be implemented.

• As soon as you are aware that a decision will have to be made on a specific situation, review the facts at hand then set it aside. Let this incubate in your subconscious mind until it is time to finally make the decision.

• Once the decision has been made, don't look back. Be aware of how it is currently affecting you and focus on your next move. Never regret a decision. It was the right thing to do at the time. Now focus on what is right at this time.

• Mentally rehearse implementation of your choice and reflect in your imagination what outcomes will result.

• Brainstorming alternative solutions with your staff or others will gain fresh ideas and commitment.

• Discontinue prolonged deliberation about your decision. Make it and carry it through.

• Once you have made the decision and have started what you are going to do, put the "what if's" aside and do it with commitment.

Nine Ways to get free PR/media coverage for yourself or your business

I learned the following during a recent media blitz for BizMove.com. We had over 100 media placements in 11 months.

Send out 1,000 press releases and/or press kits to everybody.
Include a great portrait photo and/or action shot of your product or
service. PROVE that it's legitimate as best you can. The media WILL
cover stuff as long as they aren't afraid it will come back to make
THEM look bad.

Focus on the benefits, novelty-ness, timeliness, newsworthiness of your product or service.
Don't try to sell it! Tell it, instead. Stand in the shoes of the jaded/suspicious/bored person reading your press release/press kit
and ask yourself how you can make THIS appealing to THEM! Give it
a twist.

Create a STORY around your product or service.
Did you lose your shirt at something, but then CAME BACK to make a
lot of money? (turnaround...) Did you start to create one product,
but ended up with another? (fate/chance...)

Link your product or service to something else that IS newsworthy.
For example, if the trend is entrepreneur ism/home based offices,
what do YOU have or do that supports folks doing this? 

Link your product to the Web/Internet.
Creating an online product/service, take an existing profession and
make it cyber-oriented one, etc.

Create controversy.
Sue somebody. Get sued by somebody. Challenge someone well known.
Go against the status quo; David vs Goliath, etc. Add your two cents
worth to an existing controversy. Make fun of an institution/spoof
them. Call a press conference.

Give an award or give something away.
If you don't have the credibility needed, create an "institution/organization" that will get it for you. Or give $1,000 to the local NEEDY/DESPERATE charity, etc. Give SOMETHING interesting away to a group that is INTERESTING. 

Issue a report or survey or index/measure.
These work. And as an unusual example, create a HIGHLY VALUABLE
measure of the human condition, like the Happiness Index or the
Misery Index or SOMETHING that tells us more about ourselves in a
surprising way. The nice thing about a survey/report/annual pool
is that you'll likely get lots of coverage out of it, perhaps even
long term if it's annual.

Help the reporters do their job.
Return their calls within an hour. Have background info on you or
your firm available for faxing. Answer their questions; don't try
to convince them of anything. Be gracious but not too friendly.
Always know the 3 major points that you want to get across and find
a way to weave these in AS YOU ANSWER THEIR questions.