It is generally recognised that decision-making is the essence of management. Managers spend most of their time making (or avoiding) decisions. It is leadership behaviour that ultimately will determine whether a person is a good leader or not.

The responsibility to take decisions is usually indicative of the level of authority that one has, so it should be seen as welcome. However, there are managers who just freeze when faced with a decision. They will happily tell everyone what they should do or should not do; but when it comes to taking the decision themselves, they are incapable of acting.

The reason is fairly easy to understand. Any decision, by definition, is future oriented. One only knows whether a decision is right or not after the event – it is like a bet on the future. And some managers prefer to manage the past rather than the future. They forget that their main task is actually to manage the future.

Add to that the fact that very often we are remembered for the bad decisions that we make rather than the right ones, and one starts to understand why some become afraid of taking a decision.

One route managers take prior to making a decision is the pursuit of perfect knowledge as a way to eliminate any uncertainty surrounding that decision. However, one wonders if such an approach is actually a symptom of fear over making the decision – what some business consultants describe as “decidophobia”. The more one analyses, the more paralysis sets in.

Learning decision-making starts with learning how to manage uncertainty, as one is very rarely able to eliminate uncertainty from the decision-making process

The reality is that all organisations have an interest in ensuring that their managers make optimal decisions. However, it is recognised that effective decision-making is not a natural capacity. One very often falls into traps that obfuscate one’s thinking, which in turn then bias decisions.

There was a time when the US Marines were trained to adopt what was called the 70 per cent approach. Essentially this approach said that if an officer in the Marines has 70 per cent information, has done 70 per cent of the analysis and feels 70 per cent confident, then it is time to take the decision. The logic is simple: a less than ideal decision is better than no decision at all.

There are two elements that I believe are crucial in learning the craft (because it is not a science, whichever way one looks at it) of decision-making. The first is the way we frame a decision. Our likes and dislikes tend to give a lot of prejudice. Once one is prejudiced – one way or the other – it is very difficult to frame a decision correctly.

There is a scene in one of the Yes, Prime Minister shows that illustrates this very well. The Prime Minister could not decide whether to invest funds or not in a nuclear deterrent. His permanent secretary asked him what decision he would like to take, such that he could frame his question in a manner that would enable the Prime Minster to take the decision.

The second element is the level of emotion that one should allow when taking a decision. “Beware of emotional decisions” is one of the statements very often made when discussing effective decision-making. The reality is that we are all influenced by our emotions, even the most objective of persons.

There is a saying of Blaise Pascal, which is very indicative. Pascal said: “The heart has its reasons for which the mind has no reason.” So irrespective of how much information we have and how objective we seek to be, an element of emotion will always influence our decision-making process.

When managing a business, one can easily embark on a search for certainty. However, this search is very often, if not always, fruitless. One believes that such certainty would make decision-making easier. Such an attitude assumes that the future is necessarily a reflection of the past. Experience teaches us that it is not the case. Learning decision-making starts with learning how to manage uncertainty, as one is very rarely able to eliminate uncertainty from the decision-making process.