Entrepreneurship involves a lot of decision-making. In fact, this is the one task you’ll be doing through and through, at every stage of your business life. Simply look at the preparation phase: you decide which idea or opportunity to pursue, what to call your organization, and who to get on board. At launch, you determine how to manage the low sales, pull in more customers, and empower employees. Then at the growth phase, you get a firm resolve on which voices to seek for tough decisions, how to innovate further your business, and why exactly you’re doing what you’re doing. There’s a lot of decisions to make. But also, there’s a lot of decision-making personalities that vary from one entrepreneur to another. You want to be familiar with yours, so you will know how to improve it further. Here are the different types of decision-makers:
The Instinctive Type
These are the entrepreneurs who follow their gut feel. If they feel like it’s time to expand, they will do it. If they feel like it’s best to postpone introducing a new product in the market, they will delay. It may sound like a rash strategy for a serious endeavor, but there are people whose intuitions turn out right (Case in point: seasoned entrepreneurs). Psychologists say that hunches and inclinations aren’t purely based on emotions. It’s influenced by what you experienced in the past and how you learned from them. This also means that the more experience you gain from the subject matter you’re deciding on, the more that your intuition provides more accuracy on your decision. If you’re the instinctive type of decision maker, it’s not just about trusting your gut feel, but sharpening it with experience.
The Consulting Type
Unlike the instinctive type, the consulting ones rarely or never act alone. When they’re facing a tough decision, they usually consult people before they take action. For instance, they’re mulling over pursuing food franchise opportunities, they would usually talk to business coaches, financial experts, family or friends. This doesn’t mean they can’t decide on their own, though. They just believe that alternative ways of seeing things can help them better understand the situation and therefore, make for an insightful decision. If you’re the consulting type, the most important thing you need to do is to know who exactly to turn to for advice. You can’t just ask for an opinion from anybody. It has to be from someone who understands well the consequences of your decisions. At the same time, they have to have your best interests in mind that they wouldn’t hesitate to call you out for a bad decision.
The Investigative Type
This is somewhat close to the consulting type, in that they take their time before jumping into a decision. As the label implies, the investigative decision maker prefers to get as much information as they can about the thing they’re planning to do. Let’s take the example above: When they’re considering a franchise, they’re more likely to ask for the franchisor’s market research, case studies, and financial performance. If you’re this type of decision maker, the way to improve your style is to explore different sources of information. For instance, aside from the franchisor’s documents, get customer feedback. This way, you can see the opportunity in different angles. Just a word of caution: don’t overanalyze. Give yourself a deadline for the “investigation.”
Decisions are a part of the everyday reality of business. Perhaps it’s time to reflect on how you come up with your resolutions. Ask yourself, what kind of decision-maker am I?
