Intel CEO Grove once said: "We are not particularly smart, we just make more correct decisions than our opponents in fierce competition."
Nobel Prize winner Herbert Simon once defined management as follows: Management is decision-making. Decision-making is so important to management. At present, the capabilities of middle and senior managers in many enterprises in our country are far from strong enough in this area.
If a company is compared to a person, senior managers are the brains. They must think about the direction and strategy of the company, determine the company's major policies, development directions and plans, master policies, formulate company rules and regulations, and Carry out important personnel organization and its innovation, etc.
The decisions made by the top management of the enterprise must be strategic. From a time and space perspective, senior leaders not only have to make decisions on current major events, but also on the long-term development of the company and even the industry. In terms of scope, leaders' decisions may involve the development and stability of the country on a large scale, or may involve major and extensive issues of a region, department, or unit on a smaller scale. From the perspective of influence, successful decision-making is the greatest success, and wrong decision-making is the greatest mistake. A "reform and opening up" invigorated the Chinese economy, while a "Great Leap Forward" suffered for generations. In enterprises, fully estimating the market, making correct decisions, and seizing the right opportunity can allow an enterprise to quickly occupy a market position, such as "Super Girl" which became very popular in China last year.
Sometimes, a manager's ability to handle things is often surprising. Take your time and be calm - the more complicated things are, the more time you need. Although this ability is related to experience, the most important thing is that their thinking skills are different from ordinary people. Management guru Peter Drucker once said a famous saying: "Doing the right thing is better than doing it right." How to do the right thing? You must first have the right thinking skills. After decision-making develops from traditional empirical decision-making to modern scientific decision-making, the leader's rational thinking ability has an important impact on the quality of decision-making. Therefore, how to cultivate one's own thinking ability is the most important thing for every manager, but it is also the most abstract and difficult to cultivate.
Modern decision-making technology is to use a series of scientific theories, methods and means to conduct qualitative and quantitative analysis of decision-making objects. This is what we usually call the three aspects of thinking skill performance, namely: formulating plans, Make decisions and solve problems.
As a manager, you should understand an ironclad common sense: management decision-making activities are by no means an accidental and isolated activity carried out to solve a certain problem. Management decision-making is not limited to the simple action of selecting an optimal solution from several alternative options. We should not mistakenly believe that only selecting the best solution is a management decision. Management decision-making is a complex process and runs through every stage and every link of management decision-making activities, even in minute details.
The first step in management is to make a plan. The ancients said: "Everything will be done if it is planned in advance, and if it is not planned, it will be ruined." Only by making arrangements, preparations, and plans in advance can things be done well. With clear goals and specific work and activity procedures, there is a basis for supervision and inspection. This can enhance consciousness and reduce blindness, so that manpower, material resources, financial resources, and time can be reasonably arranged to make the work more efficient. , activities are carried out in an orderly manner. Otherwise, things will not be done well. Therefore, formulating a practical plan is an essential procedure and measure to establish a normal working order and improve work efficiency, thereby promoting the smooth progress of the work. At the same time, the plan is also the basis for superior departments to inspect the work of subordinate departments, and can also be used as a reference text for the work summary of the unit. The first of the thirteen chapters in "The Art of War" is the "Initial Plan", which means that all wars begin with planning.
Dr. Deming’s famous management cycle theory PDCA also starts with a plan. Therefore, the first task as a manager is to develop a clear and effective work plan. Once I was talking to one of my trainees about formulating a plan. This marketing director with relatively good performance told me his method: multiply the total sales completed last year by the corporate development speed set by the general manager to equal this year's goal. , and after saying that, he himself laughed sheepishly. I believe that many managers around us work like this (of course not all).
The purpose of setting goals is to control the development of things, and although this ridiculous method looks good on the surface, only God knows whether it is actually effective. If you didn’t do the right thing from the beginning, what else can you do besides running around every day?
An important prerequisite for decision-making is problem analysis. Failure to investigate the root cause of the problem not only affects the decision-making of the problem. If it cannot be cured, it will cost a lot of time and money. Before we make a decision, we must first understand the nature of the problem. As managers, it is our job to make decisions and lead execution. There is no organization without problems, and there is no manager without the need to make decisions. Discovering problems, analyzing problems, making decisions, and solving problems is a simple and fixed process. However, how to complete every aspect of the process efficiently and correctly is not easy to do. Practice has proven that the ability to scientifically analyze problems and make correct decisions can help managers improve daily management efficiency in all aspects.
There are many variables in the planning and execution process, which requires us to make careful decisions. The consequences of wrong decisions are failure, while correct decisions lay the foundation for success. As the boss of the computer chip industry, Intel CEO Grove once said: "We are not particularly smart, we just make more correct decisions than our opponents in fierce competition." He told us that management What will each decision of the operator bring to the enterprise?
How does a company test the ability of each manager? It depends on how you solve problems, especially more complex problems, which also reflects the value of decision-makers. No company is without problems, whether it is poor quality, insufficient production capacity, inaccurate delivery, insufficient manpower, low morale, financial difficulties, obsolete equipment, backward technology, declining market share... As long as who can solve the problem, Whoever can get the favor and reuse of the enterprise. We should not blame the "reality" or "short-sightedness" of enterprises, because the market is realistic and cruel. After all, enterprises are not schools. They do not have time to wait for us to mature, and they cannot allow us to make mistakes all the time.
Of course, these abilities do not necessarily improve by learning by doing or learning by doing. There are many skills that can be improved through effective training. The question is whether we are aware of it or whether we are aware of it. Still feels good.
Recently, a company asked me to teach a series of training courses on "Problem Analysis and Decision Making". I won’t go into details about the effectiveness of the course, but I am very impressed by the attitude of business owners who hate unqualified managers. We have moved away from the mentality of patting the chest when encountering a problem - "No problem", and patting the head when encountering a problem - "thinking of countermeasures" ”, it’s the era of the “three-shot manager” who “walks away” after his job is messed up.
(Xue Weizhou: Doctor of Business Administration, Senior Management Consultant, China Registered Trainer/Director of Corporate Coaching Office.)