How far can you go?

Its been a month since my last post. This is not because I have not much to say, quite the contrary. Rather, I have had a lot on my mind and have been busy with a range of things lately and I have been concerned that if I posted during the previous month, it would not be as articulate as I would have wanted.

Anyhow, my good flatmate postulated a pretty interesting questions - How far do you think you can go in business? This was too good a question for me not to comment on. It is not that I have never thought about it before, rather it is a question I have consciously shied away from answering. More on this later.

I suggested that how far you go in business is possibly down to a tug of war between 3 things...

1. Drive to Succeed
2. Will to work
3. Will to inconvenience

This was never meant to be some sort of a complete theory of work or anything of the sort - we did have this conversation while cooking some dinner.

This was always going to be a short post though. I normally ramble a lot, but this was meant to be very short and self reflecting. To be honest, I dont know what "success" looks like to me. I do have the will to work, and I am happy to inconvenience my social life at the expense of work on occasions, but for me, it is really difficult to answer this question.

One of the reasons I have shied away from answering this question, and possibly the reason i am doing so now, is that what if it is more simple that that. What if success boils down to a combination of luck, ability and opinions.

If success boiled down to these three things, I would find it difficult to accept. Difficult because the idea of luck is both mysteriously haunting and a semi rational justification for outcomes. Still, it is worth a thought or two.

Anyhow, I am thinking about this subject and I will come up with a more substantive post at some point.

Decisions Decisions Decisions....

Okay, so i was thinking on the tube on Monday about the idea of decision making. Obviously, as part of our jobs we are required to make decisions - this is part of any job. However, in my job, I have found decision making to be very interesting and challenging.

I would suggest, that 99.9% of the decisions we make don't have huge consequences. For example, it does not really matter whether or not I decide to read my book on the history of Formula 1 or go to bed. Sure, i may be slightly more tired in the morning, but, bottom line, its not going to hugely influence my life. Lets not get too metaphysical and start suggesting that all actions have effects (which they do), but lets assume that their consequences are negligible.

And there we have it... we have assumed. I have heard, and HATE, the saying "when you assume you make an ASS of U and ME (As an aside, why do people always say that in a slightly ridiculous voice!? In fact, its anything but an unassuming voice). Anyway, the point is, that we make decisions, very often based on assumptions, and generally our decisions are assessed against these assumptions.

Where the decisions are based heavily on assumptions, they are deemed risky, and where they are based lightly on assumptions and primarily on fact, they are deemed "informed". So that is decision making...

Well for me, there is more to decision making that just assumptions and facts. Usually I make decisions with a motivation attached to it. While it may seem that more often than not, decisions boil down to a balance of Fact vs Assumption, many of the decisions we make have important business relevance. And this is where the point of this post (hopefully) begins to take shape.

We are all expected to make business decisions and indeed are encouraged to be risk takers. But a vital part of our own success, and probably self esteem, is the motivation we have for making particular decisions. When i want to make a decision, I want to know that it not just the right one, but that I am also making it for the right reasons.

My point is this - it is often very difficult to know that we are making the right decision, and I find it even harder to know why. Due to the massively complex corporate culture, business environment and sheer number of people we work with, making decisions is often the easy bit, but understanding why is often anything but transparent. When you take into account business culture, value, sales, politcs, money, personal interestand so on, decision making becomes very obscured.

One quote springs to mind: "Indecision costs more than a Bad Decision". A great quote no doubt, but sometimes I think that making the decision not to decide until I better understand my own motivations , is as important as being able to decide in the first place.

Then again, you may disagree - maybe motivations mean nothing and all I have done is made an ass of me.

Kindest,

DD


PS really good artice on JV here. Check it out. It is interesting. Also, it is relevant to my post - it outlines the importance of decision making. Check it.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/5062609/Barclays-master-of-its-destiny-as-John-Varleys-gamble-pays-off.html