How many decisions do you make every day?
Probably too many to count.
With so many decisions in a day, it’s easy to make a mistake, but difficult to make up for it. Like a row of dominoes, one decision affects another and can ultimately topple your business goals.
Every choice ultimately affects your bottom line and your patient outcomes—one isolated decision can lower your margins.
Keep your business booming by avoiding these five decision-making mistakes.
1. Overestimating or underestimating information
Following expert information and opinion can be wise, but only with the proverbial grain of salt.
Industry experts typically provide important information, but they can’t tailor advice to your specific situation (yes, even this article!) One size rarely fits all, which means you should always evaluate how an idea fits your business and your goals before implementing it.
On the flipside, underestimating the value of information from non-experts can be a missed opportunity.
Sometimes people discount information from non-experts, women, the elderly, and other fringe groups. In other words, many of the people who make up your customer base. But their perceptions determine the success of your business.
They can enlarge your perspective and help you see things from a different point of view.
Use a balance of information from subject matter expertise, your unique knowledge and other points of view when making decisions for your specific situation.
2. Rushing to conclusions
When you’re busy (all the time, right?) it’s natural to streamline decisions as much as possible.
Well, it should be only as much as profitable.
Sometimes rushing to a decision with limited information has the same effect as rushing down a steep stairwell—it will leave your business bruised and bleeding.
Make sure you have all the information at hand before making a decision.
For example, if a patient walks out of your pharmacy angry at one of your employees, it’s easy to assume the employee made a mistake and decide to reprimand him or her. That type of decision-making will lead to employee dissatisfaction and high employee turnover, which will cost you.
Instead, slow down and talk through the situation with the employee to find the heart of the problem. Always evaluate what the situation requires before you rush to a decision.
3. Clutching onto sunk costs
Some decisions don’t work out the way you planned.
But holding on to them will only make things worse.
If you can recover your losses, great. But some losses are called sunk costs for a reason. You can’t salvage them no matter what you do.
And trying to will cost you even more.
4. Spending too much time on trivial decisions
A study from University of Florida and Wharton School found that people associate the difficulty of a decision with its importance.
So, they tend to spend a long time on a difficult decision even if it has little consequence. When they look up, they’ve lost precious time and made little progress.
Has that ever happened to you?
To avoid wasting time, always evaluate how much a decision will affect your goals and allocate your time to the decision accordingly.
Or, place a time limit on your decision and stick to it.
Don’t let difficulty determine importance.
5. Dodging the decision
Worse than spending too much time on a decision is avoiding the decision completely.
People’s protective mechanisms shun anything that causes stress and anxiety.
Like big, important decisions.
Which makes it easy to ignore them. Until they blow up.
For example, if your employees aren’t getting along and it’s clear they can’t resolve the issues themselves, letting the problem go will most likely end in someone quitting.
Or, the negativity will carry over into their interactions with patients.
Mark Twain famously said that if you eat a frog first thing in the morning, the hardest part of your day will be behind you.
The moral: Tackle the most important and difficult decisions right away and you won’t regret it.
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