In driver’s education, so long in a Washington DC suburb in Virginia, we were taught the IPDE Method to make good decisions quickly under conditions of calm, stress, and emergency. The instructor noted that several alumni over the years had indicated at homecoming events and the like that the IPDE method had served them well at work, with family, and on the road.
IPDE stands for
I Identify;
P Predict;
D Decide; and then
E Execute.
Note that the process starts with fact gathering and ends with an action. Without action, you can end up in a pile up of “I’ll Get Around To It” projects. If you need to get around to it, get a tennis ball and write “To It”” on the ball and you have a pretty good reminder in the form of a paper weight.
Of course, getting to a good and timely outcome under the circumstances, using the available facts at hand, takes some practice, and can help in not becoming motivated into inaction for whatever reason that unfortunate state can happen. On the road, action is needed quickly, and in life and business, you do not have the luxury of unlimited time to take appropriate action.
Good decisions are usually based on facts, a bit of intuition, experience, and a bit of luck. You can certainly tip the scales to your advantage by adopting certain processes to get you close or closer to the center of the dartboard.
Not all decisions have good outcomes, but can be better outcomes. For example, while driving it is better to hit a car than a pedestrian, and so on and so forth.
Of course, not all contingencies can be taken into account, and not all facts are of high reliability, and not all facts are available. So long as you can say that under the circumstances and facts available at a given point in time that a good decision was made, that may reduce strains and stress of not making a perfect decision, but making a reasonable decision.
October 22, 2017
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