Stripped down to its essentials, business is about one thing: making decisions. We’re always deciding something – from the small and the daily (which emails to answer, what meetings to have) to the macro and the strategic (what product to launch and when) to the intensely personal (what job to take, whom to hire, whom to marry). But what does it take to make a “good” decision? Is it about going by facts and percentages – or about following your gut instinct? Does time produce better decisions, or does pressure make you decide not only faster but also more wisely? And finally, is better decision making something that you can learn? We asked 11 decisive leaders, inside and outside of business, to answer these and other, related questions. Does their advice help? You decide.
Ed Koch
Partner
Robinson Silverman Pearce Aronsohn & Berman LLP
New York, New York
To make good decisions, you need confidence in your judgment. We all make bad decisions, but the important thing is not to worry too much about them. Otherwise, you’ll never do a thing. I was mayor of New York City for 12 years. I had a $28 billion budget. Each decision I made affected seven and a half million people. The stakes were high. I had to show confidence – in particular, confidence in my decision-making ability – because a lot of people had put their trust in me. The worst decision I ever made was to run for governor of New York State in 1982. I did it on a lark, and it was stupid. Thank god the people of New York had enough sense to understand that I didn’t have my heart in that race – and to vote against me. They did the right thing, and I was happier because of it.
As a judge, I have to decide on the credibility of two people standing before me. I don’t know who is telling the truth, but I know that one of them is lying. That’s when making decisions gets sticky. Sure, the law helps me make such decisions. But there have been many times when I’ve had a hell of a time deciding. Even so, I never base my courtroom decisions on gut instinct. I go by the evidence – or the lack of evidence – and by the applicable law.
