My career has been spent in environments where failure wasn't an option and the consequences of inaction were severe, from my time as a fighter pilot in combat to leading thousands of warfighters and overseeing global crisis management at major universities.
I’ve learned that decision-making in a crisis only gets better with training and a defined process.
The Foundation: Training Kicks In
When you’re under extreme pressure, whether you’re taking enemy fire or managing an active crisis on campus, you can’t rely on emotion or hope. You must rely on your training. That’s why we train and train and train. It’s what carries you through. A leader who tries to skip this preparation will be paralyzed when the moment arrives.
My Three Pillars of a Better Decision
In my four decades of being around great decision makers, I observed a few characteristics they have in common, and I implement them when my teams and I are forced to choose the "least worst option."
- Principles: Your decision must be based on clear principles, not raw, immediate emotion. These external principles are your rock-solid standard, like the archer’s sight, pointing you toward a particular target and not another. If you don't have this direction, you will start compounding bad decisions.
- Humility: Be humble enough to ask for help. I always agree with myself, 100% of the time, so I need people around me who are willing to push back. Bringing others into the conversation prevents me from just manipulating a new problem to fit an old, preferred solution.
- Decisiveness: You must make the call. Making no decision is typically the worst choice. If your decision was principled and informed by humility, it is more defensible, regardless of the outcome. We focus on this: Did I make the best decision I could at the time?
The outcome is what the outcome is. Luck, challenges, or success, those things happen. Our focus is on the quality of the decision we made at the moment we had to make it.
In my next few articles, I will dig deeper into each of these characteristics and provide practical examples to encourage you to analyze your own processes to be more confident when making those hardest decisions.
