Research demonstrates the importance of decision-making skills

A few years ago, I was browsing in a bookstore when The CEO Next Door: The 4 Behaviors that Transform Ordinary People into World-Class Leaders, by Elena L. Botelho and Kim R. Powell, with Tahl Raz, caught my eye. I was creating a lecture about developing one’s CEO skills, so I purchased it.

The book presents the findings of the CEO Genome Project, a 10-year study aimed at identifying the specific behaviors that differentiate high-performing CEOs from other executives. The research was based on 17,000 leadership assessments/interviews, each lasting 5 hours, that were assembled in a database by ghSmart, a leadership advisory firm. The firm partnered with SAS, an analytics software company specializing in artificial intelligence and predictive software. Using SAS’s software, the study’s researchers analyzed the database, searching for the common denominators of traits that make a great CEO.

As the book’s title reveals, they found four: decisiveness, engaging for impact, relentless reliability, and adapting boldly.

Here, I discuss decisiveness.

A FRUSTRATING EXPERIENCE

Have you ever planned an evening out with family or friends, only to have it halted because no one could decide what to do or where to go? I’ve often thought that to be one of the most frustrating social experiences. It reminds me of the The Jungle Book Disney movie during which the vultures are sitting in a tree asking each other in their British accents, “What we gonna do?” “I don’t know. Whatcha wanna do?” It turns out decision-making is an important skill set.

Of the executives who rated poorly on the decisiveness scale, 94% decided too slowly. The study shows that CEOs who had the highest IQs usually struggled because they often got bogged down in analyzing their options. As a result, they were often slow to make a decision.

I wonder how many decisions I’ve made as the owner of our practice. When my husband and I first opened our clinic, we made many. We laugh when we remember we couldn’t decide on a telephone for our house. The sales clerk asked how long we had been married. Upon discovering it had been a little over a year, he wisely nodded and thought that must be our issue — we were newlyweds. In truth, however, our decision-making skills were depleted for that day. We did buy a used copier that was a piece of junk. That became our reference point for years: “Well, if our worst decision was that lousy copier, then we can’t be doing too bad.”

BIGGER DECISIONS AHEAD

Since then, the decisions have become bigger, more expensive, and more emotional. Should we buy a second location? Should we build a new office building? Should we install digital refracting lanes? Should we add that piece of technology to the office? Some decisions have involved people. Why didn’t we fire that person earlier? How should we recognize staff who have been with us for 20 years? Should we add a partner?

The bottom line: Practice your decision-making skills. Make decisions faster. Make fewer decisions. Then, pay attention to those decisions you’ve made and how you can get better at making more. According to the data, being faster at making decisions will hone your CEO skills. OM

DR. CARLSON was the first woman to serve as president of the American Optometric Association. Most recently, she was a 2019 recipient of Women of Optometry’s Theia Award for Leadership. In addition to her optometric leadership, Dr. Carlson is a 2020 graduate from the University of Jamestown, with a Master of Arts in Leadership, as well as a John Maxwell-certified speaker and trainer.